Originally posted by Bardock42
Do you feel that the fact that she was forced to call herself J.K. Rowling, rather than Joanne Rowling (her actual name), might be indicative of sexism in the publishing world is still doing mighty fine?
Could be, the publishers though her initials (Though she has no middle name) would sell better to young boys, who might not want to read stories by a woman. That isn't necessarily sexism in publishing, it's trying to garner a profit by using what they think would work best.
I have to admit though, I didn't actually know JK Rowling was a pen name. So good catch on that. 👆
Originally posted by Omega Vision
Writing is still mostly male dominated, which is a shame because in my experience women tend to be more naturally disposed to writing than men are. This is anecdotal evidence, of course, but very few male writers (and I include myself here) who I've workshopped with are capable of writing a believable or realistic female protagonist, whereas many of the female writers I've workshopped with write convincing male characters as well as females. I suppose though that this may be a reflection of our society, where the male experience is the blueprint of culture, and female "concerns" and "struggles" are sort of subterranean reactions to that experience.
I'd chalk women writing men better than men write women up to, as has been touched, men being far more exposed in other fictional works. All writers draw something from what they've read, and since men are more often focused on in any given work, they've been read, analyzed, and studied quite a bit more often.
I don't really have any opinion on who is more naturally disposed to writing.
JK Rowling is certainly successful, but beyond her in the field of "genre" fiction the names get thin.* (You might also consider that she tends to prefer writing with male POV characters (and I think she even said in one interview that she dislikes writing female characters, with some exceptions like Hermione).)
Why would I consider that she prefers writing male protagonists? I'm not sure that I am grasping your point.
EL James, Stephanie Myer, Anne Rice, the lady who wrote Eat, Pray, Love...but see that most of them are constrained to writing "romance" novels and/or vampire fiction. In Literature it's probably better, you have writers like Jhumpa Lahiri, Lorrie Moore, Ann Beattie, Joyce Carol Oates, Amy Tan, Gayle Jones, Margaret Atwood (well, she's borderline genre/literary), Toni Morrison (the greatest living American novelist, I'd argue), Alice Munro, Nadine Gordimer, etc.
Have you considered that was what they wanted to write, on the genre side? Do you have cause to believe they are "forced" to do so.
And of course, one should note that, for whatever reason, "Literary Fiction" is generally more critically acclaimed and possibly sells better than "Genre Fiction", so more women writing Literature indicates at least some amount of success, though yes, men dominate the field to this day.
Being a woman is either unimportant or possibly a bonus in literary writing and poetry, but I don't know if it's even possible for a woman writer to become a successful spy thriller author, at least not at the moment. Women writers--and this is Joyce Carol Oates's huge complaint--tend to get pushed toward writing "sentimental" stories about "feelings", as if ALL writers worth their weight in ink and paper aren't supposed to be writing about human emotion, yet while male writers never get any grief for writing about violence, it raises alarm bells for Oates. To be fair though, Joyce Carol Oates would be violent by my standards even if she were a male Vietnam veteran who had a dayjob in a slaughterhouse.Anyway, /rant.
I can't even recall any male successful spy thriller authors that are still alive, to be honest.
Yes, I actually read Oates's short essay on the subject a few minutes ago, and I suppose I'd agree that that double-standard exists. Albeit not to the extent that it's stopped her from becoming a successful author.
*It's entirely possible that there are many other successful female genre fiction authors, I just haven't heard of them, which is the usual litmus test for "success" in genre fiction.
There probably are, but I would be lying if I said I could recall any of them. Though to be honest, I'm still a relative rookie in the realm of fiction, so that could be why.
Originally posted by Nephthys
She didn't use to be. And she is way out of Peters league in every respect.She's probably worse than Peter now though. At least he hasn't encouraged Meg to commit suicide like Lois has (to my knowledge).
And Peter didn't used to be a sociopath, but he sure turned out something like one.
I wouldn't say Lois is worse. Peter's actually shot her in the chest without a word, and also re-enacted a somewhat well-known scene from a somewhat well-known holocaust movie involving a sniper rifle.