Random Thoughts Anew

[apl68]

And I just found out today at the weekly Rotary meeting who it was who dropped all those books off!  He was afraid the donated books might have been ruined by the weather.  I was able to tell him that they had not been.  Glad they weren't left outside under the porch roof over a rainy weekend, though.

[AvidReader]

There was also a "daughter" trend for a while.

AR.

[ergative]

While sorting through a recent book donation, I found copies of The Aviator's Wife, The Winemaker's Wife, and The Shoemaker's Wife.  Seems to be a theme going here.

There was also a "daughter" trend for a while.

AR.

Yes, I group them all under the umbrella of "The <profession>'s< female relative>" in my head. I find it even more irritating a titling trend as '[the] <Noun> of <Noun> and <Noun>' that was real popular a few years back, because of the inherent misogyny that comes with defining A MAIN CHARACTER by her relation to a male character's profession. Lady gets an entire book written about her and yet her identity is still relative to a dude.

(I suppose, in principle, there's nothing to say that the 'profession' in this pattern can't be held by another female character. But I doubt that's what's going on in these books.)

Edit: I'm not, it seems, the only one to make this observation.

[marshwiggle]

While sorting through a recent book donation, I found copies of The Aviator's Wife, The Winemaker's Wife, and The Shoemaker's Wife.  Seems to be a theme going here.

There was also a "daughter" trend for a while.

AR.

Yes, I group them all under the umbrella of "The <profession>'s< female relative>" in my head. I find it even more irritating a titling trend as '[the] <Noun> of <Noun> and <Noun>' that was real popular a few years back, because of the inherent misogyny that comes with defining A MAIN CHARACTER by her relation to a male character's profession. Lady gets an entire book written about her and yet her identity is still relative to a dude.

(I suppose, in principle, there's nothing to say that the 'profession' in this pattern can't be held by another female character. But I doubt that's what's going on in these books.)

Edit: I'm not, it seems, the only one to make this observation.

Just out of curiosity, how many of the authors of these books are women? And how many of the readers are women?

ETA: Not intended to be snarky; I'm just curious that female authors and readers wouldn't generally have this aversion to that kind of title. "The <whatever>'s Husband" titles wouldn't be likely to be written or read by men.

[mamselle]

Eighteenth c. gravestones the same.

On many, 3/4 of the space is given to defining a female's societal place in terms of the men in her life, to the point one wonders if the stone was meant to document them, or her.

I'm currently writing about three of the exceptions.

M.

[marshwiggle]

Eighteenth c. gravestones the same.

On many, 3/4 of the space is given to defining a female's societal place in terms of the men in her life, to the point one wonders if the stone was meant to document them, or her.

I'm currently writing about three of the exceptions.

M.

Sure, and that's what makes me curious about its continued appeal to 21st century women in certain contexts.

[mamselle]

Hunh?

M.

[marshwiggle]

Hunh?

M.

In an earlier era, when women were routinely identified as "Mrs. John Smith", calling a book "The <whatever>'s Wife" would have been normal. However, now that form of address is not at all popular, so it's odd that women would write or read books with titles using that arcane form of identification that they would not wish to be used for themselves.

[apl68]

The new shrimp and rice dish that I tried at our local authentic-but-usually-pretty-mild Mexican restaurant was quite a bit hotter than I expected.  I should paid have more attention to the name Camerones de diabla on the menu.

[ergative]

Hunh?

M.

In an earlier era, when women were routinely identified as "Mrs. John Smith", calling a book "The <whatever>'s Wife" would have been normal. However, now that form of address is not at all popular, so it's odd that women would write or read books with titles using that arcane form of identification that they would not wish to be used for themselves.

Judging from the Goodreads list, it seems like the majority of the writers are women. I don't know that I'd say it's odd for women to read or write books with that kind of title. Sure, it subordinates a female main character to a male character, but it also promises, right there in the title, that there is a female main character. You've got to be represented before you can complain about how you're represented, after all.

In a way, I wonder whether this sort of titling has something in common with books like The Trojan women: It invokes a type of person or story (about Trojans, or a French Lieutenant, a ship-builder, a captain, a time-traveller, whatever), and then says, 'but we're focusing on the women in this story!' There's something very appealing about that sort of promise, and I definitely went through a phase in my 20s when I always picked up those titles to look at more closely. The marketing decisions worked on me. Still do, actually--the reason I get irritated at these titles is because I notice them more consciously than I notice other titling trends. So it's not surprising that they're popular. You need to think about these things in a bit more depth than I think most people do before you start getting annoyed at how, even in making the promise of a female-centric story, the titles still perpetuate the subordination of women's roles.

(And then you complain about it on a forum for people with PhDs.)

[mahagonny]

New word needed for the english language: wocust(s)

[marshwiggle]

Hunh?

M.

In an earlier era, when women were routinely identified as "Mrs. John Smith", calling a book "The <whatever>'s Wife" would have been normal. However, now that form of address is not at all popular, so it's odd that women would write or read books with titles using that arcane form of identification that they would not wish to be used for themselves.

Judging from the Goodreads list, it seems like the majority of the writers are women. I don't know that I'd say it's odd for women to read or write books with that kind of title. Sure, it subordinates a female main character to a male character, but it also promises, right there in the title, that there is a female main character. You've got to be represented before you can complain about how you're represented, after all.

