Re:‘George Eliot’ joins 24 female authors making debuts unde...
by chongli on Friday August 14, 2020 @09:05AM
(#24157365)
J K Rowling was - apparently - persuaded not to be Joanne by her publisher. But having a female name didn't keep Doris Lessing, Margaret Atwood, and many other women from having very successful careers.
The argument at the time was that Harry Potter is a children’s book with a male protagonist and that boys would not want to read it if it was obviously written by a woman. It makes some sense, as boys are under tremendous pressure to demonstrate masculinity at school.
Re:‘George Eliot’ joins 24 female authors making debuts unde...
by kitd on Friday August 14, 2020 @11:45AM
(#24159415)
But having a female name didn't keep Doris Lessing, Margaret Atwood, and many other women from having very successful careers.
Because they lived some 150 years after Eliot and the Brontes. The point is restoring respect to women who, at the time they were alive, were expected to use male pseudonyms.
Re:‘George Eliot’ joins 24 female authors making debuts unde...
by watwut on Friday August 14, 2020 @07:19AM
(#24156478)
The claim toward J K Rowling was that the female name would be disadvantage. She was not told it is impossible to succeed with female name nor that no one ever succeeded, just that the chance is lower.
The romantic literature is outlier in this way - having female name is advantage.
Gender impersonation still happens, but not always in ways the Guardian would approve of. There's a core of male writers using female pseudonyms to publish romantic fiction, because no one is going to buy it if it's published under a male name.
J K Rowling was - apparently - persuaded not to be Joanne by her publisher. But having a female name didn't keep Doris Lessing, Margaret Atwood, and many other women from having very successful careers.