Male and Female think differently, we all agree on that much.

JK Rawlins characters tend to think and act in more of femine style. I'm not saying Harry is gay, but I am saying that because the author is female, and therefore thinks as one, her characters tend to do the same.

Orson Scott Card's character's struck people I have talked to as being very male-minded. Approaching, and handling a situation as a guy would most likely do.

Whether or not you agree with my examples is not the issue I wish to present. It is this,

How should an author go about writing main characters of the opposite gender?
 

I'm afraid, however, that I have to very much disagree with your examples. OSC and JK Rowling are two of the best I've ever seen at modelling the oposite gender. Harry never seemed like a girl to me, although getting inside his inner thoughts might make you think so. The truth is what he says and what he thinks are not often the same, so he is as close mouthed about his emotions as a real man tends to be. Any man out there who can't say they wouldn't have the same doubts and emotions Harry has? (Really, I'm curious. I'd like to think that these emotions are real to the male gender.)

As for OSC's characters, he usually writes his point of view characters as men, although whether or not his females are the POV characters or not they are very strong women. I actually like that very much. But they don't seem too much like men to me. They just seem like women who are strong, often leaders, and with superior abilities. Sometimes the emotional level is a little off, but it's about as close as I've seen.

Here's some examples I have noticed, though. Mercedes Lackey can't seem to portray a real man to me. (Don't get me wrong, I like most of her stuff.) But they are definitely either stereotypical or women in men's bodies. On the male side of things, Terry Brooks is awful about this. I can't stand his female characters. I'm glad he only puts a token one in every book because I don't think I could stand any others.

This is getting long, but I never quite got to answering your question, which is how to we model the opposite gender? Well, don't try so hard! I think (and please let me know if you agree or not) that men and women are more alike than different. But if you have to choose, resorting to steretypes is always a bad idea. If you had to do one or the other, I'd rather see a man in a woman's body or vice versa.
 

That said, I'm going to raise another issue. When I sent one of my short stories to a (male) friend to read and critique, he said I wrote like a girl and said, "I'm not sure if I like that." Now, I know this friend wasn't being sexist; what he was saying was that I needed to come out and be more aggressive with my writing (I think).

I'm wondering how to take this, since I am a girl, and so was my main character. The themes in the story, while not gender-related directly, were closely tied to the fact that she was female. I expected the story to have a strong feminine flavor.

My question is, at what point should I be true to who I am when I write and not try to hide that I am a somewhat shy, very nice, sweet, possibly naive girl; and at what point should I try to accomodate all audiences like OSC does?
 

On the other hand, do you want to get published?

If the answer to the above question is yes, then you will have to accomodate audiences to a certain extent, but you wil *never* make everyone happy. Never ever. I don't know about the short story in question, I'd have to read it to really understand if your friends comments were out of line or not. I can assure you that he's being honest, which is what a good critiquer should do even if it's hard to hear. But I bet he could have found a better way to say it even so. And just because he thinks so, doesn't mean you can't sell your work.

If you want more opinions, I'd suggest posting a bit on fragments and feedback and see if anyone interested in looking at the piece.
 

With my first name and the character--every person who has read it that did not know me thought I was male. Even people who only saw my last name on it and it is a two part hyphen last name think I am male.

It can be done.

Shawn
 

[QUOTE]Whether or not you agree with my examples is not the issue I wish to present. It is this,

How should an author go about writing main characters of the opposite gender?[/QUOUTE]

What does everyone think about that?

I did answer your question. I said that I thought you need to stop trying so hard and realize that men and women are more alike than different.

Also, I think it is relevant whehter or not I agree with your examples. Because if you think those are examples of badly written male/female characters, then I'm not sure we're even on the same page about what is good and bad. In that case, none of my advice will be meaningful. Especially since, if I were to come up with an example of anyone who has done this *well*, I would have you read OSC.

But that's just my opinion, take it or leave it.
 

This threw me the first time I read an Elrod book... cause the character was male and the voice was first person, but I kept thinking "this author is female".
 

But that's just me.

On the subject of male vs. female, I have to admit that I don't think I could write a convincing female character unless she was supposed to be a sort of man trapped in a woman's body. If I were a woman, I'd unquestionably be a virago and probably a (celibate) lesbian as well. But then again, even as a man I hardly qualify as "normal" by human standards. I spend a good half my time thinking about how to disable or kill any humans in near proximity (even ones I like), so all my characters have at least some noticable homicidal tendencies (which means I write about soldiers, warriors, and assassins a lot).

The fact of the matter is that some women are viragos and sociopathic killers and so forth. So I don't have to shy away from writing women...any more than I have to shy away from writing human males. I just have to make the POV character true to life...meaning myself, the only example I have of someone whose thoughts and feelings I can examine firsthand. On the other hand, you simply do not have to populate your stories entirely with POV characters. Make one or two characters POV characters, then have the other characters act like you've observed other people to act. You don't know the thoughts and feelings of people that you see everyday, you only know what they do...but the same is true of any non-POV characters in your stories...you don't have to know why they do the things they do, just so long as they do the sorts of things that real people do.

