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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/25174
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/25174
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

It is my belief that male and female readers are more or less the same. There are differences in how we view things, but those differences do not stop us from liking the same book or movie. I can see this clearly on iMDB. If I look at the broken down votes for a movie, I can see that there is a difference between what females and males like, but the difference is negligible. Often only within 0.2 difference.

The below is a screenshot of the broken down voting for Star Wars VII. You can see that females liked it more than males, but that the difference is small:

[![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ntw5C.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ntw5C.png)

**Question:** I recently had someone call this belief into question. He implied that differences between male and female readers are extreme, and said that an author would need to "know a great deal about the significant differences between male and female psychology, neurology, world view, values, motivators, character traits, and 'hooks.'" In a further discussion, he also said that male readers like a hero that they can look up to you, while female readers prefer a hero who is an ordinary person and more human.

I have never heard these claims before. If they are true, then they completly revise everything I've ever heard about character development. So I ask you: is he right? Are female and male readers really that different?

Original score: 12