Women's fiction

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veinglory

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I think that the defintions sometimes make romance a subset of womens fiction, so a forum covering both might not be any more weird than combining fantasy and sci fi which at their extremes have very little in common.
 

Dark Sim

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Just to clarify, would tv series like Alias or Commander In Chief be considered Women's Fiction (if they were originally novels - not talking about the fan fic novels based on Alias which tend to be more romances and not spy thrillers)?

Or is Women's Fiction yet another thing completely?

Is it fiction written by women about women? Or fiction written by women about any subject? Or fiction written by either sex about women?
 

IrishScribbler

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My understanding of women's fiction is that it deals with women's issues....relationships, mental/emotional health, etc. Usually it's written by women, but I've read women's fiction written by men, as well. The biggest issue is that it is about women's issues. I've seen articles that say romance is a subgenre of women's fiction, but personally, I disagree because I think an aspect of women's fiction is that it challenges norms and patriarchal values traditionally assigned to women. Think Sylvia Plath, Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood....

Does that help?
 

Dark Sim

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IrishScribbler said:
My understanding of women's fiction is that it deals with women's issues....relationships, mental/emotional health, etc. Usually it's written by women, but I've read women's fiction written by men, as well. The biggest issue is that it is about women's issues. I've seen articles that say romance is a subgenre of women's fiction, but personally, I disagree because I think an aspect of women's fiction is that it challenges norms and patriarchal values traditionally assigned to women. Think Sylvia Plath, Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood....

Does that help?

But aren't those "issues" many of the same ones that men have - relationships, mental/emotional health, etc? The way men may respond might be different, and sure, some of the issues might be individual to women, but there are many things that a woman feels/wants/needs/faces etc that are not purely gender-specific.
 

IrishScribbler

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Yes, men have those issues, but it's different. And you have to look at the issues from women's perspective. It's like history....you can look at things like suffrage in history and "get" it, but if you're looking at it from a patriarchal view and not getting into how women responded or were treated, etc., from their perspective, you're not really getting at the truth of it.

The truth from a patriarchal perspective, as well as the truth from a non-gendered perspective, is only one side of the truth.
 

maestrowork

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Dark Sim said:
But aren't those "issues" many of the same ones that men have - relationships, mental/emotional health, etc? The way men may respond might be different, and sure, some of the issues might be individual to women, but there are many things that a woman feels/wants/needs/faces etc that are not purely gender-specific.

These are women-specific issues such as breast cancer, childbirth, domestic violence, single-motherhood, pregnancy, etc.

Guys have their "issue" books, too, but they're usually listed as something else -- coming-of-age, lad lit, etc. The reality is that there are not that many "guy issue" books out there because men normally don't pick up those books -- the market is really small.
 

IrishScribbler

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maestrowork said:
These are women-specific issues such as breast cancer, childbirth, domestic violence, single-motherhood, pregnancy, etc.

Guys have their "issue" books, too, but they're usually listed as something else -- coming-of-age, lad lit, etc. The reality is that there are not that many "guy issue" books out there because men normally don't pick up those books -- the market is really small.

Exactly.
 

maestrowork

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An example of a "men's issues" novel is Sideways -- it's about midlife crisis, being single, going nowhere in life, and not getting laid. In general, though, men do not want to read fiction about their issues -- if they have issues, they'd rather go find a "self-help" book. When they read fiction, they want to be entertained. Of course, there are exceptions, such as there are men who read romance novels.
 
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