I have no specific insight, but maybe I can back into it this way: do books with female protagonists feel less real to you because you're female? Because, in essence, you have lived a female experience and it does not relate to your own?

Closest I can come is that I dislike protagonists with specific professions, particularly reporters and lawyers. Having been a reporter and worked with lawyers, I can say that their experiences, however fictional or fantastical they are supposed to be, don't click with me because it's so much easier to see the bullshit behind it.

I think it's weird to read only in order to relate to a character. Why? What purpose is there in only ever reading that which reinforces the way you feel? Is it not vastly more interesting to read perspectives that differ from your own, that you distinctly cannot relate to? Is this not the best thing about fiction, about art, to connect us to the world outside our own?

>On the other hand, I cannot relate to female characters at all, and I often find their decisions and thoughts hard to understand. Somehow, I find male characters way more relatable and both of my favorite books have zero female characters in them. Can anyone relate?

I do not like particularly a lot of romance, rom-com heroines. But not liking to read about women characters or books written by women, it is a bias worth examining. Women are 50% of the world, and I think anybody of any gender who disclaims reading about, or things written by 50% one of the genders (whether their own or the other, or any variant) is missing voices, experiences.

And you know the meme "a girl not like other girls?" (Sadly there are quite a bit of girls not like other girls, not that they hang together), if that is your thing it is, but it is a quite narrow place to be.

Sounds like you've got a lot of internalized sexism within yourself that you need to examine. A big part of being a woman in your 20s is starting to unlearn a lot of the sexism that has been fed to you.

Start asking yourself what it is about female protagonists you don't like and what it is about male protagonists you do like. Ask yourself what the differences between male authors and female authors are, then ask yourself why you've divided them that way.

A lot of people like to pretend that they're neutral, that they only like interesting stories, but they're often the ones with the largest prejudices and blindspots.

Maybe your reading isn’t very broad. It’s not like female characters tend to have similar personalities in books in general.

It could have to have something to do with your personality. Maybe you automatically identify with male characters more easily, for whatever reason.

Internalized misogyny, most likely.

Although it’s possible that the books you’ve tried written by/for/about women mostly aren’t your style. I dislike entire genres that often have girls and women as protagonists, like romance and most of the newer fluffy/fanfic style YA books.

Or you could just have encountered a lot of very poorly written women characters. That’s definitely a huge issue in literature. Though I find it’s most often male writers who struggle to write female character that are at all believable or fully developed.

I’m a woman (though I have autism and feel more non-binary/gender neutral than I do feminine) and I don’t find a lot of female characters ‘relatable’ per se - but that doesn’t stop me from enjoying plenty of fiction written by women, and books with female characters.

Some of my favorite fiction writers who are women: Ursula K LeGuin - Madeleine L’Engle - Margaret Atwood - Toni Morrison - Zadie Smith - Agatha Christie - Octavia Butler - Willa Cather - L.M. Montgomery - Dodie Smith

It would help to know specific books that seem to let you down. I'm incredibly picky about my female characters because most of them either come off as severe r/menwritingwomen or they're written in a masculine way to show off how "strong and independent" they are.

I hate women in books where they're badly written. In books where they are well-written, they are compelling.

Both men and women writers can write women badly.

As a reader, our state of mind while reading a book is also influenced by life experience, so you may feel differently in a few years time.

Generally, there are very few authors whose work has touched me when it comes to women characters, so I can understand if your experience has been negative with such characters.

Have you considered that what you actually like might be genres more popular with male authors? Might just be a corollary of something like that.

Is this about books or about your deeper feelings about agency and sex/ gender?

It's not just you. Male characters are four times more common in literature than female characters and books with male protagonists sell on average 10 million more copies than those with a female protagonist.

The reasons for this tap into every facet of the patriarchal societies that publish and consume this literature. Male authors have more opportunity and male characters more (perceived) freedom, making them easier to manipulate within the readers accepted societal boundaries.

