I'd agree with that assessment.


I'd add that a masculine book is more objective driven as well (kill this, rescue that).

There was that previous article we discussed here about how male and female authors write differently, and you can use the subtle variances to deduce the gender of a given work's author.

Think about the young adult mystery novels that were created... Hardy Boys for guys to read, and Nancy Drew for girls. There are more books targeted to girls where the conflicts involve social standing (a la The Clique series), and most the books for boys are about the standard "adventuring" conflicts of having to successfully survive dangerous situations.

Most men don't read bodice-ripper harlequin romances, and those that do usually won't admit to it because of the social stigma it would carry.
I doubt Heinlein has a very large female fan base, because when I've read his women they are quite clearly male fantasies of what a woman would be. The best example would be his novel Friday, about a sexy genetically enhanced female protagonist that gets it on at the end of nearly any chapter.

However, there are also young adult books like Looking for Alaska, or Harry Potter which have a wide mix of fans, and some of both of these elements (with Harry Potter generally further on the adventuring side). Sure, there are some books that are blatantly gendered where the writer has written off half the population as a market (John Ringo's work, Stephanie Meyer's work, etc.), but it seems to be the exception.

Not in the children's and young adult areas. There, it's more the reverse... there are several whole series/franchises written specifically for one gender or the other. The ones that don't cater to one gender or the other are fewer, but they stick around much longer because they usually are better written and have a timelessness to them (Such as Harry Potter, the Wrinkle In Time series, Pratchett's Tiffany Aching adventures). A portion of Sturgeon's Law in literature might even be able to be attributed to the percentage of what's written that is written to one specific gender or the other.

Gaiman's a middle-age Brit and in British publishing, up until recent years, there was a split in gender focus which resulted in pop lit geared toward boys and geared toward girls. Something like Dan Dare would be considered a "boy's adventure". In the blog post, he mentions when writing Sandman he scripted certain story arcs in the tone of "girls' stories" and others in "boys' stories".

As culture has homogenized and gender has become less of a focus in the marketplace this seems more like a quaint olde-timey notion, which is right in Gaiman's bailiwick.

I don't think he meant his statement to be about classification of what gender they are for... I believe he meant that stories have genders in the way boats or cars have genders.

Pah... I really need to read the whole thread before posting.

Oh, boats and cars are definitely female. I know I mentioned it in another thread, but...

They cost a lot of money
When something is wrong, they won't be specific about what it is
You have to tell them what it is you want from them
They won't necessarily give you what you want