Writing a woman as a man?

[Prince Alexander]

Alexander - I'm with the Direwolf- how would you come to the conclusion men are easier to write than women?

Well, from what I understand, there are far more female readers than male readers. I don't know if it's fair to thus conclude that female characters have more "reader value", but at the very least there is the "most of your readers know 'female secrets*' that you have no idea about, so you better not screw up and not offend them" factor for a male author to keep in mind. Where for a female author, the majority of her readership is likely as ignorant as her about 'male secrets' (yeah, those - hah - whatever those are). It's a simple matter of numbers.

For that matter, why do we assume women can accurately describe male personality/psychology?

Mm... I didn't say that. Some are better some are worse, some are women, some are men. It's just about there being more readers of one gender than the other, and how that affects the authors.

*"Secrets" being all kinds of things that men don't "get" about women or vice versa.

[Nukelavee]

Rakka - well, I find it hard to believe that you would call me a liar regarding what I find tiresome. Go figure.

I do find those kind of characters tiresome, male or female. Hannibal Lector? tiresome omni-character. Any main character in a Weber or Ringo novel, tiresome. Sure, sometimes it makes for a fun book to read, but it seldom makes for a "good" character.

And there is a huge difference between being "3-dimensional", and being possesed of every possible trait, ability, or skill at levels far beyond everybody else in the story. To be honest, I wonder if you even realize what I meant when I said Friday is both madonna and whore. Basically, she embodies everything, sexually, that a man could possibly desire, as well as being (potentially), the perfect wife, helpmeet, mother. She's Heinlein's ideal, not a realistic female.

Min - Don't lecture me about it not just being about gender in relationships, I'm aware of it, I've done the same-sex thing, and I was aware going IN people in general don't get other people. But, that doesn't invalidate what I said, that women aren't any more adept at "getting" males than the other way around.

I don't think you can actually say "well, women have more characterizations of males in entertainment to draw on, so they can just crib bits from what men wrote", for a number of reasons. One, I seriously doubt men drastically outnumber women as characters in entertainments; main characters, maybe to likely, but...I'm hard pressed to think of books that only feature males, besides some types of military fiction (and then most of the characters are simply nameless cutouts.)

Two - Well, uh, both genders spend their entire lives around the other gender. Personally, I would think that any writer worth their salt realizes that real people trump fictional ones as inspiration or a foundation. (and, isn't that the issue? that female characters DO seem to be simply sketched in, not realistic? Or, maybe you mean women have some inate talent toonly choose the BEST examples of male expression to steal?)

And that leads to, so, umm, really? Did you just say female writers are just copies of male writers?

Alexander - hmm. Now I'm not certain I really get your point, but I'm gonna try to. I think, if I'm getting this properly, that you are saying when a male screws up a female character, it stands out more, because more readers (females) will "get" that it's wrong. On the other hand, a woman might decide a male character is well done, because it fits what she already thinks men are like, and there a fewer (male) readers to disagree.

It's something I do kinda wonder, in that, culturally, it's simply accepted men don't get/understand women, combined with...

Ok, I'm going to use something related as an example/explanation of above. In visual arts, there is a school of thought that says "male artists shouldn't depict the female form, because we only exploit it. However, it's totally cool for female artists to use the male form".

In other words, current cultural thinking is biased towards thinking men are less accurate/honest/etc about depicting females, which means that, by contrast, the assumption is that women do a better job of it with males.

[Verboten]

Writing female characters is difficult because female characters are expected to deal with gender. Male characters are essentially unisex, they have no societal cultural or biological factors that would make the reader think 'hey he can't do that, he's not strong enough' or 'they don't let men into positions of power, how ridiculous'. It's sort of like having a native american character. If you don't bring up cultural issues people will whine about how unrealistic the book is and if you turn the character into a mouthpiece about the trials facing the Aboriginal population people will say it's one-dimensional.

EDIT: Essentially it makes the character stand out to both the readers and author, therefore making them troublesome to write well, and limits the types of backgrounds, religious beliefs and personalities your characters can have.

EDIT 2: For any non-Canadians reading this supplant Aboriginal with whatever ethnicity your country looks down upon the most.

[Rakka]

I didn't understand from your post that you meant an overpowered mary sue with "omni-character", sorry.

