From working at a book store I noticed that the books that were mainly targeting women (and not graphical porn) tended to have the majority of the scantily clad women. There were a comparable number of scantily clad men as well (the Indian romance subgenre made me lose faith in humanity, in a state full of Navajo and Pueblo indians Blond haired blue eyed indians were accepted without comment). But in science fiction there is very little (comparatively) of any body’s body shown off. The exception to this is books that seem to be targeting a mainly female demographic, series like the Kitty series by Carrie Vaughn or the united states covers of the Women of the Otherworld series by Kelley Armstrong.
I am not sure if this is a cause of what the video is talking about or an effect of it.
If books for women show scantily-clad women, does that make it reclamation rather than objectification? Then again, I’d look hard at who is actually making the book covers — I don’t think authors get to design book covers or have final say. That’s probably all on the publisher.
2 Comments
Jed
From working at a book store I noticed that the books that were mainly targeting women (and not graphical porn) tended to have the majority of the scantily clad women. There were a comparable number of scantily clad men as well (the Indian romance subgenre made me lose faith in humanity, in a state full of Navajo and Pueblo indians Blond haired blue eyed indians were accepted without comment). But in science fiction there is very little (comparatively) of any body’s body shown off. The exception to this is books that seem to be targeting a mainly female demographic, series like the Kitty series by Carrie Vaughn or the united states covers of the Women of the Otherworld series by Kelley Armstrong.
I am not sure if this is a cause of what the video is talking about or an effect of it.
Lissa
If books for women show scantily-clad women, does that make it reclamation rather than objectification? Then again, I’d look hard at who is actually making the book covers — I don’t think authors get to design book covers or have final say. That’s probably all on the publisher.