Gender Bias, Real or Perceived

I think boys (as in kids) are more likely to read a male protagonist. It's actually been proven. Girls (again, we're talking kids here) will read books with boys as main characters, boys not as much with girls as the protagonist. And I don't think Harry Potter would have been as universally popular had it been about a girl.

As far as Twilight goes, I think if it had been written from Edward's POV it still would have been read by girls. But there are so many small factors that contributed to its success that it is hard to say if it would have been as popular. Bella had no personality which meant any girl could use her as a cipher and pretend they were dating Edward, and that might be a big part of the success. Who knows.

That being said. As many boys love "Alex" as do girls, and they don't seem to care that Alex is a girl. Now the book is written in third person, the narrator is a bit separate from Alex, and Alex is a tom boy. The book has very little to do with her being a girl, she just happens to be one. It's also a rollicking adventure about pirates, and sword fighting, there's a lot of comedy, short chapters and cliff hangers.

Point is, it is possible. But I think it is a very reasonable question to ask. Especially for MG and YA.


ETA: as far as the story changing depending on if it's a boy or a girl in first person, it really depends. If the book has nothing to do with their gender, which probably lends itself more to MG than YA, then I think it's possible to keep things pretty much the same. The only thing to do with Alex being a girl in my book is that people keep mistaking her for a boy, it's a running joke, but nothing that affects her profoundly, in fact she kind of finds it funny. With kids, before they have a real sense of their sexuality, it's easier to have a more gender neutral main character and adventure. But I think it can have a big effect if the kids are teenagers. Set it in the past and you have sexual discrimination. Set it in a modern school and you have the way girls interact with each other which can be quite different from boys. Even if your main character isn't typical of his/her gender, he/she will still have to interact with people who find that odd.

Now that's a good question, I'm also curious for the answers.

By my opinion, maybe I'm mistaken, male's are common as protagonist, because somehow it's easier to write them. I also used to prefer them, with the exception of my last WIP. As I experienced Women MCs are different and harder to write, but honestly I enjoy it much better then writing the thousandth knight or space marine story what I written in the last years. Writing a woman MC is a real challenge (At least for a male author, like humble me.).

Maybe I'm also mistaken as in this I'm also on a bit uncharted territory, but I believe women protagonists must be more detailed and they must have a plus if you want to grab the boy reader's attention. Also guys need to get used to the female characters. If they're not the "Ideal" woman in the description, or simply showing the sign of weakness, they surely put that book away. In the eyes of the boys, girls are weak. I know, I was a boy too. But if you give strength of both parents (Father and mother) to the woman MC, which is holding the traits of a caring, protecting mother, but also has the intelligence of the father... so something which is remembering the boy for both his parents on a good way, by my opinion that can work out well. At least I really hope.

Freelancer said:

By my opinion, maybe I'm mistaken, male's are common as protagonist, because somehow it's easier to write them.

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It's not easier to write them, it's easier to sell them. The public likes males better.

Cyia said:

So far, the storyline seems solid, but I don't want to alienate potential readers because the POV is male in a "girl" book.

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Heh. I wouldn't worry about that too much. Most of us girls are fascinated by boys and don't mind reading about them at all.

Is that what the industry thinks? If it is I would make the MC a girl.

Personally, I find that there are not enough Male-Protagged YA books out there. I like reading from both genders' POVs, but I am getting a little tired MCs being predominantly female.
Though, to be fair, most of the MCs I write are female. So I can't really complain.

Cyia said:

Let me rephrase - I don't want to alienate potential AGENTS because they assume girl readers won't want a guy MC in a girl book

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Well, what are you basing this on? Is this your perception of their perception? You could be incorrect.

I usually write both in that I am very careful not to exclude boys. I also don't want to present girls as being less capable than boys so I write action books with strong female and male characters.
I have only one published book with a first person narrator - she is female and very few boys will pick it up unless they have heard me read from it. It has quite a feminine cover, which I pointed out, but the belief was that boys woudn't read it even if it had a more masculine cover because the protag was female. My feeling is that this is probably true, though they seem to cope with the alternating male/female voices I often use.

I want to write so as not to exclude boys - there is not that much fiction out there that is boy friendly, but also to keep a strong female presence in the story. I want boys to read and also to see that girls can be allies, comrades as well as girl friends so I suppose I am motivated partly by ideology and partly by commercial considerations. It is good for boys to see things through a female's eyes but you have to lure them into the experience.
When I was growing up almost all narratives were male, but I think that these days there are probably more YA books that are female? Certainly there are more female writers than male ones in the category.

