Gender Inequality in Crime Fiction Writing, Or, Why I Love Nerds

I just finished this article by Robin Black and I feel her pain. Because I'm a female crime author too. I don't feel it as sharply at this particular moment because I write traditional mysteries full of domestic mayhem, and as such I'm kind of expected to have a predominantly female audience. But I don't see anything wrong with guys delving into cupcake mysteries or doggy detectives, or in my case, geocaching hobbyist detectives. If that's their thing, then that's their thing. However, my perspective is that of the one who loves more. We'll come back to that in a moment.

Why should men care if other men see them reading books by women? Why should they feel women aren't up to the task of writing what they want to read? Do you know how many male or gender-neutral pen names are out there, selling like hotcakes? I don't. Because it doesn't matter to me who writes my fave books. However, again: loving more.

I also write speculative fiction. Epic fantasy, specifically. Spec fic is known to be far kinder to female authors than crime fiction. I've had male readers gush unabashedly to me about how much they loved my characters, my worlds. They don't care about my gender. They care about the quality of my writing. Here, they're the ones who love more.

Is this issue really as simple as the alpha male versus the beta male? Unlikely, but there are some telling similarities. Do gun-toting, hard-boiled guys who think they're all that and a clip of bullets want to admit they can gain knowledge and perspective on their fave violent hobbies by talking to a dame? Jocks are jocks the world over. They're on top and they know it. Accepting help from the lesser is to admit weakness.

Nerds and geeks, on the other hand, are on the bottom, and they know it. They'll take help more readily because there's nothing gained by pretending they don't need it. They understand collaboration and sharing on a more fundamental survival level. They've been in the locker, on the hook, wearing the swirlie. If someone helps them out, they don't care if it's another geek, the head cheerleader, or the janitor. They've made a connection, and they're very interested in not losing it.

So yeah, I just made gender inequality in genre fiction into a high school analogy. Let's add some romance. The readers are one half of a couple, and the authors are the other half. You know the couples adage about the one who loves the least controlling the relationship. If alpha-male crime readers don't want to hear from a bunch of nosy girls, they will back away, and that leaves female authors trying to claim an equality the other side simply isn't interested in.

Whereas science fiction and fantasy readers, for all their unrealistic expectations regarding female body armor and academies for sexy monsters, will read nearly anything you put in front of them. They're thrilled that authors keep feeding them stories they love, and they care far less about who's writing it than the mere fact that they have a massive TBR pile to wade through. My husband's favorite author on the planet happens to be a woman: Lois McMaster Bujold. She's my favorite author as well, by the way. Because her writing is awesome, not because she's a girl.

I love that my fantasy readers appreciate my novels and have never seemed to care that I'm female. I love them for their simple acceptance. Will we ever reach gender equality amongst authors in crime fiction? Ultimately, it doesn't matter. What matters is that we keep trying to build that relationship with our other half--our readers.

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