Women now dominate the book business. Why not other creative industries? | Hacker News Reader

Women now dominate the book business. Why not other creative industries?

npr.org

Why would/does anyone want a specific gender to dominate anything, why instead wouldn’t you want it to be dominated by whoever is the best-fit people/persons in the world at the time? ‘Dominated’, oh dear, aggressive language creeping In again to media description. Shock.

I think this is a basic template for many npr stories. Name a group and discuss the group's progress or setbacks in an industry over the decades. Discuss in relation to racism and sexism.

The story is easy to research and get quotes on while listeners who donate typically enjoy the story. At the very least it also annoys some people as well, which drives more discussion.

This is why I stopped listening to NPR a couple of years ago. They are now as biased and sexist and racist as any on the planet while pretending they are being fair and balanced.

You should ignore the title, the article itself is substantial. These sort of takes are why they use such inflammatory headlines to begin with. It is a good question - why are there so many writers who are women compared to other creative professions?

To me, the obvious answer is women read much more than men nowadays, so it's unsurprising more women also enter into the book business. The article is searching for some sort of conflict between the sexes, but provides nothing substantial to support one.

> women read much more than men nowadays

Citation needed. This suggests it’s within 5 percent of each other.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/249781/book-reading-popu...

> The demand for books in the US is also disproportionately driven by women. Surveys over at least the last couple decades have consistently found that American women are more likely to read books than American men, especially when it comes to fiction.

It's in the article, with citations. I just accepted that as a given, from my own anecdotal experience.

That does not mean that women read “much more” than men. In the cited articles the difference is less than 10 percent. That wouldn’t explain the discrepancy in publishing.

Not to much that what’s being measured specifically are fiction novels.

Regardless of the answer there’s clearly enough for an article here.

Women account for 80% of fiction sales in the US, UK, and Canada [0].

The stats mentioned show that women are more likely to read at least one book by 5% margin, but they buy many more books. The sales show how much more they buy.

[0] https://www.tonerbuzz.com/blog/book-and-reading-statistics/

I don't think the article is suggesting one gender should dominate.

It is possible that on average one or the other gender will be better at a particular craft. For historic reasons we don't necessarily know where those natural abilities fall. And obviously the average is not a good predictor of how well a particular individuals will do.

Yet I don't think NPR would have written an article in the same tone about white men, for example

They don't need to, because white men dominate most industries. There's little to be learned from examining any particular one of them.

If white men were to come to dominate a field previously dominated by some other group, that would be interesting. NPR could (and perhaps already did) write an article on how programming went from being female-dominated to male-dominated.

Seems like the article is just an advert for the book "The Glow".

How to advertise books in 2023

1. Select book to advertise

2. Create some narrative linked to book that will create outrage

3. Profit

>Then, around 1970, female authorship really began to explode. "There was a sea change after 1970," Waldfogel says.

That's exactly when Harlequin expanded into the US, causing the entire bodice-ripper paperback market to explode worldwide. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_novel#Rise_of_the_cate...> I don't mean to say that the entirety of the jump is from romance, but the massive growth of that genre definitely contributed. Then, of course, YA fiction; Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Twilight, and the many, many, many women authors they inspired.

Women must dominate all the creative industries and leave men in the minority. They must also dominate

Farming

Bricklaying

Underwater welding

Fishery

Carpentry…./s

Title != Article

Not surprising, in my experience book groups in the US are overwhelmingly female.

I need to read more new books; I've not been seeing the benefits of this.

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