Is there some sexism happening here?

It has just occured to me - in a blinding flash of the obvious, dawn breaks over Marblehead - that in crime fiction, the MEN write about MEN and the WOMEN write about WOMEN.  And they almost never ever cross that bright line.  Furthermore, there are a lot fewer books with female protagonists, at least in the collections that I've read. 

Now, there are some exceptions.  Magdalen Nabb's man in Florence was Guarnaccia, and there are Louise Penny, Ann Cleeves, Grace Brophy, and Donna Leon writing about men.  (Many about Italian men.  Is it the men, or Italy, or the food?)  But other than Michael Genelin (Jana Matinova), have I come across many male writers have female protagonists?  (Charles Todd is sui generis, being a mother and son who write together under a pseudonym about a man.)  There are some men who write excellent supporting female characters:  Christopher Fowler's Janice Longbright and Phoebe and Sarah and really all the messed-up gals in Benjamin's Black's works are compelling characters in their own right, essential participants if not the driver of the plot. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough. 

Women write about women.  Rebecca Cantrell gave us the interesting Hannah Vogel, negotiating Nazi Berlin, and Cara Black's Aimee Leduc charges around Paris.  And Charles Todd has that nurse, Bess whatshername Crawford doing good in WW1 England.  (They are equal opportunity that way.)

It has also just occured to me that generally speaking, I don't find the female protagonists that appealing.  Do I judge them more harshly?  Do they not meet my preconceived notions of what a crime-solver should be?  Do I just not want to deal with girl problems?  I liked Hannah Vogel, am on the fence about Jana Matinova, and couldn't stand Aimee Leduc.  Have I just been conditioned in some nefarious social manner to prefer male protagonists? 

I don't actually think there is much sexism happening here, but I like phrase, from Caitlin Moran's How To Be a Woman, "is some sexism happening to you?"  Her litmus test for sexism is, is this polite or not?  I believe I am being perfectly polite in my interpretations of these characters.  But am I viewing them all through some social goggles that I didn't realize I was wearing?  Am I aiding and abbeting some sexism without knowing it? 

The Italians

Talk about inspiring dinner.  Italian detectives are the best-fed on the planet. Here's another catch-up post.
I've discussed my fave, Andrea Camilleri, in another post here on CP.  I never really cottoned to Donna Leon's series set in Venice, although I know many adore her just as much as I do Cammilleri.  I tried a couple, and they felt a bit complicated, dare I say, too Venetian, for my taste.  But I've got a whole bunch on my bookcase, so if you want to borrow any, stop by. 

Italian crime seems strongly defined by place.  There is also a series set in Florence, by a British writer named Magdalen Nabb.  Our hero, such as he is, is known as Marshal Guarnaccia, who must deal with tourists and the carabinieri alike, and it is not entirely clear which irritates him more.  He is closer in spirit to Montalbano (he is, in fact, also Sicilian, which makes him something of an anomaly in fab Firenze) than anyone else I've come across, and the stories are similarly dry in their telling.  They aren't particularly complicated but I always feel vaguely lost, which I've come to think is actually the sign of a good crime novel.  Who wants to figure it all out in the third chapter?
 
I also read a couple of Grace Brophy's Commissario Alessandro Cenni series, set in Assisi.  They weren't bad but I was deeply into Camilleri and Nabb at the time, and these didn't stand out, so on to the shelf they went.  I seem to recall that Cenni really liked tramezzini, which are a kind of thin Italian sandwich, just a bit twee when put up against Salvo's housekeeper Adelina's caponata.

I've got an Aurelio Zen (Michael Dibdin) next to the tub, that I've been meaning to get to, having sort of enjoyed the television adaptation of a year or so ago.  The TV version was not ideal because some of the actors were British, and some were Italian, so that was distracting.  But you know, anything set in Rome offers some distraction, and with its good-looking cast and Mad Men-cool music, this was no exception.

I guess maybe I haven't read that many Italians after all, but perhaps they are as my friend Dan says of pizza and other pleasures, even when bad, they have their redeeming qualities.