Recent comments in /f/books

Nstarlite1 t1_j4r6blz wrote

Reply to Why don’t I, as a woman, like books with female protagonists? by out_cyder

I don't know if this resonates with you, but when I was a teen, I often related or liked the male characters in shows and theater. Can't remember if I felt that way about books, but I'd imagine so.

When I mentioned this to a friend, she said it might be because male roles are written better. They tend to be the heroes, have more range, are given more back story, etc. The female roles were secondary.

A lot has changed since then, and there are lots of stories with female leads now. That said I don't know anything about the horror genre.

Also in writing this I realized my all time favorite books are all male focused, ie. A Little Life, 1984, Watership down, Enders Game. I do like Celeste ng and Emily St. John Mandel, who write good female characters.

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mistookan t1_j4r34k3 wrote

Reply to Why don’t I, as a woman, like books with female protagonists? by out_cyder

I'm not into horror/thriller, though I will read it on occasion because I do like to try and branch out, but I mainly stick with fiction/fantasy. When I read fantasy, it tends to be YA.

I'm like your friends, where I prefer female protagonists/writers, ESPECIALLY when I listen to it. I just do not enjoy male narrators. However, my husband and I recently took a trip to New Orleans and we started listening to Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice. He loves this series, buy I've never read it (it's Horror, not my thing). Although I did enjoy it, I could only handle about 2-3 hours of it on our 13 hour drive, but I digress...

My problem with female protagonists in fiction is they're almost always the same...a young girl who doesn't see her potential and is "weak" and "fragile" until she has to save the world. I find this trope to be annoying. The opposite of this doesn't annoy me AS MUCH, but still annoying (girl who thinks she is a badass and doesn't need a man until she finds one she falls in love with and then suddenly finds she has a heart). It's hard to find a good middle ground between the two. I wonder if these tropes are what annoy you about female writers/protagonists, or at least adds to your annoyance?

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bofh000 t1_j4r1ze8 wrote

Reply to Why don’t I, as a woman, like books with female protagonists? by out_cyder

Maybe you need to read different books. Inasmuch as you NEED to do anything… if you don’t like them it’s ok, we all have our preferences. Without knowing which are those 2 favorite books or whether you prefer a particular genre, I don’t think anyone can really get to a conclusion on your preference for male protagonists.

Just analyze your reading habits and the books you didn’t like - are they the type authors churn out by the dozen a year? Are the heroines one dimensional stereotypes? Do the authors appear to have no idea what a woman feels or think like? Are they sexualized gratuitously?

There are quite a few very well written stories with and about women. I really liked Elena Ferrante’s Brilliant Friend series, Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter, Madeline Miller’s Circe. I just learned she’s written another one about Galatea, so I have that on my list. Another one on my list is Cecily by Annie Garthwaite.

If you are in for a little heartbreak (not the romance type) any one of Toni Morrison’s novels has great women protagonists very well written.

Or if you prefer funnier reading: any one of Terry Pratchett’s Witches series. Start with Equal Rites if you want to be consistent, it’s the first where Granny Weatherwax appears. Witches Abroad is hilarious with the 3 of them.

Or it might just be you. By this time we all know each and every one of us have unique experiences and we don’t have to identify with a character just because we are the same gender or from the same part of the world or whatever is supposed to make us uniform. I remember Maia Rudolph once saying that, since she lost her mom very young and grew up with her dad and a handful of brothers, as a teenager she always felt like she didn’t know how to be a woman and use all the nice smelling creams and make up and whatnot. Turns out all she had to do was be.

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Choice_Mistake759 t1_j4r0wa1 wrote

Reply to comment by Dunkin_Ideho in Why don’t I, as a woman, like books with female protagonists? by out_cyder

She does not have to justify it, or even mention it. But she wants validation or perspective and in that case yeah, it is interesting to talk about.

I am all "read whatever you like" and that is fine. But there are things more important than books, and this preference is worth examining, not necessarily because OP reads more widely (it is perfectly fine to read just type X of books) but because it might be worth examining if it reflects a bias she has also in real life or not, or even applied to herself (which is the worst kind of bias, when used to punish oneself)

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IncipientPenguin t1_j4r0bpr wrote

Reply to comment by ahkna in Why don’t I, as a woman, like books with female protagonists? by out_cyder

It could be this. But...

