The Female Author

When I was younger I thought it was important for me to be beautiful. It was more important to me than being smart. I thought all women had to be pretty, and that's probably because Disney princess movies drilled it into my head. When I got older I found that looks played a big part in the way women were treated, and I never found myself being taken as seriously as a male would have. In fact, in high school I remember some boy in my class said that he believed women should stay home and take care of the house. I found that female students were expected to take classes like Home Economics in high school, while the male students got picked on for doing the same. When I entered the working world I found that I got paid very little. I got paid less than male workers who had easier jobs than I did. I know the same would be true no matter what job I got. A few years into my adult life I got a job working at an automotive place. My job was to sell tires and oil changes to the customers (sometimes I changed oil as well). Sometimes when I was working and a female would stop by she would ask for a male to talk to about her car. This wasn't to see what the problem was, or to do anything physical to her car, these women just didn't trust that a woman was smart enough to know anything about tires and oil. Every time a woman would do this I would go find the man who knew the least about cars and bring him out, tell him that the woman didn't think I could help her because I was female, and let the two of them talk. More often than not, the woman got confused. Women make rude comments to me. I was often the only woman in that department so they felt the need to make rude comments. I still don't understand why a woman would try to hurt another woman like that. Clearly I needed a job, my dream was not to sell tires for my entire life. What does this have to do with writing, or being a female author? Well, last night I was on twitter and I got a couple of new followers. I followed them back, and within a few minutes there was a message in my inbox. It was a man pretty much demanding me to add him to facebook and instagram. As of right now, I only have a personal facebook and instagram. I told the man that and he responded with what I'm sure where lyrics to a Nikki Minaj song. It occurred to me that he didn't want to read what I'm about to publish, he just wanted to see more pictures of me. I realized that all female authors, or just females in the public eye must get the same treatment. We are judged by our looks and not by our actions or intellagence. If I looked different would I still have as many followers? I remembered how angry I was at an article I'd read not too long ago about way women's book covers are designed. Most are either pastel and girly, or have two figures in a romantic embrace. Those are the covers that are meant to draw us in, and stop men from reading what could be a very good book. Most men aren't going to go to Barnes and Noble and pick out books with those covers, even if the story is meant for both sexes. This almost makes me want to upload books with blank covers. I know the cover is meant to draw people in, but why does the cover have to consist of pink and purple fluff just because a woman wrote it? I remember how mad I was at J.K. Rowling for writing a book under a man's name. I didn't care that she had a pen name, or that she was writing something different to draw in new fans. I was mad that she took a man's name. It was like saying a woman wasn't smart enough to write that book. A woman who made people fall in love with her words in the Harry Potter universe was ashamed to write under a woman's name. A woman can, and did write that book. She should be proud of herself for writing a book, not hiding under a man's name to get people to buy the book. I had looked up to Ms. Rowling until she did that. Female writers should be taken just as seriously as male writers, and to make that happen we need to start buying more books written by female writers. We need to step outside of our comfort zones and give a chance to the women who have probably had to work harder then men to get their book published. We need to pick up those pink and purple fluff covered books and walk proudly to the corner with the intent of purchasing that book. Please read more books by female authors.