Shelve under Venus - or Mars? - Celia Rees

Imagine my surprise and delight when I opened my copy of the Sunday Times and found a double page spread in the Culture section devoted to historical fiction. Not only that, but our very own Mary Hoffman was quoted along with  fellow History Girl, Louise Berridge. Our History Girls blog got a mention, too. I was pleased and proud, although not so happy about the theme of the piece.

I dislike gender divides in fiction. I dislike gender divides anywhere. I understand why female writers hide behind the anonymity of initials or an androgynous first name and I certainly wouldn't want to offend or upset fellow History Girls, A.L. Berridge and H.M. Castor. I don't feel I'm 'outing' them, by the way, any lingering doubts as to gender should be dispelled by the fact that they are both History GIRLS. I know it is often not a writer's choice but pressure from her publisher which makes her adopt the initials, but is it really necessary? The pretence is tissue thin. As A.L. Berridge points out, all the reader has to do is open the cover to find that Louise lives in St Albans with her husband. Maybe I'm just jealous because I don't have a middle name, and there's not much to be done with Celia, so I'm destined to stay in the Girlie Ghetto, but we don't have an H.M. Mantel, E. L. Catton, or a Phil Gregory for that matter, and as the Sunday Times article goes on to point out, having a recognisably female first name does not prevent a writer from winning literary prizes or topping the best seller list.

As a writer of Young Adult fiction, where this kind of gender discrimination is rife - if someone mentions a writer by way of a double initial my first reaction is what does she write? - I guess I should be used to this, but it continues to annoy me that women have to don this nomenclatural disguise to even think of appealing to male readers.  What is it with these boys and men, anyway? Do they think that picking up a book written by a woman with a woman on the cover will cause some diminution of their masculinity? Or do they think the book will be per se girlie, all frocks and romance and not for them? Are they incapable of reading the blurb on the back? There is the implicit implication that women writers are somehow unable to take a male point of view, or write about things (war and gore) that might interest men. Setting aside the crude and insulting assumption that male readers are only interested in said topics, there are a legion of examples that prove women writers can shoot a bow and wield a broadsword with the best of them. Oddly, the opposite is never mooted, I guess because it is assumed that no red blooded male writer would possibly want to write from a woman's of view.

What I find most disturbing are the prejudices and assumptions swirling around this perceived gender divide. There is a faint feeling of outrage that, at the moment, female writers are outselling men, that more girls and women read than boys and men. Rather in the way of girls gaining better exam results, this is not seen as a cause for celebration, but rather a reason for hand wringing: the answer obviously being to downplay the female and pander to the male.

Genderisation diminishes us all, writer and reader alike. This tightening straightjacket is being imposed by market driven publishers panicked by the general decline of reading as a whole. It is up to us to resist, to buck the trend. No part or period of history, no human activity, is all male or all female and to suggest otherwise is just ridiculous. As Philippa Gregory has demonstrated, the bloody Wars of the Roses was not an entirely male affair, there were powerful women there who had more on their minds than what kind of head gear they should be wearing. Hilary Mantel has written two Booker Prize winners from the point of view of one of the most powerful and ruthless men in English History.  The publishers should be supporting and encouraging novels which break gender lines, rather than re-enforcing them.

Celia Rees

www.celiarees.com