by Ms Bearly

Created on: April 05, 2007   Last Updated: April 30, 2007

When you are a writer, it is already a difficult task to be well-published and represented author. I found that it is much harder to become a female author in certain parts of the world than in others. For different ethnic backgrounds, you are automatically put in categories, which are in certain sections just because you are what you are. For example, if you are an African American writer, no matter what you write, you will be placed in this section. It does not matter if you are the author of an excellently written teen book or if you are the author of a cookbook. You will be placed in the African American authors' section. This was confirmed when I was at a certain bookstore recently looking for a cookbook to give to someone as a gift. Therefore, I immediately looked in the cookbook section. I could not find what I was looking for but knew that they had it. When I asked the salesperson for help, I was taken directly to this section. I was a bit surprised. The same thing happened when I asked for a book that was written as an autobiography for a sports star. I was in the section labeled for biographies and then I looked in the sports section. Instead, it was located in the section coordinating with their ethnic background.

Amongst other findings, I noticed that if you are a musician or have anything pertaining to a type of art instead of what it is that you are writing about, you will most likely be found there and not actually in the section that corresponds with the subject matter.
So, do I think that the book industry still sees the world split by race? I say yes, but not just by race. It is my opinion that the industry is also divided by your sex. I also cannot help but think about the trials and tribulations that the author of the Harry Potter books, J. K. Rowling, must have gone through just to become one of the most wealthiest entertainers around once someone decided to focus on her writings as a work of art instead of her sex. I recall reading an article about her when she said that she used initials instead of her name because she feared that the target audience of young boys might be reluctant to buy books written by a female author.' After reading this, I did a test of my own about this and I would have to say that she was right.
From a list of popular books on the Scholastic books list, I picked out four different ones by four different authors and presented them to sixteen fifth graders. The group consisted of eight boys and eight girls. Two authors

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