[hildea]

Originally Posted by HarryT

With the very greatest respect, hildea, I was addressing what the article actually said. It said that its author found the books on the list "shockingly offensive". That is the issue I addressed in the post you kindly referenced.

The article says, and I quote:

I was making the point that to called a book "offensive" simply because it reflects the social attitudes of its time, which differ from those of today, is silly. Do you disagree?

I agree, mostly.

"Mostly" because sometimes I do find myself suprised and disappointed (which I'd translate to "shocked" if I was writing a clickbait article) by attitudes in old books -- like when I found my ABC from 1975, and was dismayed by how sexist it was. Growing up at that time, I remember boys and girls playing together, and gender neutral toys instead of this "pink is for girls, the rest of the rainbow is for boys" which plagues us from the toy industry today. So when I found my ABC giving the message: "Boys are childish and can be expected to make messes and destroy things, girls are mature and can be expected to tidy up after the boys", that surprised me, a lot. (This message is, of course, unfair against both girls and boys. Stereotypes hurt everybody.)

We still disagree about whether Lutgendorff is complaning about old books versus the presence of old books on a new list, but others have made the same point, and I'm not sure I have anything to add.

Also, there are more interesting points raised in this thread, so I'll go on to some of them.

Originally Posted by HarryT

That's fair enough, but does that fact that a book has a gender imbalance mean that it's offensive? Jane Austen's books all have female protagonists, but that doesn't offend me as a male reader. Why should I be offended if an author chooses to write books from a female (or male) perspective? That's their free choice. I may choose not to read such a book, but I'm not offended by it. The romance genre today is completely dominated by books aimed at women. I don't find that offensive. Why should a woman be offended at works of SF and fantasy targeted at a male readership?

I'd like to unpack this. Note: I'm not saying the following statements are things you said -- it's possible extensions of what you described, which you may or may not agree with, with my opinions on them:

• An author writes only, or most, protagonists of one gender. No problem. Describes several of my favourite authors.
• An author writes only, or most, characters of one gender. Other characters tend not to do interesting things in their stories, and are mostly described in terms of their relationship to the dominant gender. I'll probably want to avoid such books, and will be grateful for reviewers who point them out to me.
• A genre contains only, or most, protagonists of one gender. Might be a problem. I'd certainly understand and might actively support efforts to increase the balance -- like specialised anthologies and other efforts to raise awareness among readers, authors, and publishers.
• A genre has more readers among one gender than the other. No problem. But if this is used to justify making fans of the minority gender feel unwelcome, or dismiss their concerns, that is sexist, and a problem. (As an aside, I agree with meera that SF and fantasy has a lot of readers of all genders -- might not be 50/50, but probably not terribly far from that.)
• An author says their books are aimed at one gender. If they mean they expect to have a majority of readers among one gender, that's no problem (though it may or may not be accurate). But if this is used to justify -- well, see previous point.
• Someone says a genre is aimed at one gender. See the two previous points.
• Someone says a book is aimed at a specific gender based on the gender of the protagonist, or that they themselves will only read books with protagonists with the same gender as themselves. Silly and narrowminded.