As consumers we can work to redress this imbalance by actively trying to read more diverse authors. You might find your preference is just down to probability - less to choose from means you're less likely to find the books that really speak to you. And if you really can't find it, why not write your own? Take all of the things you like about your male protagonists and put them into the female lead of your own novel. I'd read it!

What genres are you reading for male characters and female characters?

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There's a bunch of really good reasons mentioned here, but there's also the possiblity that you grew up reading only books with male protagonists - or the ones with female protagonists featured some form of abuse that you weren't comfortable with - and now you're retreating to the safety of what you're used to. It happens.

Men often write bad female characters. But if u can't enjoy a book written by a woman just because of that, it's internalized misogyny.

I was like that at 21.

It's not necessarily a guarantee that you have internalized misogyny, but for me that was 100% the case.

Or it could just be a fluke.

What type of genres are you reading? Are you reading male and female authors with male and female main characters in the same genre? It's not fair to say Clive Cussler's books are filled with confident & adventurous characters, but Edith Wharton only wrote only miserable, whiny, rich women, therefore men write fun characters I can relate with while women write about a bunch of boring drips. Make sure you're giving fair play to the writers and characters.

Also, I'd recommend staying away from "female empowerment" books if you're feeling this way because they will only solidify your bias. Those are the one genre, I, as a woman can not relate to at all. The broad generalizations, sweeping judgements, and useless affirmations do nothing for me because women are INDIVIDUALS with different life experiences, struggles, triumphs, personalities, etc. We can't just be put into one box, told what our problems are, and then given non-specific platitudes to solve them.

my best guess would be internalised misogyny

Pick me

I don’t think you have to justify your preferences to anyone.

You like what you like, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Maybe you have some internalized misogyny

Seems really weird that you don't like ANY of books written by women or with female protagonist. If I were you, I would be worried that there's something wrong with the way I percieve my gender in general.

I don't know if this resonates with you, but when I was a teen, I often related or liked the male characters in shows and theater. Can't remember if I felt that way about books, but I'd imagine so.

When I mentioned this to a friend, she said it might be because male roles are written better. They tend to be the heroes, have more range, are given more back story, etc. The female roles were secondary.

A lot has changed since then, and there are lots of stories with female leads now. That said I don't know anything about the horror genre.

Also in writing this I realized my all time favorite books are all male focused, ie. A Little Life, 1984, Watership down, Enders Game. I do like Celeste ng and Emily St. John Mandel, who write good female characters.

Yeah this used to be then I realized in a trans man💀 On a more serious note though, you say you read thrillers and gore, I don't read this genre but I would ask myself these questions:

1. Are there substantial women characters in your novels in the first place? Or are they reduced to stereotypes and/or trauma?
2. How are the women characters usually written?
3. How are the men characters usually written?
4. Are there traits, or maybe one particular one, in the men characters that aren't in the women characters or vice versa?
5. How are the woman characters treated? For example is there simply to get murdered? If so, it would be hard to relate to her because her entire being is reduced to the murder.
6. How do the protagonist think of women around them? For example in the book Maurice, the titular character hates women.

I don't know what the answers are because I don't read this genre! Maybe you just have a personality that isn't typically assigned to women in the genre, you read. You didn't ask but the most relatable woman character to me is Jo March in Little Women.

Edit: It might also be worth examining if you relate to women and womanhood in real life.

Read what you want, it’s supposed to be entertaining. There’s nothing wrong with your preference. Tangent: I personally like to see a female doctor, just my preference. Am I a man hating sexist douche? Idk, I don’t care. I like a female doctor.

I’m the same way to an extent, and for me I think it’s just that a lot of times female protagonists don’t match with my life experiences so they don’t feel relatable. Could just be that they’re badly written.

However I also read a lot of sci-fi, which tends to have more male than female authors I think. Men are rarely good at writing women well, IMO, so that could be coloring my opinion a bit.