In a way, I wonder whether this sort of titling has something in common with books like The Trojan women: It invokes a type of person or story (about Trojans, or a French Lieutenant, a ship-builder, a captain, a time-traveller, whatever), and then says, 'but we're focusing on the women in this story!' There's something very appealing about that sort of promise, and I definitely went through a phase in my 20s when I always picked up those titles to look at more closely. The marketing decisions worked on me. Still do, actually--the reason I get irritated at these titles is because I notice them more consciously than I notice other titling trends. So it's not surprising that they're popular. You need to think about these things in a bit more depth than I think most people do before you start getting annoyed at how, even in making the promise of a female-centric story, the titles still perpetuate the subordination of women's roles.

Interesting idea. Do you see any way around this? (Honest question.) How can a publisher, (other than perhaps by cover art), signal that a book called "The surgeon" (or whatever) is actually referring to a female main character? ( Clearly, there's no reason readers should automatically assume it's a male character either; but if that matters to the readership, what can be done?)

On a related note, has anyone seen any statistics to indicate what proportion of readers don't really care whether the main character is male or female in a story? I'd guess it's pretty genre-specific at any rate. For instance, there are lots of murder mystery series that are popular with main characters of both sexes.  My impression is that their audiences are not strongly correlated with the sex of the main character.

[sinenomine]

Google Calendar keeps pestering me to set my working location. I'm tempted to set it as "Earth."

[ergative]

Hunh?

M.

In an earlier era, when women were routinely identified as "Mrs. John Smith", calling a book "The <whatever>'s Wife" would have been normal. However, now that form of address is not at all popular, so it's odd that women would write or read books with titles using that arcane form of identification that they would not wish to be used for themselves.

Judging from the Goodreads list, it seems like the majority of the writers are women. I don't know that I'd say it's odd for women to read or write books with that kind of title. Sure, it subordinates a female main character to a male character, but it also promises, right there in the title, that there is a female main character. You've got to be represented before you can complain about how you're represented, after all.

In a way, I wonder whether this sort of titling has something in common with books like The Trojan women: It invokes a type of person or story (about Trojans, or a French Lieutenant, a ship-builder, a captain, a time-traveller, whatever), and then says, 'but we're focusing on the women in this story!' There's something very appealing about that sort of promise, and I definitely went through a phase in my 20s when I always picked up those titles to look at more closely. The marketing decisions worked on me. Still do, actually--the reason I get irritated at these titles is because I notice them more consciously than I notice other titling trends. So it's not surprising that they're popular. You need to think about these things in a bit more depth than I think most people do before you start getting annoyed at how, even in making the promise of a female-centric story, the titles still perpetuate the subordination of women's roles.

Interesting idea. Do you see any way around this? (Honest question.) How can a publisher, (other than perhaps by cover art), signal that a book called "The surgeon" (or whatever) is actually referring to a female main character? ( Clearly, there's no reason readers should automatically assume it's a male character either; but if that matters to the readership, what can be done?)

Don't knock cover art! There's some really fascinating discourse about how cover art works, and how effective it is at signaling what's in the book. The most fun discussions, naturally, center around cover art for romance novels (Here's an article about trends in romance novel covers; Here's a podcast about the design and choices that publishers use to signal subgenres of romance; Here's a twitter account dedicated to revelling in the vintage trends, which were substantially spicier than the modern ones).

But beyond cover art, I think publishers also put genre tags on their books so bookstores can shelve them. A 'women's fiction' (gag) genre tag would help signal that 'The surgeon' is going to focus on a woman.

However, there's a conflation in your question that I think gets at why I dislike this trend. 'The surgeon's daughter' is not, herself, a surgeon (necessarily). She's her own person, with her own skills and goals, which should be acknowledged independently of whatever her dad does. And if a book is actually about a female surgeon, and it's called The surgeon's daughter, then that's even worse, because it takes the female character's own abilities and ascribes them to her male relative. It's gross all around.

On a related note, has anyone seen any statistics to indicate what proportion of readers don't really care whether the main character is male or female in a story? I'd guess it's pretty genre-specific at any rate. For instance, there are lots of murder mystery series that are popular with main characters of both sexes.  My impression is that their audiences are not strongly correlated with the sex of the main character.

I've seen stats about author gender in SFF. Female readers tend to read female and male authors about equally, while male readers tend to prefer male authors (and then justify their preferences by saying it's just based on merit and also, 'Some of my favorite authors are women! Like every male reader of SFF, I like Ursula LeGuin and consider her a sufficient female writer token to absolve me of all sexism in my reading habits!' I quit listening to a SFF review podcast after the host pulled that one. It's fine to like male writers better than female writers, but at least be honest about it!)

I'd also be interested in seeing stats about preferences regarding male/female characters. I suspect that, like author gender, female readers will read anything---possibly because there are just more books about male characters, so they can't be as choosy---while male readers prefer to read about dudes.

After a quick google around, here's an article about identifying with characters, which supports my hunch, based on the abstract. And here's an article showing that it starts in elementary school: girls read anything, while boys don't like girly books.

[apl68]

After a quick google around, here's an article about identifying with characters, which supports my hunch, based on the abstract. And here's an article showing that it starts in elementary school: girls read anything, while boys don't like girly books.

I've put a lot of thought over the years into why boys in elementary school read the things that they read (if they read at all).  I wrote a piece about it that was well-received by library colleagues.  I could PM it to anybody who'd like to check it out.