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Women's fiction is there such a thing?
Today I came upon a video on jezebel asking people how they defined women's fiction. The answers varied.
You can see some of the video here http://dailyobsessional.blogspot.com/2009/06/what-is-womens-fiction...
Many of the people asked, seemed to think women's fiction referred to only romance or escapism. Some said women's fiction referred to any fiction that dealt with women's issues sociologically or psychologically.
As I listened to the answers, it made it seem as if women's fiction was so limited. And that the general perception is male fiction is just fiction, a.k.a. stories about life, but women's fiction is viewed with a far more narrow scope.
I was wondering, what all of you think of, when you think of "women's fiction."?
You can see some of the video here http://dailyobsessional.blogspot.com/2009/06/what-is-womens-fiction...
Many of the people asked, seemed to think women's fiction referred to only romance or escapism. Some said women's fiction referred to any fiction that dealt with women's issues sociologically or psychologically.
As I listened to the answers, it made it seem as if women's fiction was so limited. And that the general perception is male fiction is just fiction, a.k.a. stories about life, but women's fiction is viewed with a far more narrow scope.
I was wondering, what all of you think of, when you think of "women's fiction."?
Tags: books, categories, feminism, fiction, issues, novels, romance, womens, writing
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Sarah on -
It sounds awfully limited to me too.
I grew up in a house where the same books got passed around from mom to dad to my brother and I. It never occurred to me that I should only be reading books about, by, or related to women. I would have missed out on a lot if that had been the case.
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Permalink Reply by Charlee on -
I don't really think there is a genre that I would call "women's fiction" because I certainly don't see most literature as "men's fiction."
That said, I think in terms of literature/publishing, agents etc. tend to think of women's literature as that which is geared specifically (and in my opinion somewhat obnoxiously) toward women, in terms of plot, marketing, etc. - i.e. 'chick lit' and its incarnations.
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Permalink Reply by cooper on -
I never considered fiction as gendered. I believe it is all about the marketing. Books or stories written specifically to be marketed to women is women's fiction, and is not the same thing as works written by women in general.
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Permalink Reply by Erini CS on -
I think I'd probably put it in a group with some sort of socio-cultural emphasis.
If Women's Studies can be a major in the educational realm, I don't see why it can't be a genre in writing.
I don't consider "all other fiction" to be "men's fiction"... it's just fiction. I would, however, agree that there possibly is indeed some Men's fiction out there somewhere, just as there has been a men's movement and whatnot.
A quick wikipedia search agrees with Charlee... that it's writing geared towards women, including click lit and romance, et cetera... Personally, I dislike that people seem to want to only include such writing as "women's lit"... it seems very limiting and also to push the view that women only want to read about romance, even if it's got a heroine saving the day... I'd rather see it tied to the sociological areas instead.
Market towards whatever group you want, but just don't give such a broad readership a narrow view of literature.
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