Favourite authors = female authors

[scripsi]

I just realized that now that Neil Gaiman can no longer be in the running, all my favourite authors are women. It’s not that I don't like some books written by men, and I certainly haven't been conscious of how female oriented my favourite list is, until very recently. In no particular order, here are the authors I return to again and again, and whose books have had a great impact on me.

Jane Austen
Charlotte Brontë
Dorothy L. Sayers
Selma Lagerlöf
Anna-Karin Palm
Diana Wynne Jones
Barbara Vine
Lois McMaster Bujold
Ursula K. LeGuin
Frances Hardinge
Elizabeth Kostova

As you can see, these authors span over 200 years, and that made me think that even though female authors always have been fewer than men, they seem to survive much better. And I’m tentatively coming to the conclusion that one of the reasons they do, is because they write both women and men as full human beings. Lizzie Bennet, Jane Eyre and Hariet Vane are certainly women of their time, living within the boundaries their society gives them. But they also maintain that they are full human beings, worthy of respect and consideration. Men so often describe women in misogynic terms, but women rarely return the favor. So my idea is that female authors survive through time because the human beings in them are all human, women are never described as the lesser sex, Which makes them more readable for the modern reader. What do you think?

Comments

[florianschild]

Very interesting. Most of my favorite authors are women as well, and at this point I tend to favor women authors when deciding what to read because they have a much higher likelihood of being enjoyable for me.

If it's fair to make a generalization, with the caveat that of course this doesn't apply across the board, I think maybe women are better at writing characters, as you said. Men seem to favor writing settings and action. Imo, both are equally good at writing plot. If a reader has a preference for characters over settings and action, I think they'll gravitate toward books written by women, and vice versa.

[scripsi]

Of course it's only a generalizations. And tehre are certainly books by male authors I love, and who has great characters regardless of sex. :)