The following article rises from a presentation I made in the pre-CV19 world at the 2019 JAFF Writer/Reader Get-together.
I am in quite a quandary. I have been looking at how we as authors can grow the base of readership for #Austenesque and #NorthandSouth variations.
The chart below asks persons which genres they regularly read. Female and male respondents tended to follow each other closely…or at least vary within expectations. Women seem to be more even-handed in their reading preferences with the trend line remaining stable until the horror category is reached. Men, on the other side of the coin, are all over the board in their preferences, although the numbers for Crime/Thriller, Adventure, and Science Fiction are either identical or within a few points of each other.
For my purposes here, though, I want to focus on the question of the gendered nature of the material produced for our reading pleasure.
My contention is that we are looking at a hangover in this data from 2015. Much as generals tend to prepare for the last war, so, too, do I believe that we are seeing reading habits that were shaped by forces from a half-century ago.
Previously, I have considered the post-WWII pulp publishing industry which offered two different prescriptions for men and women. These were not accidental and were accurate reflections of social forces shaping the American marketplace. The men, mired in the corporate cogs of the era of the grey flannel suit, thirsted for autonomy. Women also sought freedom, although this was liberation from the washing machine, vacuum cleaner, and squadrons of wet-nosed children.
Consider the context: WWII and Korean War vets had spent their time in khaki taking orders. Then the beneficiaries of the GI Bill once again became nameless and faceless in the gigantic post-war business machine (see Hudsucker Proxy or Mad Men). They had lost their agency and felt utterly powerless…a sentiment that could not be papered over by a second car or extra weeks of vacation.
Men wanted brass-knuckled heroes/antiheroes who strode through the world without a care. Their answer when facing down anti-social forces and incompetent authorities was a fist to the jaw or a slug from a .32. With these tools and their wits, Chandler and Garner’s protagonists restore balance to the universe. They also found satisfaction in escapades with stunning and dangerous women (whose conquest was not a foregone conclusion) not worn down by birthing children and life in a world of The Problem With No Name. The pornograph only began to play louder after the mid-1960s. Until then, allusions and inferences allowed men to fill in the gaps in an environment where local district attorneys found bedeviling booksellers with morals charges to be a painless way to burnish their tough-on-crime creds.
The Golden Age of Science Fiction (1930s through 1970s) essentially was what Gene Roddenberry pitched Star Trek to be: Bonanza in space with aliens. There was always a pretty woman, perhaps terribly unavailable, for Kirk to woo and win and lose. (Kirk’s amours had almost as short a lifespan as red shirts. She’s dead, Jim!) Men and boys ate up books, shows, and rudimentary movies.
Female-oriented lit had fewer places to go. But, with a somewhat heavy-on-the-trope lens, consider that there was a reason why Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique exploded in the 1960s. It was in the late 1940s when women were pushed from the factories, and the marriage age began plummeting into the mid-to-late teens (Lydia would have been considered an old maid!). Women craved an escape from their limited space governed by their husbands’ 9-to-5 workdays. They, in the 1950s, were much like the women of Gaskell’s Milton who tended their families before and after their own shifts at the mills in the 1850s.
Obviously, there was almost no precedent for a woman in politics (Margaret Chase Smith notwithstanding) or at the helm of a great business (Coco Chanel) to use as exemplars. Thus, women were offered that escape from the household to a space where large numbers of professional women could be found…hospitals. Pulp literature and American television were filled with adult medical dramas where the women—nurses—were the acolytes of incredibly dedicated and handsome men (also, rather autonomous lifesavers). Sparks would fly, although the angst meter was usually turned up just in time to have a lovelorn scenario because women were expected to leave the public sphere upon marriage. It would not do to have the dashing young doctor go from love interest to Ozzie Nelson in one season.
I contend that present-day reading by genre is a hangover, an artifact of the 1950s. I believe that we as authors have gone to school on our elders and have become trapped in models that were established by Cartland and Heyer. These giants were the greats of nearly seventy years ago. While they are transcendent, we ought to be skeptical of how well they reflect modern society, human nature, and reader sensibilities.
Society today is profoundly altered. A full panoply of career options is now available to women…particularly young women. There are women generals and admirals. They float over our heads as astronauts and serve as police chiefs in our largest cities. They stand astride economic goliaths like Facebook. Even in tech engineering, long a bastion of the “lad” economy, women like the daughter of family friends design and maintain critical e-commerce websites for companies like Alaska Airlines.