Do you like female authors and protagonists better when the author and character genders are aligned? (Female author + female protagonists)

Male authors are often critiqued for writing thin, or unrealistic female characters in their novels because of a lack of shared experience. Is the same true of Female authors writing male characters? Maybe, when you select a book with a male author and a female protagonist, you're disappointed by an unrelatable female lead. And when you select a book by a female author, with a male protagonist you're disappointed by that writing as well?

Maybe you're subconsciously preselecting your way into disappointment. Just a thought.

Maybe you need to read different books. Inasmuch as you NEED to do anything… if you don’t like them it’s ok, we all have our preferences. Without knowing which are those 2 favorite books or whether you prefer a particular genre, I don’t think anyone can really get to a conclusion on your preference for male protagonists.

Just analyze your reading habits and the books you didn’t like - are they the type authors churn out by the dozen a year? Are the heroines one dimensional stereotypes? Do the authors appear to have no idea what a woman feels or think like? Are they sexualized gratuitously?

There are quite a few very well written stories with and about women. I really liked Elena Ferrante’s Brilliant Friend series, Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter, Madeline Miller’s Circe. I just learned she’s written another one about Galatea, so I have that on my list. Another one on my list is Cecily by Annie Garthwaite.

If you are in for a little heartbreak (not the romance type) any one of Toni Morrison’s novels has great women protagonists very well written.

Or if you prefer funnier reading: any one of Terry Pratchett’s Witches series. Start with Equal Rites if you want to be consistent, it’s the first where Granny Weatherwax appears. Witches Abroad is hilarious with the 3 of them.

Or it might just be you. By this time we all know each and every one of us have unique experiences and we don’t have to identify with a character just because we are the same gender or from the same part of the world or whatever is supposed to make us uniform. I remember Maia Rudolph once saying that, since she lost her mom very young and grew up with her dad and a handful of brothers, as a teenager she always felt like she didn’t know how to be a woman and use all the nice smelling creams and make up and whatnot. Turns out all she had to do was be.

I can soooo relate to this!!! Great to know I am not the only one haha. Yeah, most of my favorite books have male protagonists. Same goes for favorite authors.

I used to feel the exact same way. But at 30 I found the words to describe the gender confusion (that I had no idea was related) I had my entire life and realized i'm a nonbinary trans guy and at 31 I learned i'm autistic. Kinda explains it all to me. But of course that doesn't mean you are autistic or trans, I don't mean to imply that. Just saying I could relate to having felt that in the past, including when I was 21 (i'll be 34 next month), and what ended up being my reason as to why lol.

Granted I wouldn't say I didn't enjoy books with female protagonists, I just couldn't understand them as well. Of course now I read a variety, men, women, nonbinary.

Do you think because you're a woman that you should prefer only female protagonists & female authors? I'm female & have no preference between male or female authors/protagonists, neither do my friends...We like good books with good characters & plots. I don't think you have any reason to be concerned - enjoy whatever books you read & don't be concerned about who the author is or which characters you enjoy more...Just read

>"Both of my favourite books have zero female characters in them"

Out of curioisty, what are your favourite books without female characters?

I'm a straight guy and mostly prefer to read and consume media with female leads. It's really nothing that strange. I don't dislike male protagonists, but I tend towards reading female protagonists and so on.

It's not strange, and it's not internalised misogyny. It's just a preference.

Could be they are just badly written characters, you become insecure while reading the women characters or you don’t like how fake a lot of the world is so you hate it in books and the men characters you read tend to be more “idgaf”.

I saw you like horror and gore so reading about the ugliness in humanity sounds like the reason you prefer men characters. The majority of women characters that I have found are heroes or victims and if they’re villains they’re usually just petty or not too evil. Note: I don’t read a lot of books on women villains so this is strictly my opinion.

