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A comment on A lack of male protagonists is making it harder to get young boys into books.

Re:A lack of male protagonists is making it harder to get yo... by fn-mote on Sunday November 08, 2026 @08:53AM (#50413398)
The article is much more balanced than comments here make it out to be. Sure, the title got it on the front page, but the article considers different possibilities. For example, it addresses the issue of older books having plenty of male characters by arguing that kids have a harder time getting into older books due to the pacing / lack of lots of action. Watching today’s popular anime, I believe it. Whether you believe it or not, there’s more depth to this article than it sounds like from the comments.
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Re:A lack of male protagonists is making it harder to get yo... by watwut on Sunday November 08, 2026 @01:11PM (#50415592)
Based on article, the male to female characters ratio is 2:1 in all published books and male main characters are easily available in top charts (they are not burried).

2:1 is assymetric ... but hardly a "lack of male characters" situation.

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Re:A lack of male protagonists is making it harder to get yo... by illiac786 on Sunday November 08, 2026 @04:06PM (#50417250)
Anything not 50/50 is asymmetric; your choice of word is downplaying the issue. 51/49 is not the same as 33/66.

33/66 is the female/male ratio int he police force where I live and it’s tough for women.

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Re:A lack of male protagonists is making it harder to get yo... by watwut on Monday November 09, 2026 @07:51AM (#50424903)
I would see 33/66 female male ratio in the police force as unusually high ratio of women for a police force. Claim that women are rare in your police force would be, simply, a lie. In addition, we are talking amount main characters in books here. It is easy to ignore books you are not interested in. Books wont "be tough" to other books.

Plus, bookstores have those "for boys" and "for girls" sections. Harry Potter and anything popular with main male character is in boys section. Both girls and boys are buying those from boy section. It is simply not true that finding a book with boy male character would be some kind of hard. They are right there. And unlike what others in the thread think, there is variety - there are funny books, action superheroes and more nuanced stuff.

Many parents do see reading as a girly activity tho. And will even explicitly refer to reading as something only girls do, openly in front of boys. But it is not the matter of male characters being rare.

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Re:A lack of male protagonists is making it harder to get yo... by BobaFloutist on Sunday November 08, 2026 @04:08PM (#50417269)
Based on context, I assume you meant 1:2?
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Re:A lack of male protagonists is making it harder to get yo... by watwut on Monday November 09, 2026 @07:52AM (#50424917)
The claim in the article was there is 1 main male character for each 2 female characters in published books. More girls.

So yes, I meant it other way round.

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