As for twenty-first Century men: consider that their career paths are equally open. No longer are they handcuffed by the expectation that they must be the breadwinner, that they are solely responsible for their family’s security. While there are those (usually in my age bracket) who will scoff at a man who seeks to earn a degree in linguistics (his mother and I stared at one another and asked what will he do with that?), a few years later they will profess amazement when he rises to be one of the chief data scientists at a top-three national retailer. Seems that linguistics is a critical discipline in discerning how people move through websites.
My interest as a near-unicorn in the #Austenesque world—a male author—is to find a way to bring more male readers to the party. That will grow the overall reader base…if we erase the thirty-point variance between male and female readers in the space where we have been pigeonholed.
Others have made that journey before: charting new territory and changing the public’s reading habits.
Austen broke the mold by creating the romantic novel from the gothic one. At first, the novel and authors like Austen were relegated to the Regency version of "chick-lit." Her pre-industrial musings quickly became quaint in the 1830s and 40s. Later though, her work was reassessed by mid-to-late Victorian gentlemen like Lord Brabourne. They found what we now understand to be Austen's greatness--not found in her rusticated contexts or portrayals of the life of the gentry, already on life support--noted in their rediscovered appreciation of Miss Austen, “... she describes men and women exactly as men and women really are, and tells her tale of ordinary, everyday life ... with such purity of style and language, as have rarely been equaled, and perhaps never surpassed. ...” (Letters of Jane Austen). Other geniuses like the Bröntes, Mark Twain, Jules Verne, and H.G. Wells were bedeviled by popularity waxed and waned with popular sentiment until they were enshrined in the halls of great literature.
We, now, are faced with a similar situation. #Austenesque variations can remain in the tribute band mentality. Or, we can look to find our own internal truth to demand more of our own work as writers. We must also, though, encourage our audiences to demand more than formulaic mind candy reiterations of the Lady. We need to create and grow the genre in new ways much as Robert Cruz Smith altered the police procedural with Gorky Park in 1981. If we remained perceived as the literary arm of a world that is dominated by Regency re-enactors, we may well encounter little success in expanding our appeal.
The potential lives of all persons—women and men—have changed significantly in the last forty years. And, that does suggest…requires…that our stories reflect those alterations.
However, our biggest challenge may be more immediate, more internalized: will authors in our genre lose the distaff equivalent of The shadow of “I”[i]…its male version being the bane of Virginia Woolf’s publishing life? We must find ways to write without either the female OR male mind dominating the work. That will create a more accurate image of human behavior. For me, the effort to break the barrier between my male and female minds is a giant hurdle. I have been tasked by others who point out that they can see my maleness coming through. I cannot imagine that it will be any less for other authors in the #InspiredByAusten realm. Yet, if we do not, we will be drawing an implicit line between our genre and a more diverse audience.
OK, that was a clarion call. I have made my diagnosis. Here are some very unscientific, gut-level prescriptions for ways to move the field deeper into the twenty-first Century…and some examples of works that have successfully trodden the path. I hope that these are not seen as gendered. Consider that men cheered at Bree Larsen's Captain Marvel and were equally terrified at Sigourney Weaver's travails in Alien. And Arwen and Galadriel were essential in Lord of the Rings.
While I am not suggesting a mash-up of Jane Austen with Patrick O’Brien, might not stories with realistic Regency military scenarios (Melanie Rachel’s ‘Courage Rises’ amongst others) serve?
On that theme, even if writing a 'period' story about ODC, why not add some of the history that explains the drivers that move the characters through their worlds (Nicole Clarkston's 'Courtship of Edward Gardiner')?
How about something more modern and altered with fantastic elements like time travel (C.P. Odom’s ‘Perilous Siege’ comes to mind)?
Modern themed adaptations that push beyond the ‘usual’ boundaries of rom-lit (Beth Auron’s ‘The Colonel’ or Leigh Dreyer’s ‘Flight Plan’ stories)?
While women with "pluck" are a constant theme, how about casting a woman as an action heroine? (Mrs. Bennet and Eileen Nearne in my "The Avenger: Thomas Bennet and a Father's Lament”)
Pure fantasy that takes ODC and others far beyond their usual haunts (Hah!) (See Maria Grace’s Dragon stories, works worthy to be on the shelf with Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders books)
I serve up this article and these ideas as thought starters. I have tried to incorporate adventure, mystery, romance, history, and science fiction in the Bennet Wardrobe Series rooted in a classic while attempting a literary styling that is appealing.
Very interesting