Skimming my interests list

[redbird]

rezendi just posted about his self-observed preference for movies and books about men rather than women, wondering what this meant. He also noted that his LJ interests list was skewed far more to male than female writers, performers, and such.

So I did a quick skim of mine, trying not to count duplicates (Le Guin is in there more than once, as is Moxy Fruvous, to catch spelling variants). I got 11 that are clearly about women or work by women (e.g. Mary Gentle, Earthsea); 19 that are clearly about men or work by men (e.g. Sondheim, Space Child's Mother Goose); 6 that are specifically about feminism or gender (including "feminism" and "tiptree award").

There are also lots that don't fit any of these categories--cats, New York City, weightlifting--and one or two that could be counted in here but shouldn't be ("fainting in coils," which I added after I saw it on rysmiel's list).

I don't know what, if anything, this means, especially given that I've been thinking I need to update my "interests" list for a while, and that there are several things that are on there because, at one point or another, people were making a point of adding that specific interest, including "cold girly steel" and "anti-marriage protection week".

Comments

[lizw.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Out of 150 interests, I have:-

3 female characters and 1 male
4 about gender as it relates to women and 0 as it relates to men
0 works by women and 6 by men
1 female author/artist/journalist and 4 male
1 organisation devoted to a female saint and 0 male

Possibly that suggests that women tend to interest me more as a group and men as individuals, but I think more likely it reflects the fact that I've hit the limit for the maximum number of interests :-)

[lysana.livejournal.com]

I would personally look to cultural patterns as an initial reason. It takes specific seeking and rebellion to break out of attention paid to male creators over female in this society.