Gender stereotypes are everywhere. Men are supposed to be strong and independent while women are soft and nurturing. Men steer towards the logical while women are more emotional. It’s all BS.

Gender Stereotypes

This kind of stereotyping goes beyond simple character traits. It dares to tell people how they should dress and what jobs they should do. We no longer live in the 1950s with Leave It to Beaver and The Donna Reed Show. If a woman wants to hang up her apron and dive into the workforce, more power to her.

I know better than most what it’s like to work in a male-dominated field. As a woman physician, people assume I must be a nurse and not a doctor. Even when it comes to writing, women are expected to lean into certain genres.

Female Genres

Gender stereotypes are so prominent in writing, women have a genre all their own. Women’s fiction. Wow! I wonder what they call men’s fiction? Oh, right. It’s FICTION.

There seems to be an inherent bias in literature. Joanne Harris says, “Women are still viewed as a niche group, dealing solely with women’s issues, whereas men (even in the same area) are thought of as dealing with important, universal themes.” Women are pigeonholed. It isn’t right and it isn’t fair.

Take romance as an example. It’s a “female” genre. After all, women live with their heads in the clouds, full of unattainable romantic ideals, right? Wrong. Romance is not about meet-cutes or ripped bodices, even if some stories turn to those guilty pleasures. It’s about relationships, and last I knew men had relationships too.

Some of the most famous romances have been written by men. Look at Nicholas Sparks. Other famous male romance authors include Pat Conroy (The Prince of Tides), Arthur Golden (Memoirs of a Geisha), William Goldman (The Princess Bride), F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby), John Green (The Fault in Our Stars), Kevin Kwan (Crazy Rich Asians), Michael Ondaatje (The English Patient), and even William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet).

Male Genres

If romance is a “female” genre, then sci-fi, fantasy, and horror must be for the gents. That’s what you would think considering how often these genres are so often steered toward men. I don’t know about you, but I know plenty of women who enjoy a good story.

Looking for a good dystopia? Thank you, Margaret Atwood. The Handmaid’s Tale still gives me chills, especially as I see those misogynistic tendencies playing out in the real world. Suzanne Collins brought us The Hunger Games and Veronica Roth Divergent. Let’s not forget Naomi Alderman (The Power), Octavia Butler (Parable of the Sower), Christina Dalcher (Vox), and my personal favorite, P.D. James (Children of Men).

J.K. Rowling is the queen of fantasy. Who hasn’t thought about what house they’d be assigned to at Hogwarts? Other well-known women authors that join her in the fantasy world are Tomi Adeyemi (Children of Blood and Bone), Ursula K. Le Guin (The Left Hand of Darkness), Rainbow Rowell (Carry On), and V.E. Schwab (A Darker Shade of Magic).

Stephen King may come to mind when you think of scary stories, but remember that it was a woman, Mary Shelley, who brought us the all-time classic Frankenstein. Anne Rice has scared the bejeezus out of people with her vampire stories and of course, there’s Shirley Jackson with The Haunting of Hill House.

Enough Is Enough

A woman can be frilly or she can be rugged. She may be both depending on the day, but I can tell you one thing for certain — she is a whole lot more than any of that. Likewise for men. Don’t let society box you into a corner. Silly gender stereotypes shouldn’t hold you back from living the life you want.

When you see that both women and men have succeeded across every genre, it is clear that no genre belongs to any one gender. There’s room for all of us. It is really our imagination that sets us apart as individuals. Our drive. Our talents. As a writer, all you have to do is believe in yourself, put the gender stereotyping aside, and write from the heart. As a reader, pick the story that moves you, not the name on the cover.