Cyia said:

I've never read Harry Potter, but do you think it would have been less successful if it had been told from Hermione's POV? Or something like Twilight from Edward's POV.

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I have heard that J.K.R wanted to do the story from Hermione's POV but ended up doing Harry because it would sell better.

I think the bias does exist with young readers, but that said, one of the most popular Australian YA book series, if not #1 (the Tomorrow series) had a teenage girl as protagonist. Read widely by boys and girls.

Wayne K said:

Is that what the industry thinks? If it is I would make the MC a girl.

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I meditated and worked on the same way. That's the reason why I've made my MC to a chick. A little defiance.

My 12 yo son reads mainly stories with male MCs, but not exclusively. While he prefers the Artemis Fowl type of story, he recently read and enjoyed Lois Lowry's Gathering Blue, which has a female protag (but he might have been sucked in by having previously enjoyed her other work: like Number the Stars and The Giver). My 9 yo daughter, by contrast, prefers real-life humour stories, like those by Judy Blume. Keep in mind, however, one of JB's best characters is a boy (Fudge). Anecdotally, I think their reading habits generally support a gender bias.

Oh, wait a minute, my son loved Twilight. Never mind.

Boys don't really like reading books with female MCs.

Yeah I would say YA male protags are more common/desirable

I think it really depends on the genre. I mean, with urban fantasy, a female protagonist is the norm. I read very few urban fantasy books with male protags. And in romance novels, the female character is usually (though not always) the MC.

But overall I'd agree that it's probably easier to be successful with a male protagonist, just as it's probably easier to be successful with a white protagonist or a straight protagonist than the alternatives. Even in our relatively feminist society, there's still a lingering perception that girls are weaker, less active, less cool, whatever...which is why girls will read novels with male MCs, but not vice-verse. By no means is that an absolute rule though. There are some books with female MCs that have been widely successful (Wicked comes to mind.)

As a kid I probably read more fiction that was written by men or had male protagonists. As I got older, I'd like to think my tastes have broadened a bit. Sure, you'll see guys like Arthur C. Clarke, Michael Moorcock, Fritz Leiber, Robert Heinlein and Terry Goodkind on my shelves, but you'll also see Ayn Rand, Jacqueline Carey, K. J. Parker, C. J. Cherryh, Ursula K. LeGuin, and Octavia Butler.

I also keep some Andre Norton, Mercedes Lackey, and Elizabeth Haydon in a closet somewhere as examples of the kind of sci-fi and fantasy I don't want to write.

Now, I'll cop to using a male protagonist in my own writing, but I'd like to think that I've done a respectable job of creating interesting female characters as well.

The protagonist of the Potter series had to be whoever was the Chosen One, aka Kid with the Lightning Scar. Could have been Hermione Potter, but alas, I'm afraid the boy readership would have been harder to come by. Plus, a lot of Americans (yes, I've met them) would have pronounced it Hermy-One.

I think the older your reader the less of an issue it is, but it never goes away. Thus I would not recommend putting a female protagonist in a Middle Grade (which is what I write) book if I wanted boys to read it.
I'm not sure if it really matter in adult lit at all. If the novel is great I can't imagine it would be an issue.

I once wrote a book about a MG girl, but had a boy tell the story. I thought I could trick the boys into reading it. Never got published, so it probably didn't work well (or at least I couldn't pull it off).

The conventional wisdom is that boys and men have a strong preference for male protags, and that girls and women have a weak preference for female protags. Therefore, the conventional wisdom is that books with male protags will sell better.

I do not think this is based on any kind of research data, but it is widely held as an article of faith.

IceCreamEmpress said:

The conventional wisdom is that boys and men have a strong preference for male protags, and that girls and women have a weak preference for female protags. Therefore, the conventional wisdom is that books with male protags will sell better.

I do not think this is based on any kind of research data, but it is widely held as an article of faith.

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What about my adult fiction WiP? It's told in alternating POV between a man and a woman. Would that appeal to everyone, or backfire and appeal to no one?

CaroGirl said:

What about my adult fiction WiP? It's told in alternating POV between a man and a woman. Would that appeal to everyone, or backfire and appeal to no one?

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It seems to work well enough for George R. R. Martin.