But considering... I'm happily genderqueer, with boobs. I don't grok how people can know their gender just like that - obviously I know that's how it goes for a sizable portion of the population, but it's something I've never really experienced. I present as non-gendered in real life (was told by a newly made friend that she wasn't sure if I was girl or guy the first couple times she saw me, when I hadn't talked with her). In living history I can't do that, and thus I have to play both parts, and it's a drag both ways. I make every effort but can't pass as a man, not really, but I still dress as one for the privilege it has because hell yeah, I do intend to fight. I wear women's clothes for comfort, but make no effort to be read as female, and it's annoying as hell when Polish gentlemen treat me as one. (Yes, in Finland we all chop firewood. Now give me the axe back, you just almost took half your foot off.)

But even today, although the boxes are bigger, it's still less privileged to be a woman except in the "free to be like men without being subjected to transphobic jokes". Because it's fine to "want" to be a more powerful group, it's lame to "want" to be in a group percieved weaker... You know what they say, a woman has to be twice as good as a man to make it in a male dominated career. I don't associate a lot with people for whom gender and sex are important, because I can choose my company these days. But in general, for depressingly many people, it does change the group dynamics if the group is all women, or if there are more than one men in there also. And girls are taught to be afraid of strange men.* Short of very young boys there's no similar undercurrent of "keep an eye on everyone and if you take that shortcut it's due to your carelessness if you get raped". Women are more likely to feel the need to observe men in situ, as it were. I don't think a lot of men feel the same way. I could be wrong, of course. I don't know what groups of young men talk about when there aren't girls watching. I know what girls talk about when there aren't boys watching, and it was so immeasurably unfamiliar way of thinking for me...

* Despite my parents not conditioning me to be paranoid, and thankfully situations never arising that would have required me to develope it later, I still grew up in a female body and things from popular culture tend to rub on, in a "this is how people would react in these situations, this is a normal experience for people with your body type" way.

ETA:

Male characters are essentially unisex

The most telling example of "male as norm" are the simple things. Look at t-shirts. There's "basic" or whatever it is in English, and there's "ladyfit"... (Which I dislike, because they're cut in a really stupid way that makes lifting your hands move the entire shirt. Ladies never raise their arms more than 45 degrees?)

[Starkess]

I'm not sure I agree with it, but I can see an argument to be made that writing male characters is easier (for both men and women) because we live in a patriarchal society. Men are often considered the "default," which probably helps readers fill in the cracks in characterization. Or something like that.

[Nukelavee]

Starkess - I think that's another good point, although, maybe it's not that writing male characters is easier, its that male characters suffer less scrutiny, and therefore, it's easier to get away with "flaws" that a female character will be studied for.

Rakka - np, "omni-character" was a term we came up with in about.....1984, so, no tropes sites for us. To be honest, it came from playing a cerrtain RPG whose character generation rules allowed for some truly overpowered characters.

As a total aside, I can't comprehend NOT just knowing my gender. For what it's worth...I hope you manage, or simply are, happy being you.

[Zoë Sumra]

Ok, I'm going to use something related as an example/explanation of above. In visual arts, there is a school of thought that says "male artists shouldn't depict the female form, because we only exploit it. However, it's totally cool for female artists to use the male form".

Oh? You surprise me. Because what actually happens in the majority of visual media - film, TV, photography, most easily accessible art - is close on the opposite.

The nude or semi-nude female form is visually treated as an object of desire, a taboo, something startling and tantalising. The semi-nude male figure is far commoner than the female, but it is universally treated as an object without sexual reference: a functional creation, not specifically unattractive but not intending to attract.

Screw that. Who wants to treat female flesh as something erotic? Eroticise the male form instead: the female is functional, quotidian, unappealing, whereas the male is deeply attractive...

... oh, right. I'm a straight woman.

Cameras fuck women. Cameras do not fuck men nearly as often. Come back to me when cameras fuck men to the extent they do women, and bring popcorn. (I like sweetened, not salty. Also, I'm a torso/biceps woman more than a legs/arse woman.)

Min, my bingo card's coming along nicely. I love all this what-about-the-menz stuff: it's very enlightening.

ETA:

Starkess - I think that's another good point, although, maybe it's not that writing male characters is easier, its that male characters suffer less scrutiny, and therefore, it's easier to get away with "flaws" that a female character will be studied for.