I've made a point of being something of an expert on human behavior, even though I have no idea why humans do the things I observe them doing. Most of the time, they just act like fools (which I might have to kill at any moment to protect myself--or just for fun ). When I write a POV character, that character is based on me (to some extent). When I write all my other characters, those characters are based on humans as I've observed them from the outside.

My point is that writing a person of another gender is not fundamentally different from writing a person of a different socio-economic class or a different culture. It requires putting ourself in the shoes of that person. But it is still you in that person's shoes, not someone else.

I would refer you to You and Your Characters on the SFWA.org site. He gives some good advice about writing realistic characters, but I warn you to only apply it to POV characters. In particular he warns about a character he calls a "damn fool".

quote:

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Why is it that when some bloodthirsty creature clearly threatens the planetary exploration team, some damn fool always wanders off and gets himself killed? Would you leave the safety of the spaceship? Of course not! However, the damn fools do every time; otherwise there'd be no story.

---

All that being said, I do tend to avoid writing POV women because they are always viragos and tend to be a)virgins b)frigid or c)lesbians (so far I've stuck with virgins of the pureminded sort--it seems the least dangerous, besides which I find the idea rather attractive). But I also avoid writing men that don't think of violence as a possible solution to any problem (as well as men that think only of violence as a solution). I avoid writing about homosexual men for the same reason--I can't even imagine a women being sexually attracted to men for biologically unsound reasons, there simply are no biologically sound reasons for male homosexuality (the same is not exactly true of female homosexuality, but I don't think I'll get into that here).

In short, my POV characters think the way I think, and that's that. If it happens to be a she, then she thinks like me.

(that was short compared to the rest of my post, wasn't it? )
 

My novel has male POV characters. I think the reason they work is because I don't get too into their characters as "men". Instead, I get into their heads as human beings who are involved in the scenario I have set up. They tend to cry less and instead bury themselves in work when things go wrong. Other than that, their reactions are based on their personalities more than their genders.

 

I think that some authors do well at writing for a different POV. Yes, Piers Anthony shouldn't write from a female POV. - there is a male author, whose name has completely escaped my memory, who writes under a womans name, and does a great job - best sellers and all- I think he was popular in the 70's and 80's.

I need to reread "Friday" to remember if I felt that Heinlein was reasonable in the POV part, though since I knew it was Heinlein writing it, I didn't pay as much attention to that.

The main thing though, is that since the range of human behavior is very broad, and why we act as we do can change due to cultural impact. - male characters can seem efeminate for any number of reasons, and female characters could have masculine traits for whatever reason... like no women around.

Of course neither really explains Harry, or for that matter Ron.

What everything boils down to really is how well the story is written. Certainly a good idea is to write from the POV of whatever gender you are, and have the opposite gender be seen only from the POV of the fe/male characters. - but a good story, regardless of POV is a better target.

[This message has been edited by mags (edited July 05, 2003).]
 

I don't think that it's necessary to make your characters like you in order to make them realistic. I think it is necessary to become your characters as you write them. This might be harder if your character is vastly different from you, but if you have a good imagination, it's not impossible.

For instance, I'll cite a stupid line in a stupid movie, but one that I immediately thought of in this context. The movie is "That Darn Cat," and the scene is of a dumb cop that is chasing a cat all over town to see if it happens to go to the scene of a murder. The dumb cop doesn't want the cat to suspect anything (such as the fact he's being trailed), so he chants to himself: "I'm thinking like a cat. I'm thinking, slinking, like a cat."

I told you it was dumb. But when I write my characters, I think and sometimes slink like they would. I don't model them off of me, and I don't make them make the decisions I would make in their shoes. I imagine I am them. In other words, I was born in the same place they were born in; I am afraid of the same things they are afraid of; I love the same people they love; I want what they want; I hate what they hate; I am as smart as they are; you get the idea. Then I look around myself and say, "Okay, I'm Pobnar. What do I do when I'm stuck in a stadium tied to an oath of lifetime nonviolence not three months old, and there's one of the only people on earth who is capable of killing me not fifty yards away. Do I run and keep myself pure? Do I kill him and get what I ultimately want (which is noble)? Do I try to persuade him not to kill me? How? Which is worse: to break the oath or die?"

Pobnar decided to kill the man. Another of my characters would not have. He would have sat there and let himself be killed before throwing a single punch. Another character would have tried, but she would probably have failed. For others, the choice wouldn't have even been an issue.

The complete story of Pobnar's reasons are his and mine alone to know. I've threaded most of them through the story, hopefully to the point that when he makes this decision, it's almost inevitable. It's the only thing he would do.

