Gendered Genre Terminology: Books for Men
Let’s talk about men for a minute. The poor dears.
We women get all these fancy terms to set books about/by/for us apart from the rest – like “chick lit” – while books for men are just left flapping out there in the breeze of general availability.
Why should women get to be marginalized – I mean, specially acknowledged – and men left out so cruelly? It’s unjust.
I’ve drafted this list of proposed man-specific genres that I recommend we work into mainstream book parlance as soon as possible. It’s far too confusing to simply discuss books as books without specifying which gendered shelf they belong on.
I feel that the the following are all as necessary and relevant as their lady-centric equivalents (for example: “Cool Girl Noir” and “Women’s Fiction”).
Manly genre categories:
- Dude lit
- Boy toy thriller
- History (sadly needs no qualifier)
- Men-moirs
- Lecherous math teacher saga
- YMA
- Gentlemanly satire
- RoMANce
- Dystopian Bar Mitzvah
- Mister mystery
Suggested book titles to launch the aformentioned manly genre categories:
- Always a Wingman
- Mansplain Your Way into Her Heart
- A Fantasy Football Fantasy
- But I’m Allergic to Latex
- Bitches in Kitchens
- The Haunted Vibrator
- Accountant With the Heart of a Lion
- Returning The Favor: A Real Thing
- Women Who Love to be Told That They’re Wrong
- After I Left The Seat Up
- How to Take Up More Space on Public Transportation
- The Urinal Caper
- All I Did was Tell Her to Smile
- Ode to My Balls
- It’s Not a Mid-Life Crisis; You’ve Always Wanted a Motorcycle
- Let’s Talk More About The War
- The $8,000 Suit
- Vasectomies Gone Wrong: A Ghost Story Compilation
- 101 Ways to Leer
- Your Uncle’s Secrets
- She Wanted to Cuddle
- Find the Fireman Within You
I’m glad we could sort this out. I look forward to moving together into a brighter future, fellow gendered readers.