:agree:

Rakka - np, "omni-character" was a term we came up with in about.....1984, so, no tropes sites for us. To be honest, it came from playing a cerrtain RPG whose character generation rules allowed for some truly overpowered characters.

Overpowered characters, though, form the backbone of a lot of SFF subgenres (far from all of them, but, a lot). Male overpowered lead character = hero-card. Female overpowered lead character = immediate Mary Sue accusations, as we saw up-thread.

[Nukelavee]

Umm, Eloisa, you really need to quit being so desperate to win this bingo game. Not only don't I disagree with you (not entirely, anyways), but, you proved my point with your little speech.

That's exactly the mindset I meant.

Btw, I'm sorry, I should have mentioned that WHERE I was told that was at university, by my drawing professor, around 1990. So, by artists, I meant, y'know, that type. Not mass entertainment.

To be clear, I recognize all the points you will be thinking about, trust me. I'm not ignorant. My degree is in fine art, but because of teh climate in the faculty then, I know feminist theory, thanks.

You aren't wrong about the media depiction proportions, either. On the other hand, being straight, you might want to wonder about the aesthetics of male gays when dismissing any sexual aspect of male depictions.

My point was, tho, is that, because that attitude is there, it means male works about females are held under harsher critiques, because to allow bad, stereotypical characters is simply allowing teh stereotypes (and objectifications) to continue. The flipside is that a woman's work about males won't receive the same treatment.

Clearly, I don't mean this as an absolute, it's just a mindset I've seen. Also, again, I'm basing this off what I've seen in the "art world". (by the way, I hate that half this crap sounds so pretentious, but, yeah, artspeak) And, in the art world, it isn't just applied to gender images, it's also applied to white artists (for example) using native styles or iconography.

And most of this post has nothing to do with whether or not women are better than men at depicting the other gender. Hell, I'm also very curious if Rakka does have a gender bias when reading. Or, if it was an issue earlier. (sorry if that comes across as nosy or crass, but, I'm actually curious)

[Callan S.]

Here's a question - if your a straight woman (into torso or buttocks, w/e), do you actually want to see any scantily clad women in your program at all? But your shocked when you have an audience of males who are equally disinterested in male shirts off action, that programs aimed at that demographic have very few male shirts off moments and more bikini female moments?

Too much stuff aimed for a male audience? Maybe (or maybe not, haven't run a tally). But if a shows aimed at (straight) women, what, you'd have bikini clad women in it really to any degree at all?

[Gigei]

That's why TV Tropes is great. If you say "omni-character" no one but you knows what you mean but if you use TV tropes terms to describe it then people can discuss it better. :)

As for Friday being unusually talented and overpowered compared to other (non-artificial) people. Yes, she is. It's the central premise of the book and in many other sf books with artificial beings.

Although I am not sure she's all that. Friday is a bit stupid and can get outsmarted easily by regular people. Raw brain processing power isn't the same as being smarter than other people.

[Starkess]

Too much stuff aimed for a male audience? Maybe (or maybe not, haven't run a tally). But if a shows aimed at (straight) women, what, you'd have bikini clad women in it really to any degree at all?

Bingo.

[Galactus]

and bring popcorn. (I like sweetened,

Wait, wait wait. Sweetened popcorn? Is this A Thing? Because I've never heard of it.

[Galactus]

I'm not sure I agree with it, but I can see an argument to be made that writing male characters is easier (for both men and women) because we live in a patriarchal society. Men are often considered the "default," which probably helps readers fill in the cracks in characterization. Or something like that.

There's also the very simple reason that most stuff is written about men, so there are more works around to plagiariz- err... Be "inspired" by.

[Sci-2]

I'm curious about the idea of depicting a woman who is in one way or another a victim of her society. Seems like it might be hard for a dude (or in some cases even many women) to balance making the situation believable but also not glorifying it (in the case of prostitution).

The other issue would be to have the woman get out of those circumstances or triumph in spite of them without sending the message that everyone else still in real or figurative shackles is to blame for being weak.

ETA: "or in some cases even many women"

[Horza]

Wait, wait wait. Sweetened popcorn? Is this A Thing? Because I've never heard of it.

The perversions wrought by the Great Satan are myriad and foul.

[Horza]

Dan Abraham was lurking over this thread but has departed - this can only be read as a measure of his revulsion at the notion of sweetened popcorn.

