http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2008/jul/29/thegreatchicklitcoverup

And here’s one on the feet thing, from 2005! At this point I’d been noticing this trend for a while, and was glad to see someone else had as well:

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/book_jackets/because_much_more_than_a_books_content_is_prone_to_unoriginality_episode_5_legs_feet_shoes_21044.asp

There’s also the stereotype that female writers can only write female protagonists, while men can write anyone, even if their female leads are portrayed as airheaded-shoe-shopping-obsessed bimbos or men-with-boobs. And if, god forbid, a woman DOES decide to write from a male perspective? She gets relegated to initial-land, because obviously no boy would have ever read Harry Potter or The Outsiders if the names JOANNE and SUSAN were printed across the covers.

In addition to book covers, I’m curious now about how album covers and movie posters etc. compare. How do “Chick Flicks” compare to Action movies and other movies targeted toward a male audience?

But even that is just a tendency, not a law. I got so excited this year when one of the boys in my 8th grade class picked up my favorite book, I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith (chock full of romance and feelings and smoochies), and said when he finished that he wished it could have never ended. Guys certainly have the capacity to enjoy books narrated by girls or featuring girls or even about girly topics, contrary to my own former teacher’s claim that girls are just more able to empathize and thus have an easier time connecting with a protagonist of another gender. Grr.

Anyway, I’m with you that publishers own a large share of the blame for the stereotype of chick lit. But as someone said earlier, they’re not alone–movies, magazines, TV…they’re all pretty much convinced women’s lives are one long yogurt commercial.

Oddly enough, I’d tried reading at the beach, and I couldn’t stand it. Too hot, too bright, too much sand in my underclothes. Reading in the woods on a sunny afternoon, however, is heavenly.

And I know this is late, but YAY for Blood and Chocolate. But if you liked the book, you probably wouldn’t like the movie. You would, however, enjoy The Silver Kiss, which is by the same author as Blood and Chocolate and leaves you with a similar feeling.

~Mary

I would like a picture of LIbba’s splash proof cover, please?

Diana: Yeah, there’s so much to annoy in that article. You’re so right about the equal genericness of the covers of capital L Literachure books. And, frequently, of their contents too. Oh, look, another middle aged uni professor is having a crisis and sleeping with his students. *yawn*

Maggie: You’re a girl you write girl books. They can only be read on beaches. It’s the law.

Stephanie: I’m thinking of banning Libba. Just to protect our computers.

I personally despise gender tailoring covers (be it the whambang masculine thriller covers or the daisies and butt shot girl YA ones) and loved that my publisher did neither for SHIVER. But apparently it wasn’t enough to escape the might web/ vortex of kissy beach read designation.

I love the bit about how it’s “generic” to put a LOOOOOOOONG list of things on a cover. You know what else is generic? The empty chairs in white washed houses, or lamplights on empty streets, or silhouettes of cities on “boy book” covers.

Book covers are generic. Newsflash.

F***tards.

Dividing things up by gender annoys me. I don’t think I’ve ever picked a book because it was supposed to be for a specific gender, or because a specific gender wrote it.

But I am a bit of a hypocrite because seeing a man or boy reading a book that’s marketed as a girl’s or women’s book makes me smile. I feel a secret kinship that dates back to when I used to get lectured for reading boy’s books when I was young. “Wouldn’t you rather read Nancy Drew?” Sigh.

Of course, my roommate keeps joking that he thinks I am a homosexual because of the books he sees on my desks. You know, those YA ones with headless girls on them. Or pink with a big key. Actually, most of those books are Maureen’s. I also have E. Lockhart’s Disreputable History. Clearly these books seem to be marketed towards female readers. This is fine with me, because I don’t care overly much about what a book looks like and I’ve enjoyed reading them. I do get a little annoyed at the constant ribbing I get for having these books around, as a 21 year old straight male.

Last year I read about 60 books. Overwhelmingly they were written by men. Many of them were books I had read before. This year my goal is to match or beat the 60 books number. (So far I’m on 34 as I recall.) I want to branch out a bit more with my reading as well. So far this has meant a lot more female writers (or… most of the works of a few female authors.) Some of these are very recent books and some are quite old. (There are also a few books which I read mostly, but didn’t read completely for class. They aren’t counted in the list.)

I’ve been looking around for numbers on the breakdown of say how many books have been published by men as opposed to women in the last year or decade or century. Just curious as it will be interesting to see how that breakdown compares with the breakdown of my list at the end of this year. So far it is about half and half I think, but I haven’t tallied it up in the last few weeks. Still, I care more about how good books are, rather than the sex of their authors.

I’m a fiction kind of bookworm, at least currently.

Really, I am depressed now. as an aspiring writer, it saddens me that women writers are lumped together so thoughtlessly. A persons work, regardless of gender should be allowed to stand on its own merits.

Libba: You just made me spray wine all over my computer. Thanks a million. STOP BEING FUNNY!

Now I must go work on my next novel: The Scrote-Sack of Summer.

I very nearly got away with a non-pink, non-very-girly cover for my forthcoming YA novel, but at the last minute it was decided to change it – it’s now ultra-pink and has a handbag on it and a girl with flicky hair, none of which is representative of the content of the book, but all of which is the current language of teen books aimed at girls.

All of this goes so much further back than the publishers / booksellers though. For example, my son currently rides his big sister’s old pink scooter – people say to me “Isn’t it sweet that he doesn’t mind it’s pink.” He’s 2! How does that sort of thing even start occurring to boys?

As a young guy, I read any book that I want to read, Sci-Fi, fantasy, “chik-lit” or whatever. But I can hardly represent my peers as they’re much more interested in video games and paintball than books, and even when they do get out and read they won’t get anywhere near books that have “girly” covers.

So boys don’t read, because the covers scare them away by being too “girly,” and the publishers make more girly covers because they’re not going to get a significant amount of male readers anyway, so why not advertise to girls?

The way boys feel about books is a big problem. A few weeks ago I was reading on the bus. A guy asked me what I was reading so I showed him the cover.
“That’s a chick book! What, did your balls drop off?”
This didn’t bother me much, but this view of books as a girl thing is a significant block to boys reading.
I was reading An Abundance of Katherines by John Green. It happened to have pictures of girls on the cover.

But this double standard is so prevalent. There is a 6000-word article in this week’s New York magazine about New York’s junior senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, and they talk about what shoes she wears. As though her footwear affects her ability to legislate!!

But as John Green points out, this is not just bad for women writers — it’s bad for all of us. When boys are taught subtly or not-so-subtly that they should only like books written by GUYS, and really only fantasy or SF or non-fiction — nothing about friendship or feelings! – how will they get that to that amazing moment passionate readers feel when in the grip of a great novel? A good book is the gateway drug to lifelong reading addiction; the widest possible choice of books is the best chance to ensnare people who might not otherwise get hooked. We put more than half the books published off-limits to boys, and then we lament that boys don’t read? And that men don’t know how to express their feelings and are emotionally remote?

Maybe if we didn’t hang a big NO BOYS OR MEN ALLOWED sign on books written by (of all things) women, a guy might pick up one of these disparate books — and get swept away, even if he’s not at the beach.