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Gendered Genre Terminology: Books for Men

Becky Stone

Staff Writer

Becky Stone loves to read stories about princesses who save themselves and firmly believes that a mug of hot chocolate paired with the right novel can solve almost any problem. Becky recently did that thing where you leave your safe, easy job to try to make money doing what you love, and is now a professional jewelry lover and freelance writer. You can find more of Becky at her blog, Diamonds in the Library, where she writes about both jewelry and books. Twitter: @DiamondsintheLi

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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
  • Dick lit
  • Broetry
  • All-boys boarding school noir
  • Beefcake Bildungsroman
  • Ars Broetica
  • Stallion science fiction
  • Virile fairy tale
  • Pee-wee philosophy
  • Rugged tragicomedy
  • He-man gothic
  • Paterfamillial paranormal fantasy
  • Mandventure
  • Urban lumberjack fantasy
  • Bro’s prose
  • Boys-will-be-boys postmodern occupational fiction
  • Ron Swanson-ology
  • Young buck novella
  • Epic fantasy (rife with breasts)
  • Jock tearjerker
  • Self-help books for lesser men
  • Bromance

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.

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