With all of the incessant moaning that female characters don’t appear that much in Hollywood movies, nobody ever mentions that about 80% of grown-up fiction that is published is written for women and about women. And what requires more leisure, watching a movie or reading a book?
I’m not talking about works of art right now but about reading people do for entertainment. And who are these people, almost always? Women, of course. How many men you know between the ages of 25 and 65 who are not philologists and who read fiction on a regular basis? I don’t know a single one.
Women’s fiction exists in order to allow women imaginatively to explore potentially traumatic situations and elaborate strategies of behavior. It has a multitude of subgenres, and you can choose which ones respond to your anxieties. There are mega-bestselling authors that specialize in each subgenre, and you know exactly where to go to find relevant books. For instance, there are such subgenres as “what to do if my child goes bad?” (Jodi Picoult*), “what if my mother is a vicious bitch?” (Elizabeth Strout**), etc.
Women get together in book clubs that serve as amateur group therapy and use these books to find solidarity and solutions. These books cross class boundaries and unite women of all backgrounds. I have discussed Gillian Flynn and Jodi Picoult with 60-year-old professors and 25- year-old supermarket cashiers. This is a vibrant, complex subculture that nobody talks about, preferring, instead, to concentrate on the issue of screen time actresses get.
B.A. Paris is a newcomer to women’s fiction***. Her first book Behind Closed Doors belongs to the subgenre of “what if I’m trapped in a bad marriage?” This is one of the most popular subgenres that generates a hefty number of bestsellers every year.
Paris’s book explores the more nightmarish version of a bad marriage and is destined to be a bestseller. Most women, of course, are not locked in a room all day long, like this author’s protagonist is. But this plot line is so popular and can be found in so many books that it becomes clear how widespread the feeling of being trapped or confined is among women.
I could say a lot more but I know people hate long posts. Just this one thing: the fixation on movie screen time is intrinsically sexist because it arises from the belief that the form of entertainment that attracts men is superior to that which attracts women.
* Picoult specializes in teenage children going bad. For the subgenres of “what if my newborn goes bad?” or “what if my toddler goes bad?” you need to go someplace else. There is a bestseller that is being widely read right now in the bad newborn genre, for instance. Even Doris Lessing contributed to it back in the day.
** Strout writes real literature, though. She’s immensely talented. I recommend even to those who have no problem with their mother.
*** Pretty much all fiction is women’s fiction but we are not aware of that because the narrative of “pathetic, victimized women” always defeats the narrative of “smart, resourceful women.”
Clarissa's Blog 
And what requires more leisure, watching a movie or reading a book?
Reading a book is more interruptible than watching a movie, even with the rise of streaming services and portable devices. It’s not so much women don’t have leisure time but having it in uninterrupted long chunks is an issue.
Just this one thing: the fixation on movie screen time is intrinsically sexist because it arises from the belief that the form of entertainment that attracts men is superior to that which attracts women.
Maybe. It also plays as a proxy for women who want to “see themselves” and think they’re disappearing or losing value as they age. Despite the evolution of technologies (from VCR to DVD to streaming), movie watching is seen as a collective experience or least two person experience (nobody does “Netflix and chill” by themselves) while book reading is seen as solitary (despite the book clubs).
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I’m guessing you are not a fan of Flynn or Picoult if you say they are interruptible.:-)
For women who want older female characters, there is a wealth of reading out there. Again, Elizabeth Strout is great in that subgenre. In terms of seeing, reading allows people to see with their own eyes while movies entail seeing through somebody else’s eyes. You are trapped in front of a controlling, blaring screen that leaves no time for your subjectivity.
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I’m guessing you are not a fan of Flynn or Picoult if you say they are interruptible.:-)
A suspenseful novel is annoying to interrupt, obviously. But I’m speaking about the physical act of pausing what you are doing to attend to something or someone else. If someone interrupts me while reading a book, I can bookmark or close it. If I’m interrupted while watching a video, I have to queue the thing up again, hit play and start. Since on demand streaming of some kind (DVR, streaming service, YouTube, etc) is how I watch 95% of things, I have to worry about buffering and loading. (Do Kindles have these issues?) If I’m watching it with, say, people who have bad hearing and attention spans I get constant rewinds while they catch up. If I’m watching it in a room with other people who do not want to watch what I’m watching, I often I have to find headphones so I don’t disturb them.
In terms of seeing, reading allows people to see with their own eyes while movies entail seeing through somebody else’s eyes. You are trapped in front of a controlling, blaring screen that leaves no time for your subjectivity.
That’s such a meta commentary on dominant narratives. How often do people use “I read it in a fictional book so therefore it must be true” versus “I watched a fictional show/movie so therefore it must be true” to ascertain facts about reality though?
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It’s true that stories about men are not easy to find. Boys and adolescents, yes, but the moment they reach adulthood, it’s like they drop off a cliff.
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“what to do if my child goes bad?”
Does it read anything like this weird woman and terrible mother trying to convince her sons (and the world) that they’re rapists at heart? She needs a new dictionary, one with the word “boundaries” in it….
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/parenting/wp/2016/09/14/its-not-enough-to-teach-our-teen-sons-about-consent/#comments
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I was shocked and horrified. On top of everything else, it’s easy to figure out their names from this. This is so wrong.
It’s sad when people confuse feminism with untreated mental issues.
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