I’m looking for fiction books where male characters are experiencing things usually expierienced by women.
For example, being treated in a sexist way by people of matriarchal and misandryst society or reliving the memories of their female ancestor/s or being suddendly treated exacly the same as their sisters or being sexually harrased and/or sexualised and feeling uncomfortable and scared becouse of it etc.
Can be either magical, scientific or completly realistic, any genre is fine.
by MarzannaMorena
7 Comments
“A Brother’s Price” by Wen Spencer is set in a world where men are rare, marry all the sisters in a family, and are heavily protected from the world (lest someone kidnap them to make babies). The authorial intent is very clearly to set up a world where men occupy a ‘feminine’ social position. The protagonist, Jerin, is a farm boy who falls in love with a dashing, but damage, princess.
Now for the warning: this was written in the 90’s, when it was common for fantasy-romance books to have teenaged heroines and adult love interests. Jerin’s is 16, the princesses are in their 20’s. I age him up, mentally.
I’m pretty sure it’s YA, but The Power by Naomi Alderman. From a graphic novel standpoint, Y: The Last Man.
Far future sci fi with inverted gender norms/prejudices:
* [Glory Season by David Brin](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/834670.Glory_Season). Set in a majority female colony on an alien planet.
* [The Bel Dame Apocrypha series by Kameron Hurley](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/9359818). The population of men has been depleted due to generations of war. One nation became very patriarchal and traditional, with each rare man having multiple wives who all wear veils are defer to him, while in the opposing nation, gender roles are inverted with the tough, working women viewing men as delicate rarities to be protected but also targets of sexual assault.
* [The Moon and the Other](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30753686-the-moon-and-the-other) by John Kessel. I have not read this book yet.
* [Accelerando by Charles Stross](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17863.Accelerando). Society doesn’t have inverted gender norms like the other books on this list, but it does include more than one male character having typically feminine experiences.
Oh man I have the perfect rec for you. One of my favorite books is Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides which tells the story of a character who was raised as a girl. She then discovers that she is intersex and transitions to male. There’s a lot of reflections on the fluidity and complexities of gender identity. I would also count this as historical fiction because you’ll learn so much about Greek history and diaspora in America.
Altered Carbon, Morgan, as elements of this.
I Will Fear No Evil by Robert A. Heinlein
I won’t spoil it, but a male billionaire wants to live forever and offers a million dollars for a volunteer willing to offer their body. He makes no specifics for sex.
_The Power_, by Naomi Alderman