That lady in my book club who argued a character was 'unlikable' just because she was a woman

She said the female lead in 'The Vanishing Half' was too bossy and she couldn't root for her. But the male characters who acted the same way? She called them 'driven.' Has anyone else run into this double standard in your group?

2 comments

2 Comments

roberts951d ago

That's a classic double standard, and I've seen the same thing happen in my own reading group with a Patricia Highsmith novel. We had a male character who was cold and manipulative, and the group praised his "complexity," but a similar female character got called "unpleasant" and "hard to like." It really makes you wonder if some readers are even aware of the lens they're judging these characters through.

wesley_adams1d ago

I actually used to be one of those people who thought they were being fair. Before I saw it happen in real time with a book club I joined a few years back, I would have argued that we all judge characters the same way. But then we read Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, and the guys in the group were calling Amy Dunne "crazy" and "a monster" while giving Nick Dunne a pass for being a lazy, lying husband. It hit me hard because I caught myself doing it too, thinking Amy was worse just because she was a woman. That realization really changed how I look at my own reactions now.