Janice Harayda
Nov 14, 2021

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I suspect things have changed somewhat in the 15 years since the authors wrote that, perhaps less because of feminism than because of the ubiquity of streaming. Whether men will go to a movie "their girlfriends or wives want to see" should be less of an issue now that you can watch everything at home. But something similar is absolutely still true of books at every level. You hear publishing industry people say ALL the time, for example, that girls are much more likely to read books with a male protagonist than boys are to read books about a girl. If my memory is correct, that's why J.K. Rowling uses initials. She and everyone else connected to Harry Potter knew that, at least in the U.S., it would be easier to sell the books to boys without a woman's name of the cover.

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Janice Harayda
Janice Harayda

Written by Janice Harayda

Critic, novelist, award-winning journalist. Former book editor of the Plain Dealer and book columnist for Glamour. Words in NYT, WSJ, and other major media.

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