[Gigei]

I just ate some white chocolate walnut popcorn, you guys don't know what you are missing. :P

http://lifeisbeautif...t-how-good.html

[Lord O' Bones]

Wait, wait wait. Sweetened popcorn? Is this A Thing? Because I've never heard of it.

Possibly the most amazing post made in this thread.

Unless someone posted about Piers Anthony being a feminist author.

[Datepalm]

To get back to my very favorite thing on earth again - societal context - I think books like, say, Friday* are not allowed off the hook by retreating merely into their 'inner' context. You have to take the authors into account as well. Explaining that, well, of course Hot Chick X really enjoys her graphic rape on pages 12-47 of Awesome Genre Novel A, she's a sex robot who's programmed to enjoy that sort of thing, so thats totally ok does. not. cut. it.

AGNA was written by a person living in a world (this one here, if you're not following along) where it's claimed women are 'asking to be raped' , where women are expected to be sexually available and simultaneously shamed for it, where women are dehumanized by having their bodies ubiquitously placed on commodified display, where women in any significant role - politicians, intellectuals, athletes - are still filtered, judged and abused over their appearance, etc, etc. And - this is the important bit, thats why it's bolded and in italics - These attitudes are tools of oppression.

Naked, photoshopped women being used to sell vacuum cleaners is not some isolated thing. Along with everything else, it amounts up to creating a culture where its harder and more restricting to be a woman. Now the question is, are the naked adventures of HCX working for these attitudes or against them? Is a representation - is THIS representation - of a woman enjoying rape or relying on her attractiveness for her sense of identity or whatever working for or against women?

I very much don't think it's impossible for a man** to write interestingly or effectively about this at all. Where I think it tends to fall down is when it becomes overwhelming, like with Bakker or Heinlein. ASOIAF or, I dunno, Air by Geoff Ryman, I think does female sexuality (and women in general) in interesting and positive ways, which isn't as perfect asexual constructs or as sex kittens or both, but as part and parcel of complex and recognizably human characterization.

To tangent a bit, I think Heinlein or Bakker are kind of in a catch-22 where SO MUCH of what they're writing women FOR is to 'explore sexuality/feminism/gender/whatever' and so naturally this character who's job in the text is to facilitate the authors ruminations about rape/marriage/free love/boobs is flat and exploitative. They might be well intentioned, but I think they're doing it wrong, and U K Leguin they are not.

Women in ASOIAF and the protagonist of Air stand out to me as women who have things to do other than Be A Woman, without ignoring that they are women. In that sense, I think authors who don't come down off the mountain to bring us the new Gospel of the Meaning of the Female often do just fine writing women, sexuality and all.

*Which I haven't read, but I have read some of Heinleins other dodgy-women-and-sex books, like Sail Beyond the Sunset and Stranger in a Strange Land, for that matter. Posting with them in mind, as well as, off the top of my head, Bakker and Bacigalupi.

**or a woman, actually. I don't think women necessarily do an automatically inherently better job here at all. While i'm at it, I think writing about male sexuality thats complex, nuanced and feminist isn't exactly a dime a dozen either, but thats another cup of tea.

[Gigei]

Lol, Friday doesn't enjoy the rape - where did you read that? Or are you just kidding? That's really funny.

I'm not sure what you are getting at here.

I don't read fiction as "those things that must empower women or they are shit." I don't actually give a damn whether something is politically correct or sexist. What matters to me (speaking of characterization here) is that Friday is genuine stuff. It's not realistic but it's very real.

People like that goodreads guy saying they hated Friday because she shows off her cleavage are annoying. Friday has got great boobs and she shows them off. So do women in real life. Sexuality is part of our identity. Friday has a more in-your-face type of sexuality so do many women... no big deal and it not a sign of bad or flat characterization.

How on earth are you going to explore sexual themes anyway? By not having it?

*in case tone is not coming through, I am amused by this, not angry or annoyed*

Also, can we please discuss and books that we have read? If you haven't read Friday but you have read Stranger in a Strange Land, why don't you use that instead? I really don't think it's fair to comment on something you haven't even read. I believe Stranger in a Strange Land is more popular anyway so more people will be able to discuss it here.

There are many women characters in SiaSL, it also has much worse characterization than Friday so you can't really judge one book by the other. SiaSL and some other books are much more extreme, too. I even remember there was at least once instance of underage incestuous sex in a Heinlein book.