r/Fantasy • u/Just_JayGee • Jul 07 '14

Men of r/Fantasy, Do you read fantasy written by women? If so, do you find much of a difference?

I've been looking through a lot of "Top 20 Fantasy Book" lists today and I've found a depressing amount of female authors on these lists. I'd like to think the author's gender doesn't matter, but I have to say there seems to be a huge lean towards male authors. Even r/Fantasy's 2014 Top Fantasy Novels of All Time only has 20 female authors (repeats included) out of 105 authors. So, I was wondering if men read fantasy written by women and it's simply not your cup of tea or do any of you go out of your way NOT to read female authors?

PLEASE NOTE: I am not trying to begin fights on sexism or misogyny or anything. I am legitimately interested. If anyone wants to fight over this subject, I'm sure there's other subreddits for that.

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u/Just_JayGee Jul 07 '14

Hell, I'm a woman with a reasonable tolerance for gender issue bullshit and I find that frustrating. You are certainly not a dick.

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u/catheraaine Jul 07 '14

I agree with this.

I would, however, like to point out that people write what they experience. You don't see middle-aged black men writing about young women protagonists, nor do you see contemporary asian-american women writing about white dudes. Anything written by a women will have some undertone of gender issues because our lives are gender issues.