Diversity Audit Update: Paranormal & Sports
This week was busy with classes, but I managed to get all of Paranormal and Sports entered into the data spreadsheet. Below are the results for those two genre sections.
Paranormal was very closely aligned with Dystopian: a lot of female authors with female main characters, which was better than Adventure as far as gender goes, but still not very diverse at all. In fact there was more author and main character female representation in Paranormal than in Dystopian, which I didn’t think was possible. (LOL) Another plus for Paranormal is the fact that it increased in Latinx authors. Unfortunately, the rest of the ethnicities are very low just like the other genre sections I have completed already. Main character ethnicity and race was worse than Dystopian and I was hoping it would be higher. Paranormal has been the worst section so far in Main Character Characteristics with only 2 Plus Size characters, 11 characters from the LGBTQIA+ community, and 10 with settings Outside the US. Nothing in any of the other categories. It was very disheartening.
Sports had some surprises and disappointments as well. One celebration is I had my first NonBinary/Trans author, which was a first from any genre section. It was heavily dominated by male authors and main characters, which wasn’t surprising, but disappointing nonetheless. One disturbing realization is that I had several authors that were white writing about Latinx or African-American/Black main characters. I find that problematic, as they don’t have the experience to truly write from that perspective. I weeded most of those books. Sports did have the highest representation of African-Americans, Latinx main characters so far, but the stereotyping was strong with this ethnicity because almost all the Black characters played basketball or football and the Latinx characters played baseball or soccer in the books. That doesn’t mean books about various ethnicities playing sports can’t be written, but when I have the highest rep of Black and Latinx characters and it’s because of a stereotype of them playing a sport some associate with that race, that’s problematic, in my opinion. I need better representation of all races and ethnicities playing all types of sports. I will note that Sports had the best bar graphic under Main Character Characteristics. I’m finally able to see some representation in most of those categories, which made it look more balanced, but still no where near where it needs to be.
One thing I noticed while completing the Sports genre was there was some female empowerment books (i.e. girls going out for football and baseball teams on predominantly male teams and fighting against the patriarchy) as well as social justice and race issues being discussed on various sports organizations. Therefore I decided to add two more categories to Main Character Characteristics: Feminism and Social Justice/Activism/Race. In addition to those additions I also corrected the Plus Size category. When going through the Sports genre I noticed several books that addressed body image and eating disorders for both males and females. So while I know Plus Size and body image issues don’t necessarily go together I did combine them to keep my categories from getting out of control. Many Plus Size books and authors do a fabulous job of promoting positive body confidence so I want to make it clear that I realize the distinction between the two. Plus Size is mostly a positive characteristic while Body Image is something the main character is struggling with, sometimes resulting in an eating disorder, body dysmorphia, and/or drug use. If that is the case I make sure to note a check under Addiction or Trauma Response as well. I will have to go back and adjust all those category changes in Main Character Characteristics in the Adventure, Dystopian and Paranormal diversity audits, but I would rather do that than leave them off because I think they’re important characteristics when looking at purchasing new books. I knew I would run into some issues throughout the process, just like I did with my Genrefication project. I’m okay to go back and make those changes to make the audit as correct and helpful as it can be when completing future book orders.
Scary is next and I’m scared it’s going to be more of the same. Stay tuned!
Paranormal Author Diversity Criteria
Paranormal Main Character Gender Identity
Paranormal Main Character Race/Ethnicity
Paranormal Main Character Characteristics
Sports Author Diversity Criteria
Sports Main Character Gender Identity
Sports Main Character Race/Ethnicity
Sports Main Character Characteristics
