I've had a good amount of experience with Feminist text, and I have some well read Math major roommates (who I consider to be some of the smartest folks on this campus) who I can talk about these texts with as well, and the conclusion I came to is that a LOT of guys just plain hate Feminist literature. I'm not saying that the stances we take on it are decidedly chauvinistic, it's just that so many of us have a problem connecting with the literature on any level and I'm still not really sure how to solve that in the classroom.
Because it has to be solved right? We need to find some way to bridge the gap between the two worlds. Even in our classroom I noticed that almost without exception it was the girls clamoring for books such as "The Bell Jar" and "Tsotsi", while most of the men were interested in reading Catch-22 and Vonnegut. I think we should have a discussion in class based around the different books people have read, and whether they've read anything and really enjoyed it that they would consider a book "meant for the opposite sex". It would be useful to hear what kinds of things get people into novels that they would normally have a hard time connecting with because of gender differences. I might sound here like I'm drawing some unstoppable, infallible line between the tastes of the two sexes, and I'm not. I know that there is plenty of give and take and plenty of books that people just plain read, but from everything I've seen the solidarity of the differences in literary tastes between the two sexes is surprisingly strong.
Anyway, if anyone has something they want to say about it here, or in class, that would be great. What I want is insight from some of the girls who love books like Jane Eyre or Pride and Prejudice on how they feel about books like Fahrenheit 451 or Vonnegut or Catch-22 etc.
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You bring up some interesting points and I think you go beyond the discussion of bringing feminist theory into the classroom. You're talking about whether or not there are some basic differences in what women like to read.
(I'm going to be riffing here, so not everything I say is in response to what you said, only in reaction to it.)
Obiously, certain books are marketed towards male and female readers, but I don't know if drawing the line at the author's gender is always an accurate indicator. Rowling is a female author and her main character is a boy. The Harry Potter series was loved equally by boys and girls (and men and women). Fantasy fiction has found male and female audiences without regard to the author's gender.
You mentioned Jane Eyre as an example of a text that women would be more likely to read, but I am a big fan of it. I don't approach it with a feminist lens, though. I am much more new historical in my approach to that text.
I want to talk about this more in class.
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