I'm a man who fits into few of the male boxes. I very often relate to female characters far more than I do male characters. Beth March, Lizzy Bennet, Meg Murry, and Tehanu; these are my people. They show me I'm not alone in feeling the way I feel, even though I can't relate directly to all of their experience (e.g., Tehanu's struggle against patriarchal oppression, which affects me in an entirely different way than it does her). When I do relate to a male character, it's often because they too don't fit into the box either: Richard Mayhew, Charlie Gordon Flowers, or Frankenstein's monster (took me wayyyy too long to come up with a third example here, which is only technically male, and is written by a woman, mind you). The way female authors think and write also resonates with me (by and large) much more naturally than do male perspectives.

So yeah. Maybe OP just has a lot of internalized misogyny. Or maybe, like me, she's a little gender queer and just hasn't figured it out yet.

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Choice_Mistake759 t1_j4qzbsy wrote

Reply to comment by hour_of_the_rat in Why don’t I, as a woman, like books with female protagonists? by out_cyder

>I've never found that identifying or not identifying with a character because of their gender was why I did or did not enjoy a book.

Good for you, good pics. But a few times, yeah, I have been totally pulled off enjoying a book by characters behaving in ways that made no sense to me considering their gender and social circunstances which out some stresses, constraints which did not fit actions...

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TisButAScratch18 t1_j4qwqoh wrote

Reply to comment by PunkandCannonballer in Why don’t I, as a woman, like books with female protagonists? by out_cyder

Hey me too! I always find strong female characters written as these brusque (idk if that's spelled right), stoic, cold or plain rude and bully-like people and it puts me off so much. Like you just know that if there is a woman soldier in the book/movie or a woman warrior/biker/worker - anything even remotely "tough" she will be that character. As a woman, every time I read that I'm like yikes. I belong on that "tough" scale by profession but jeez I am not a shit human being for it.

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Choice_Mistake759 t1_j4qvv7o wrote

Reply to comment by out_cyder in Why don’t I, as a woman, like books with female protagonists? by out_cyder

>I just tend to relate to fictional men more than I relate to fictional women.

Well, there is always Murderbot, and Ancillary Justice. And a few others like Iain Banks 's minds (and a few surprise ones).

>This doesn’t mean I think I am “not like other girls”. I just tend to relate to fictional men more than I relate to fictional women.

That is worth examining, like I said before. Why? And you do not have to tell us the whys, or even know it right now, I am just trying to validate you are very right to question it and think about the whys. And questions, not for you to answer, but just to think about:

Does it make a difference in which way? They are more mysterious? Do they do more interesting things? Do you give them a free pass if they act in selfish ways? And maybe more importantly, are you giving also men in real life more of an excuse, find them more interesting, are "boys going to be boys" or "how great that father is at babysitting his children" and stuff like that? Just think about it.

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pearofmyeye t1_j4qshgg wrote

Reply to comment by yallscrazy in Why don’t I, as a woman, like books with female protagonists? by out_cyder

You joke, but it’s possible. Maybe not an internalized misandrist, but you could have some bias against men or male characters for some reason. Are you yourself more feminine? Or maybe you don’t relate to male characters because you don’t relate to the men around you in real life either? Or you don’t find the type of man you are/men you like represented in books? Or… do you just prefer female characters for no particular reason?

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_MrsBrightside_ t1_j4qq6f8 wrote

Reply to Why don’t I, as a woman, like books with female protagonists? by out_cyder

Could be they are just badly written characters, you become insecure while reading the women characters or you don’t like how fake a lot of the world is so you hate it in books and the men characters you read tend to be more “idgaf”.

I saw you like horror and gore so reading about the ugliness in humanity sounds like the reason you prefer men characters. The majority of women characters that I have found are heroes or victims and if they’re villains they’re usually just petty or not too evil. Note: I don’t read a lot of books on women villains so this is strictly my opinion.

But I’m sure there are plenty of books with lead women that are in your genre. I would recommend some but don’t read horror much besides gothic type (think Mexican Gothic, which is written by a woman with lead woman) and that probably doesn’t have enough gore for you.

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out_cyder OP t1_j4qlphh wrote

Reply to comment by [deleted] in Why don’t I, as a woman, like books with female protagonists? by out_cyder

You might be onto something. I tend to like despicable characters way more than the good guys. Now that you make me think about it, a female character I really enjoyed reading about is Nakota from The Cipher. She is objectively a vile human being but I found her really entertaining and different. I also loved the fact that she was described as objectively ugly, which I don’t see a lot in books (she is not the main character though)

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