But I’m sure there are plenty of books with lead women that are in your genre. I would recommend some but don’t read horror much besides gothic type (think Mexican Gothic, which is written by a woman with lead woman) and that probably doesn’t have enough gore for you.

I'm not into horror/thriller, though I will read it on occasion because I do like to try and branch out, but I mainly stick with fiction/fantasy. When I read fantasy, it tends to be YA.

I'm like your friends, where I prefer female protagonists/writers, ESPECIALLY when I listen to it. I just do not enjoy male narrators. However, my husband and I recently took a trip to New Orleans and we started listening to Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice. He loves this series, buy I've never read it (it's Horror, not my thing). Although I did enjoy it, I could only handle about 2-3 hours of it on our 13 hour drive, but I digress...

My problem with female protagonists in fiction is they're almost always the same...a young girl who doesn't see her potential and is "weak" and "fragile" until she has to save the world. I find this trope to be annoying. The opposite of this doesn't annoy me AS MUCH, but still annoying (girl who thinks she is a badass and doesn't need a man until she finds one she falls in love with and then suddenly finds she has a heart). It's hard to find a good middle ground between the two. I wonder if these tropes are what annoy you about female writers/protagonists, or at least adds to your annoyance?

I would offer Elizabeth Moon's female characters in Deed of Paksenarrion and Vatta's War. Also, David Weber and Terry Pratchett are men who wrote female protagonists who are very interesting to me.

I don't read a lot of horror, but both romance and horror can be genres where the females are the opposite of heroic and I like to read about heroes.

In terms of gender I did have somewhat of a preference when growing up, although I can only see this in hindsight really. I never picked up or dropped a book based on the gender of the author or protagonist, but I did find that written women were much more relatable than written boys or men.

When I was younger it would be something like Matilda, or the Inkheart series. When I was older It was a lot of YA like the Hunger Games series, or The Mortal Instruments series. While I never turned away from books written by or lead by any one gender I did usually come away with, if not positive feelings, then neutral feelings about the protagonist when it was girl/woman.

When it came to written men, I found that I had a hard time relating to the boys/men in books. This sentiment is growing less true as I age, and didn't necessarily impact the verisimilitude of a book. I didn't, and often still don't relate to men as much as I do women.

The most relatable character, in terms of my own gender, that I read when I was younger was Holden Caulfield. Not in exactness, but more in his thought process. It was the first time I read a boy that was closer to my experience. He thought about girls, but he had other anxieties besides that occupied him. He overthought everything, and he had problems that dogged his thoughts stemming from very real things and others not so real. I haven't read the book in ages so I can't be any less vague, Sorry.

As for yourself, I'm not sure. We read what we find, or what we look for based on our preferences. Maybe the sphere of reading you're searching just doesn't have many well written women. Do you have any tittles you mind dropping in the reply?

I'm not sure if I gave you the discussion you're looking for, but these were the thoughts that came to mind after reading your post.

I feel like I can’t relate to many female protagonists. So I generally get frustrated reading their thoughts and assumptions, daily habits, mindsets, etc.

Idk I guess if they’re female I would want them to be relatable, whereas if it’s a male lead it’s ~interesting~ to see how different they are from me 😂

Makes no sense, I know. I guess sometimes I like to picture myself as the protagonist when female so when they’re too different from me, it’s a turnoff.

Different strokes for different folks. I don't think their is a right or wrong. I like both but also I do understand what your say as their are subtle differences which might be meaningful to your enjoyment.

I honestly think it is health in a way to enjoy what the other sex has to say.

Right now it's en vogue to highlight female experiences in media, with women as protagonists being extremely common in books, TV and movies. Same with creators who are women.

Maybe these books are coming off as white noise since it's so common these days? I know I feel that way (I'm a man though). I have nothing against it but it feels like every bit of new media is sort of the same.

Too bad for you. Jane Austen is the SHIT!!!!

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It might be the genre.

