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Notes -
Women purchase a lot more fiction than men, a trend that goes back at least to the early 90s and precedes the dominance of female authors in the market. The share of female authors in general ticked sharply upwards starting in the 70s but only cracked 50% in the last couple of years. Why this is I'm not sure. When I was in high school a couple of years ago all the girls read for fun but few boys did. Men tend to read non-fiction a lot more than fiction but even there I think women read a bit more.
Women buy more fiction: "We must cater to women, they are our natural market"
Men buy more fiction: "We must cater to women, they are an untapped/underserved market"
And your reference for women purchasing a lot more fiction than men?
So, at least in 1997, they didn't even know. It was just a "widely held belief" that couldn't be documented.
In fact, that same reference makes the case that, if there is such an effect, it's push rather than pull -- publishers are refusing works which appeal to men:
Do publishers really cater to men? Or do they have imprints that minimally cater to men in ways that people who aren’t men think won’t give men harmful notions? For example, I have some French comic adaptations of Conan stories that are amazing. They’re full of action, adventure and excitement. The original short stories are also included, as if daring the reader to find fault with their adaptation. I have heard that modern domestic comic productions of Conan are less intense by comparison.
The preceding text was fed through my sensitivity reader.
This is obnoxious. Stop it.
Stop doing it, or stop saying I'm doing it?
Sigh. Both?
We have already modded people for using ChatGPT to write posts without announcing they were doing this. It's disingenuous and not speaking clearly.
OTOH, this schtick where you pretend that golly-wolly you just don't know how to write words that won't randomly "trigger" people anymore is also disingenuous and obnoxious.
(If you think I'm being harsh, you should read the reports. Nobody is impressed by this routine, dude.)
Realistically, if your "sensitivity reader" is good enough not to be obvious, I am not going to play "spot the AI," so sure, go ahead and have ChatGPT rewrite your posts for you and treat it like a proofreading pass, minus the passive-aggressive "sensitivity reader" bitching.
That said, come off it.
I'm unconcerned with impressing anyone. Have any reports been for language, being uncharitable or combative? No? Then I consider it a resounding success.
Keep doing it. The mods here have gone back to their old ways of banning people for basically nothing beyond "This hurts my feelings.", so please do keep hoisting them on their own petard.
They have appointed themselves as the sensitivity readers of everyone else's posts, so there's no reason not to run your own through one and spread the word. Any disapproval they express is nothing more than their hypocritical butthurt at having competition they can't control.
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