Sexism against men in literature: an elephant in the room.

Some say that men cannot be susceptible to sexism. I would argue most everyone these days has a story about how sexism has impacted their life, or how sexism has shaped their experience—including men. It is probably different for everyone, and everyone likely is subject to it, whether we know it or not. I personally have experienced sexism and racism in the professional world in various stages, and in the midst of my experience, I have observed a sharp trend outside of my experience:

In the literature market in particular, there has been a decline in the interest of cis or biological men’s work. Across lit fic, genre fic, non-fic, to philosophy and religion, the entire landscape of the literature and academic world has changed drastically concerning its support for and interest in the work of cis or biological men.

I do not believe and will not say this is necessarily a bad thing. In all honesty, I do not know what the right path is—nobody does. Do not listen to anyone who says they do. However, I do know that the market for literature consumption has shrunk significantly on a global scale⁽¹⁾. And worth appreciating, the literature consumer base is over 70% women⁽²⁾, and has been for quite some time. Which is indeed fine, I believe it merely purports to explain some parts of this trend.

A reality I have seen is that men are falling out of the professional editorial and publishing process⁽³⁾. This means more women are being represented in literature. If you ask me, this is a good thing. Women have, for a long time, existed in a second class. It is unfortunate. And it is important that, as individuals, they—like anyone else—be allowed the right to have their voice heard. That said, the next thing you should know about me is that I am a bit of a critic, one who truly loves the art of self-expression. And I know when to pull my punches, but there is one thing I am absolutely certain of.

Blame commercialization. Blame virtue signaling, whatever you want to call it. The quality of art as a whole is declining, literature unexcepted. Writers who would not be competitive otherwise are pushing out writers who would be, and it is evident in the broad decline in quality of our entertainment media. The publishing and media industries peddle to our sense of sympathy and morality in desperate attempts to not be absorbed by their competitors. They accomplish this by keeping company missions in line with the majority opinions on various social media platforms.

Everything about our lives, down to our opinions, is actively being collected and sold by data harvesting corporations. Our way of thinking is up for sale. If you would like some outside examples that are a bit more extreme in their delivery and molestation of the principles of representing minority voices, just look at Hollywood and Disney. Look how they neatly chop up and break down diversity into an easy-to-consume placement of a single token role or movie. The whole act is quite soulless and rather patronizing.

What I mean to say is . . . fewer men are being represented in literature because it is, unfortunately, a zero sum game run by capitalists who bear no concern for our mental health or the quality of our art. A unique exception being that the internal direction of the literature industry tends to take up the side of the oppressed. This has all led to a trend of fewer men being interested in literature on a global scale, as there’s less for us to relate to in a modern sense. So, men stop reading, and the literature market shrinks.

To further explain, I perform research for a living. It is my day job. I also perform research ceaselessly in my free time amongst other subjects, one of which I study intensely. Yes, you may have guessed it: writing. And after seeing article after article, and documentary after interview of agents, ex-agents, and publishers coming forward and claiming they would not dare sniff at or pass on a man’s writing unless it was absolutely immaculate and perfect . . . I do not know what to say.

It truly renders me speechless, perhaps even in a literal sense. It is demoralizing to put pen to paper knowing that the acceptance of my writing stands at a significant (>5%) statistical disadvantage because of the nature of my birth—something I had no say in. If you could appreciate one’s desire to achieve a lifelong aspiration, in hopes that a lifelong investment may eventually one day pay off, you may imagine my individual concern.

And to add to my point, it is not as if I do not understand the market dynamics. I know that an agent with a man’s book on their desk has been presented a hard sell to their boss. It is just not as sensible from an economic perspective; the markets are generally too small, and taking back to my earlier point, there’s clearly not enough money to go around (this is not really true, yet it is a discussion for another time). But what happens when a silent minority suffers and the industry that is supposed to champion their pain shuns them instead?

Is my pain sexist? Is my suffering bigotry? Is my path and struggle meaningless in comparison to others more deserving? Perhaps all these things are true. Perhaps none of them are. But it crushes my soul. I want to scream out for myself, for all men, for all my fellows and sisters who cannot reach the world’s ear with their pain. This is perhaps not the way. Something has to change. I do not want to steal anyone’s success or silence anyone’s cry, but we as a society overcorrected in our address of the severity of our past misgivings in this sense.

Like all systems that attempt to find stability—like a rubber band stretched too far, only to snap back in the opposite direction—we, a system attempting to find equilibrium, overshot the egalitarian utopia. We have clearly gone too far in some direction to the point where our society is losing out on something crucial. And the fact is, there is still tangible and evident resistance in the world of literature to returning to equilibrium. We are, so to speak, still stretching.

So. What’s your story?

1. https://wordsrated.com/global-book-sales-statistics/
2. https://www.tonerbuzz.com/blog/book-and-reading-statistics/
3. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2023/04/04/1164109676/women-now-dominate-the-book-business-why-there-and-not-other-creative-industries