I used to be the same and then I made a point to read more female authors and I've found several I like a lot. Toni Morrison and Yaa Gyasi are 2 that I particularly like. I've read 5 of Toni Morrison's books in the past year and loved each one. Also they are only like 200-300 pgs so not a huge commitment, maybe try one.

Are you reading current, contemporary novels, or everything? Keep trying. When I find the author that clicks for me, I don't care if the author is male or female, or who the protagonist's sex is. If it's great writing and a good story I am hooked.

Because so many are self inserts and “I’m special because I’m me” shit. You’re right for not liking them.

A lot depends on how well the book is written. Most of my life I was a romance fan, but not the gooy, silly female ones.

When my marriage was breaking up I recovered murder mysteries. My favorite author was Connley. I read some Sandelforth but his books seemed to repeat themselves.

Now I am a huge fan of books about women during WWII in Europe. I look for ones based on real events. I have read some excellent one and some really stupid ones. I won't bother with the authors of the stupid ones again.

Those books all have women doing unusual, for them, and important things. These women were doing men's work while the men were away fighting and dying.

Two of my favorite are The Rose Code and The Girl With No Name.

Very different books Rose Code is about the female codebreakers and the The Girl With No Names is about a young German Jewish girls who is put on the Kindertransport and her life in England after that. both are good for different reasons

Though none of them fall under the category of horror unless you consider what Hitler was doing horror.

I am f(37) who loves historical adventures, historical fiction and historical fantasy. So much so that I attempted to write my own. I showed my writing to my uncle (who's been publishing books for years), and he said "If I hadn't known this was written by you, I would've thought a man wrote it."

It's been seven years. I'm still not sure how I feel about that comment.

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I am not realizing reading thru the comments, it’s because I immediately compare them to myself as a woman.

Hmmm. I'm wondering if this is a bit of confirmation bias, in that you may only be picking up books with poorly written women, which is more common than one would like. What books have you tried that you ended up not liking? Maybe the genre just isn't sticking for you for some reason.

Internalized misogyny?

When I was in my teens I found myself mostly preferring male artists. Music, authors, actors, you name it. I'm now 26 (f btw) and I find I highly prefer art produced by women! I've also adapted far more feminist views with age. I'm not sure if the two relate, but they definitely can both change throughout the years! I don't think it's anything to take too seriously, like what ya like.

As a man, I often strongly prefer books from a woman’s perspective. Who knows?!

In some books, I find the female protagonist to be like a cookie-cutter version of herself. They are served with choices and opportunities—another factor I noticed was behaviorism. As someone who identifies as female, some of the behavioral traits are predictable. This makes me less interested in the character s' personality and looking forward to a more challenging plot.

internalized misogyny will do it

Maybe, the books that you read are just bad books, or not to yojr taste. Not because of the female protagonistism. Good book is always a good book, even if the main character is litterally an orge.

I have a different explanation than a lot of commenters here.

If you're reading traditionally published books, the publishers select novels based on whether they think they will do well with a certain demographic. So they will push female protags in genres/books that they think will do well with women, and push male protags in genres/books that they think will do well with men.

You might just be finding that it's very difficult to find a trad publisher who decided to publish a female protag in a genre you enjoy.

As an example in an adjacent field, 99.999% of shounen anime (Pokemon, Yugi-oh, One Piece) have a male protag despite cross-gender appeal.

I relate as a guy

Mostly cuz books by girls target girls Especially in the romance department

Ah yeah "female protagonists" and "female authors" a totally homogeneous category. Absolutely no differences

Don't know. I am not looking to connect as some do. For me as someone who loves sci-fi, and fantasy I just want escapism into a complex fantastical world, or a future that may or may not exist. Maybe female authors don't delve enough into topics you are interested in hence your push towards male authors who do.

I think that is something you are going to have to answer for yourself. It could be a combination of internalized misogyny and poor writing of female characters. If you can't connect with them in some way, that makes it harder to like them.

