More Women than Men Reading SFF (in the US, at least)

[Spade]

I wouldn't doubt that more women are reading Fantasy, but I would wager good money that more men are reading SF!

 

[dwndrgn]

Well, I don't know about anyone else but my thoughts are that the romance field has now branched in to paranormal chicklit and it has a huge following - which is where the crossover comes in. My assumption is that a woman who has tried out one of those newer love story vampire/werewolf novels that are now so popular has gone out and looked for similar kinds of things and discovered that there is a whole mess of books available with similar themes that they were previously unaware of. I've always read both anyway so there really wasn't a crossover for me but I could definitely see why this could happen.

 

[Pyan]

"PARANORMAL CHICKLIT"​

What a wonderful label for a shelf in Borders...

 

[murphy]

"PARANORMAL CHICKLIT"​

What a wonderful label for a shelf in Borders...

And all the covers would show men with their shirts off with wonderful abs.

 

[edott]

Hmm...I wonder what the respective M/F ratios would be if you separated the two sub-genres? I've always had the impression that SF has more male than female readers, and Fantasy has vice-versa.

that has been my expereince as well. not to say i do not enjoy fantasy and i know quite a few women who enjoy SF.

 

[Shingetsu]

I don't know, seems a bit sexist just to say "Females read this, males read this." I don't think you can classify most books one way or the other. Must all SFF books that contain some romance mean only women read them and there should be more for that reason? It's all personal preference. I liked the Elizabeth Haydon books, I don't see why they have to be male or female oriented just because the main character is female and there's romance. I don't have a problem with romance in the books as long as the story is good. I wouldn't read romance by itself though, but it's fine when you throw some elves, wizards, and demons in the mix with an interesting story.

Most of the books I have are written by men, but I do have some female authors like J. V. Jones, Anne Bishop, Elizabeth Haydon, Margaret Weis, Lois McMaster Bujold, and Robin Hobb. Romance in SFF or blood and guts, some like one, some like the other, and some both. Why try and classify is so much?

 

[Connavar]

I don't know, seems a bit sexist just to say "Females read this, males read this." I don't think you can classify most books one way or the other. Must all SFF books that contain some romance mean only women read them and there should be more for that reason? It's all personal preference. I liked the Elizabeth Haydon books, I don't see why they have to be male or female oriented just because the main character is female and there's romance. I don't have a problem with romance in the books as long as the story is good. I wouldn't read romance by itself though, but it's fine when you throw some elves, wizards, and demons in the mix with an interesting story.

Most of the books I have are written by men, but I do have some female authors like J. V. Jones, Anne Bishop, Elizabeth Haydon, Margaret Weis, Lois McMaster Bujold, and Robin Hobb. Romance in SFF or blood and guts, some like one, some like the other, and some both. Why try and classify is so much?

Its just generalizations. I think most of us like romance in SFF when its done well. Maybe not in some hardcore Hard SF book.

Seeing as you are Dresden Files fan, i can say i enjoy reading how well done the romance in that series are. If its well done i dont care how much romance there is in a story.

 

[Pyan]

I don't know, seems a bit sexist just to say "Females read this, males read this." I don't think you can classify most books one way or the other.

I wasn't trying to classify them - I was just saying that was the general impression I had.

Most of the books I have are written by men, but I do have some female authors like J. V. Jones, Anne Bishop, Elizabeth Haydon, Margaret Weis, Lois McMaster Bujold, and Robin Hobb. Romance in SFF or blood and guts, some like one, some like the other, and some both. Why try and classify is so much?

And I don't think that the sex of the author has really that much to do with it, either.
Just about my all-time favourite author is female - Carolyn Janice Cherry, better known as C.J. Cherryh. And theres nothing I've ever read by her that you could highlight and say "This was definitely written by a female author."

 

[Shingetsu]

No, I don't think the sex of the author matters either. I don't think I can really tell at all for the most part. Just saying it doesn't matter who the book was written by, just what you like and don't like.

And it does seem like women take books with them more than men. It helps that they have a purse to store such things. Certainly can't put your book in your wallet, pockets usually too small (unless it's winter and you have big pockets on your coat), and to have to carry it would get annoying. I would take a book with me everywhere if I could.

 

[D_Davis]

I don't think anyone here is passing judgments or being sexist, just commenting on stats. Historically, the vast majority of all fiction has been read by women, and since this is true then there must be certain genres that are read by more women then men.