From Ponyboy to Potter

So I was looking through my depressingly limited collection of books the other day and ran across something that interested me. Amidst the hastily-read summer reading books from high school, I found Rumble Fish by S. E. Hinton. I opened it up with memories of the failed comprehension test flooding back into my mind, and flipped through the pages. Printed on the inner back cover of the book was the "about the author" blurb. I began to read it.

"S. E. Hinton wrote her..."

I stopped.

S. E. Hinton is a girl? I thought. I mean, I was always aware that female authors some time ago wrote in pen names to be taken seriously as authors, but I definitely didn't know it was still done!

I sat on this discovery for the majority of this week until tonight when I did some research on the female pen name phenomenon. Come to find out, S. E. Hinton was persuaded by her publisher to go by S. E. because of the plot of The Outsiders, her first novel. They said that because of its basis around two rival gangs, that it would probably interest male readers more if a female name not be present on the cover. J. K. Rowling was also told to go by that name by her publisher. The first Harry Potter novel was actually slated to be released with the name Joanne Rowling on the cover, but it was changed for the same reason.

It was very interesting that modern female authors still share a degree of the same sexism that was experienced over one hundred years ago. When authors like like Mary Ann Evans wrote under aliases, it was because male readers would not have taken them seriously otherwise. When authors like J. K. Rowling write under gender-neutral names, it is also because they would find male reader appeal much more difficult without the change. Clearly things have evolved drastically in the last century, but will things ever evolve enough?