Does anyone know or what would your best guess be when it comes to the ratio of male/female readers of Sci-Fi/Fantasy? I would think fantasy appeals to more women whereas sci-fi appeals to more guys. I ask because my brother who is out of the nerd loop due to raising teen girls was telling me about an article about N.K. Jemison he read that was hyping her as the biggest name in sci-fi today and he was surprised since he felt she just peddles the usual left wing nonsense in entertainment. I then told him about the sad puppies movement and to avoid modern sci-fi and fantasy like the plague.
I am a huge reader and there are a lot of women who read heavily but like everything certain genres appeal to men more than women and vice versa.
Women like 2 kinds of books, women being subjugated and women subjugating men. That’s it
If you're being told women love it and it's not obviously something they like, it's a push to infiltrate and destroy.
Women's favorite book is 50 Shades of Grey, about a worthless gold digging slut.
I worked in a mostly female call center for a while and that book was all the rage to the point I read the trilogy to see what the fuss was all about
Sure, you read it because they were talking about it...
I'm kidding, but that sounds like such misery. It's just really badly written porn for women, starring a billionaire interested in a defective piece of shit.
Yes. I described it as porn on paper. I read the twilight books due to the same reason. I have heard people say 50 shades shows you what women really want. But I guess it depends on the woman
I didn't read it but I saw the shitty movie.
After being hyped up as BDSM shit, the ACTUAL movie was 99% boring normie shit about a chick thirsting hard for a dude way out of her league, who unrealistically shows interest in her even though IRL he would have 100x better options.
THEN the climax at the end is the dude lightly spanking her, and her having a nervous breakdown over it. LOL wtf? I thought at least he was going to rough her up, but no. It was the most normie boomer shit ever.
The audience for that shit is the dumb cows who watch The View and Wendy Williams and Ellen.
Pat Robertson of the 700 Club called it Boring Mommy Porn. The one time the old creep and I agreed on something.
Women like trendy normie shit, YA books & romance.
Fantasy and sci-fi is overwhelmingly male. LOTR overwhelmingly male. Harry Potter, being both trendy normie + YA = women love it.
Fiction readership as a whole is 60/40 female/male. No idea of the genre breakdown. Publishing is over 80% female.
What's funny about it is I've personally been told by editors and agents that because the reader audience is 60% female all books must be written and marketed to women first, and that the 40% male demographic doesn't matter.
Meanwhile, the fact that the gaming audience is NINTY FIVE PERCENT MALE (and does 99% of the purchasing--female gamers don't spend their own money) is actually an indictment against us, and proof we need MORE WOMEN IN GAMES because we are "gatekeeping" them. As if every nerd wouldn't do triple backflips to shove a controller into any woman's hands.
Yea I never got that. To this day at age 41 I’d love for a woman I’m dating to be into nerdy stuff or gaming.
Even with the 40% male if you break it down by genres you’ll see that some things appeal to way more guys. Like a Tom Clancy thriller for instance
Spaces that belong to the ruling class must be protected, those that don't must be conquered.
I would say fantasy is split. You have certain fantasy book with female leads being liked by women more whereas men like male leads. Personally, I don't mind either but looking at book storms women are predominantly either at manga or fantasy. I have rarely seen women at Sci fi books and if they are it is usually one nerdy girl.
Thankfully none of the genres are entirely infested with the usual crowd if you know what to pick up and what not to.
Yea I don’t mind a female lead as long as it isn’t the usual feminist lectures. Plenty of good female authors I’ve read pre woke era. Especially in murder mystery. I know with sci-fi and fantasy you can find good indie stuff. The main publishers are crazy. Baen books is good
SciFi and Fantasy written by feminists are terrible. They are not internally consistent and they focus on plot contrivances that make no sense. It's more about "the message" than good story telling.
Due to the sad puppies event, my eyes were opened to how wide spread this is.
Yea my eyes were opened too. Also I remember reading how the best selling sci fi books don’t get awards but if you are a female or non white you will get rewarded many times over based on that alone. Which is everything wrong with diversity for diversity sake. They don’t require these authors to have good stories
I always use literature as an example of women taking over when they’re ACTUALLY more interested than men are. Women just read more novels. If they were more interested in gaming, they’d have taken over that business long ago, but instead we get stories of “toxic gamers” driving women out. But the reality is that men just play more games. I believe women have taken over almost all literature except sci-fi, which is why this genre is still considered “toxic”.
That’s what I have realized as well. I’m a heavy reader thanks to my mother insisting we read a lot when I was a kid but I would agree that the majority of heavy readers are women. Also as a Star Wars EU fan I remember quite a few women in those late 90s early 00s fan forums. Sci-Fi is generally male and stuff like Tom Clancy novels.
Many of the writers who I’d say appeal more to men, like Tom Clancy, have now passed away sadly, Wilbur Smith being a recent one. One of my favorites was James Clavell who I definitely think would be considered “problematic” today.
What has he written? I’ll check him out
Shogun is Clavell’s most famous novel, but I think my favorites are Tai-Pan and Noble House.
Shogun, is that what the mini series was based on?
Yes. But I’m not sure how closely it follows the book. I have never seen the series myself.
Women tend towards wish-fulfillment fantasy and fatasy-scifi, where technology is magic to help them get married or take over a world to prove how correct they are.
Men tend towards adventure in both genres. A well-written plot doesn't even need action sequences, but it helps.
Yea that’s what puzzled my brother about why sci-fi publishers seem to think there is a huge market of female readers. I enjoy crime drama and murder mystery and I’d say it’s probably 60/40 female