Hi everyone.

Female lead options on webnovel are all Sexist and relegated only to romance.

This is like wn telling us that the only thing of interest regarding women is romance, and sex.

If you click any of the genres under female lead, like fantasy, or scifi, it automatically becomes: Fantasy Romance, Scifi romance.

Every genre under female lead options is romance based. This is Sexist!

Why can a female lead not be in a non romance novel!

We all love The Hunger Games by Suzan Collins, why then are novels like those, with a badass woman like Katniss Everdeen institutionally excluded from being represented on webnovel?

You can litterally not place them in a matching category or genre without saying the lead is male.

Am I the only person here who think that is wrong?
How many stories have been silenced by this design flaw in webnovel?

Once more webnovel is missing out on money over something rediculous, this time by refusing female leads for anything other than romance.

Sincerely,

A disgruntled reader.

    Hatake_Shirou
    In fact, the #1 app of the category does the same (both on Ios and Android). It's an app that says women only want romance, CEOS, millionaires, and werewolves cheap erotica. And guess what? They earn twice what Webnovel does sheltering more diversity. That's what MOST women like, numbers said it.
    You and I can be exceptions, but we don't pay Webnovel $2M a month (it's the #1 app revenue).
    Webnovel is migrating from translated Asian novels for male readers to a more diverse public because they won't do money only on it. But, the fact is, statistically women read more than men.
    When I first came here, there were just a few female novels that weren't Chinese-centric or translated from Chinese. And the number of female novels was ridiculously lower, too. Now, romance novels took over.
    Webnovel decided to go with the flow, and not against it. So they're not missing out on money, as you said, but earning more.

        SrtaA they don't have to be massively inclusive about it, just having the option there makes a diffrence.

        Were talking marketing here, they got no niche, a massively rigit featured page and generally expect optimal yields without any effort.

        That's like shitting in a desert and expecting it to be full of sunflowers the next day because you ate a sunflower seed a few days before.

        Had they been streamlining for specific audiences and markets then I would agree with you. But they don't. They do everything half assed, add new features that no one uses and neglect making the actual ones in use function optimally.

        This post is resultant of an example of that.

        You can be all defensive about it but all you said actually came down to the simple fact that wn did it again. Being half assed in everything when supposedly trying to mimic the top app.

        Here's what they do good at tough: the app is a fantastic platform to read on. The only thing keeping me here is because it's my prefered reader.

        Content wise, it's been piss poor and fill of spam content not applicable to me, so I only really bother with the fanfic sections on occasion.

          Yeah. You're right. But money is what will make them change their minds.

            It's a marketing decision, so data and profit speaks. There isn't really anything else about it.

              Grand_Void_Daoist I mean, if it were a marketing thing, wouldn't it make more sense to market it as "for males" and "for females" instead of "male lead" and "female lead?" Having all female-lead stories automatically go under romance can lead to false advertising too; just cause the lead is female doesn't necessarily mean there will be romance (though, to be fair, on this site it seems like most female-lead stories are romance lol).

                Lost that argument yonks ago here. WN is about money and tradition. Traditionally speaking, the WN catalog system has been operating on the gender split for years. They aren't the only ones.

                We work the best we can with the flawed system and just go with the flow.

                  Well I would wish for WN not to care about male/female at all but Genres/Categories and tags alone.

                  Everyone can create a new tag so to speak. Would be better if Webnovel creates a valid list of Tags people can choose without being able to create own tags. Anf for people who want to get male-MC or female-MC..... that can be a tag as well

                  And use the display of novels better based on genre, subgenre and tags

                    xHarlosx there already is a tag system. If u search for a tag you will get books of that type. Or you can click on the tags in the book synopsis.

                        I feel the same way honestly. I'm a female and yet I don't read that many romance novels (now romance anime is another story). Currently writing an FL Action/Fantasy novel and apparently, they made it a "Fantasy Romance?" They should add a lot more diversity to the platform because, news-flash, my story has no romance!

                        a year later

                        For the sake of reaching the right audience, I put my female-lead story as a male-lead fantasy one on purpose. Yes, is focused more on the adventure than the romance aspect. Man just gotta find the system loopholes.

                          The Genres thing is more about target audiences. If your novel has a female lead but is about system/fantasy/action/etc more than romance, putting it as male leading will bring you readers interested in it, which aren't necessarily male, just that the category of such novels is put as "male leading" because most male audiences is what are interested in this. Don't worry, there is plenty of guys interested in reading about girls being badass, just not as many as guys being badass, so it si kind of niche, but still profitable

                          a month later
                          a year later

                          Hatake_Shirou
                          What you are whining about is true, but your conclusion about sexism is - sorry - stupid.

                          I'd love a book with a strong female protagonist without romance, better even without romance, harem and sex.

                          But wtf has THAT to do with sexism? Are you stupid? Sorry. :-(

                              Sadly, I have a female mc, but my novel doesn't focus on romance but on action and war. I also want to cater to the female audience, but my only option was fantasy romance, which isn't ideal for my novel. So, I chose the ml audience because it has the fantasy genre.

                              Dwarkin A lot of people care. I constantly see people complaining about the sexist gender split. Plus, as an author, it sucks posting here when you have a nonromance female lead story. Either you say your story has a male lead or your get drowned out by the endless romance stories.

                              You might argue that authors should just not write a story with a female protagonist. But the problem with that is female protagonists are the trendy thing to do nowadays in the west. A lot of people enjoy and look for stories with a female protagonist. I can even see what people had searched for to read my current novel and the majority of people searched for the tag Female Lead on Royal Road.

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