Sexism Is Announced

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, I visited two used book stores. The first was a small shop in a strip mall. A sign on the door thanked customers for voting them their favorite bookstore in a recent poll. Inside, the shop was packed with books. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases leant the shop a claustrophobic atmosphere, and divided the rental space into rooms. 

A kindly old gentleman greeted me at the door. He welcomed me, and asked if I was looking for anything in particular. When I said I was just browsing, he went on to explain how he had organized his store. Off to one side was Women's Literature. This included Romance and Mysteries. "Mysteries?" I asked.

"Only women read--and with a few exceptions, write--mysteries," he replied. Just as the bookshelves differentiated his shop into little rooms containing different genres, he went on to explain that Men didn't write mysteries, they wrote Suspense Thrillers. Again, he asked for a specific author so he could lead me to the section in which he had placed that author's books. When I deferred a second time, he left me to my own devices. 

Intriguingly, Nonfiction, History, and Classical Literature were all in the Men's half of the store.

I wasn't all that impressed with his selection, or the prices of his well-used paperbacks, so I was all-too-happy to leave after a quick tour of the shop.

The second shop was larger, and part of a chain. The selection was vast, and represented a large number of authors. Salespeople were available, but no one tried to lead me to a specific area. Like the first shop, the prices were a little higher than I prefer to pay for used books, but overall the quality of the books was better. My browsing eventually led me to the Clearance area, where I picked up several Science Fiction and Fantasy novels, as well as a Miss Marple novel by Agatha Christie.

At the register, the young counter assistant scanned the old comics and books I had selected. He commented on none of them until he saw the Miss Marple novel. "Ooh, Agatha Christie," he enthused. "She's my favorite author!" He claimed that the novel I had selected, A Murder is Announced was his personal favorite novel. He went on to tell me how Christie occasionally lost him, when she was inundating him with characters at the beginning of a story, but she always made up for it with the quality of her storytelling.

I didn't have the heart to tell him that he was reading Women's Literature. But then, so am I, apparently.

Dragon Dave