Up until the late 1980’s, the only books I would read were those by male authors and those could not feature a female as the central character of the book.
I don’t know how it happened, but somewhere in that timeline was The Year of The Woman, and I decided enough is enough and I set a goal for myself to read a book a month by a female author and divest myself of this prejudice. I began with Agatha Christie, and read my way to Cornwell, Johansen and Binchy just to name a few. Now, I am happy to say, I have no prejudices against female writers and if the first paragraph peaks my interest I take it home and read it.
Another writer who may have influenced my decision to change my ways was Erica Jong. A very good friend of mine, (a retired “spinster” schoolteacher) was about to take her first transatlantic flight to Europe and had never been in a plane in her life. Thinking that Fear of Flying was a self-help book, I bought it for her and had it nicely wrapped in the bookstore and gave it to her as a Bon Voyage gift. I wish now that I had not done that. She has never mentioned the gaffe and we are good friends to this day.
I have never told this to anyone else, so I’d appreciate it if y’all would keep it “under your hat”, okay?
A fellow Marine and fellow SF fan once told me how he had loved the novels of Andre Norton until he discovered that she was, well, a she. He immediately ceased reading her work, and claimed that the fact that discovering it was written by a woman and featured male protagonists, in his words, written by someone who didn’t know what the hell she was talking about, destroyed the pleasurble memories/entertainment/lessons he had learned from her work.
Sheesh. Extreme example.
I was slightly disappointed to learn around age 10 that there was no Franklin W. Dixon, and that The Hardy Boys were written by several ghostwriters (including some WOMEN!), but I can’t say that it put me off them. That occurred naturally around age 12 or so.
A more extreme bigotry than you might have been looking for…
I worked in a bookstore when Toni Morrison’s Paradise was released. It was very popular, so I thought it was a little unusual when a woman came in the day after the book was released and asked to return her copy.
It was store policy to ask the reason for the return. My jaw damn near hit the counter when the woman said, “Oh, I didn’t realize the book was by a black author. I don’t want it now.” I’m not sure if I was more stunned by the fact that she would tell a total stranger about her glaring prejudice or by the fact that she didn’t notice the giant picture of Toni Morrison taking up the entire back cover of the book before she bought it. :rolleyes:
I’m now a bigot. I refuse to read anything in the “romance” genre written by a man. I don’t read lots of romance in any case, but the ones I’ve read that were written by men were just way way way over the top. Robert James Waller, prime example.
:eek: Hey, you can’t do that! What do you mean, there’s no Franklin W. Dixon? I grew up reading every Hardy book written. My son has discovered the magic of the Hardys.
To me they were one of the few good things left in the world.
Written by women? Now I have to take them away from LittleRod1 before he becomes contaminated or something.