Personally, I when I was younger I was definitely a tomboy and considered my more masculine qualities to be better than my feminine ones. At times in my life that's changed and, now that I think of it, I enjoyed those times of embracing my feminine side. Maybe you have a strong masculine side to your personality that you are more comfortable with. It's ok, but just keep in mind that you should still give female protagonists a chance in the future. You may not feel like this forever.

Well it depends on the type of stories you like.... One book I loved was the Mageborn traitor but then again I am fantasy and sci Fi kinda guy....

Dragon lance has lots good female characters and male characters that are pretty interesting....

I usually prefer classical books, and don't care about protagonist's gender. The only time i do care is when i want to read about specific topic, for example, related to social issues. Sometimes, i want to get a different perspective, and that does not mean that i can totally relate to a character. When i read a book with a black protagonist, teenager protagonist, etc., i just want to look at things through lens of their experience and struggle. In fact, human problems, drama, struggle have been the same throughout the history, i believe, so I can also relate to male protagonist, trying to figure out who he is, looking for meaning of life, because it's much more common experience than we tend to think

Check your messages

Sounds like misogyny

As a lark, try "Me Before You" by Jojo Moyes. The female protagonist surprised me.

I find that female protagonists written by male authors have the emotion range of a doorknob and no matter who they're supposed to be, they cry at the drop of a hat and have no other coping strategies than that.

I think female characters are written mostly by males or for males.

(I might be wrong)

I don't have a preference for authors, but I do think male comedians are funnier. Feel ashamed for it also.

A lot of female protagonists are mary sues, the most recent and easily recognisable one from popular media would be Rey from disney star wars. Perhaps tht's something you're picking up on, there are plenty of well written femal protags however, just have to find the right book.
As for the sex of the author, that does not matter, and should never be considered when buying a book.
If anyone tells you otherwise they are unequivocally a sexist and highly bigoted.

What are some books you do enjoy? You mention you identify with men more easily. Is it possible you are trans or nb perhaps?

Female authors write about feelings, and male write about events. Yes, I am generalizing a lot. But you get the point. In movies as well, you can tell pretty fast if it was written by a man or woman.

Because they suck!

Women in literature and film definitely cannot be complicated. They are single note good at everything they have to do. There is never any learning curve. They are just good at everything. I hope it doesn't need to be said that that is not how anything works for anyone, including women.

Women can never be strictly monogamous. They always have to be in constant love triangles and rectangles trying to figure out which hot guy she has to bone. I hate to be the one that brings this up, but that is hardly how it works in the real world. Both women, and men, usually have one target whom they want to get in bed. There is nothing wrong with that!

Constant wokeness, rather than having an actual personality.

Women in fiction are absolutely horrible! No wonder everyone, including women, hate them!

You know you are asking for nothing but the pop psychologists and those who like to decide others have prejudices that need to be labeled with negative slurs don't you? You're unlikely to get any real insight. I have none to offer so will remain quiet, although maybe it's simply a preference and so what. Why does someone like Anime, or video games, or those ugly American Place dolls, or a host of all kinds of things that some large section of the population loves but few others get? Who knows why, and what does it matter anyway.

Same... Though I am a male. I vastly prefer male authors and somewhat male protagonists, to the point that I used to avoid books by female authors. Though after a few good recommendations, I would say it's probably only a minor bias in comparison.

Maybe you just have a slightly more masculine mindset about things? Everyone's mind is unique in its own way I guess.

Among all the books that I've read I can't hardly remember a single well written female character. They're mostly flat and utterly stereotypical. For this reason I tend to prefer books featuring only male characters, to make sure to avoid all this bullshit. I think historically there's still much more misunderstanding of female nature compared to male one. That's why male characters are subjectively more universal and flexible and make a better vessel for a wide range of writers' endeavors.

At the same time, some of the best books, in my opinion, were written by female authors. But still about male characters.