Now, I, Brinestone, would never, ever kill a man to save myself, especially if there was another way out (which, in this case, there was). I know this about myself. Pobnar is definitely distinct from me in almost every way imaginable, except that he loves his family and wants them to think he's doing a good job with his life. He is attracted to women, not men; he is tall, not short; bold and rebellious, not shy and cautious; a leader, not a follower; agressive, not passive; and a lot more. He's my villain. But, like I said in another thread, I'm "falling in love" with him. He is a cool evil character, and I'm having fun finding out why he does what he does.

Anyway, this post has become incredibly long, but I hope I got across what I wanted to get across. I think too often, being True in writing has more to do with being honest about the situation and the character and the motivations than being perfectly true to ourselves. Maybe I'm way out on a limb here . . . it's possible.
 

"To be psychologically suited for membership in what I have called the highest class of novelists, the writer must be not only capable of understanding people different from himself but fascinated by such people. He must have sufficient self-esteem that he is not threatened by difference, and sufficient warmth and sympathy, and a sufficient concern with fairness, that he wants to value ppeople different from himself, and finally he must havve, I think sufficient faithe in the goodness of life that he can not only tolerate but celebrate a world of difference, conflicts, oppositions."

In the previous paragraph he refers to what I think of as a signifigantly similar approach to characterization that Survivor takes as "...the spokesman of a private, idiosycratic vision."

Maybe the whole first quote wasn't quite neccesary but either way I believe it is relavent to two distinct and perfectly legitamite (sp?) means of writing. Aswell as writing a person of the opposite sex, a feat I personally am not quite brave enough to handle in the POV quite yet.

PE

[This message has been edited by PE_Sharp (edited July 06, 2003).]
 

quote:

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I think too often, being True in writing has more to do with being honest about the situation and the character and the motivations than being perfectly true to ourselves.

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I think you’re right on target with that one, Brinestone. How do you write in the POV of any character? You try to get in their head and have them do the things it makes sense for them to do.

When writing from the POV of the opposite sex, I think its like writing any POV character outside of your experience. You take the observations you’ve had about people and then use them and your imagination to shape the behavior of your character, within the bounds of the personality you’ve created for him. People, regardless of gender, have a lot of similarities. That makes a common foundation to build any character off of.

 

Just asking.

quote:

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I don't think that it's necessary to make your characters like you in order to make them realistic. I think it is necessary to become your characters as you write them. This might be harder if your character is vastly different from you, but if you have a good imagination, it's not impossible.

---

There's one way in which this is right and another way in which this is wrong. The way it is right is that you can write about a character with external features and life experiences different from your own. But it is wrong in that you cannot write plausibly about a character that is fundamentally different from yourself.

I cannot understand the mental processes of the typical clinging woman character, not because I can't imagine being a woman (it isn't that much harder than imagining myself as a human male, after all), but because the internal logic of that mentality doesn't make sense to me.

In short, I can't become my POV characters, they have to become me. I can write about the sorts of behaviors that I have observed in others, even though I cannot understand the internal logic of such actions, because I've observed the external action and the external logic, just as you can write a description of a rock rolling down a hill without needing to understand how the rock feels about it. You understand enough about the forces acting on the rock and have seen it happen enough that you can describe it. If you tried to write a description of how the rock percieved falling down a hill, it would have to be a description of how you would feel if you were turned into a rock and rolled down a hill.

Dang it, that wasn't short at all.
 

There is a level where you need to become your characters, and one where they need to become you.

However, lets face it, no one wants to see the guy who wrote "Silence of the Lambs" or "Hannibal" to actually become Hanibal. - but he does a darned good job in writing the characters. And I know he has been asked how he comes up with his characters, but I haven't seen anywhere that he's talking about how he comes up with the characters of situations.

Sometimes if I'm trying to get into a certain state of mind for a character, I will put on music that I think that character would listen to. The hope there is that as the music flows over me, it will end up on the paper.
 

I guess I agree with you that there are some things I cannot write because I don't understand them. I can't write mean characters. You know, the type of people who are mean just because it gives them pleasure? I totally don't understand it. So I make up excuses for people who have to be mean like that, reasons that, in their heads at least, give them cause to act like that. I think probably there are people who don't need reasons to be nasty--they just like it. I don't get it . . .

[/random derailment]
 

Did I have a point...oh yeah, bad guys. If you want to write a bad guy, think of the times you have reationalized things, or been selfish, and magnify it a bit. Look at yourself honestly and you can find the seeds of meanness in youreslf. (Obviously, I don't expect any of you are actually monsters, though, you will have to extrapolate. )
 

If you need to have someone doing something stupid or mean or shortsighted, just figure out why it seemed like a good idea at the time.
 

Let's talk about Harry. He's girly and that's the truth. He thinks about things like a girl would think about them, especially concerning Cho. Although I don't have the book in front of me, he does a lot of things that no male would do. I'll give JK credit that he also does a lot of things that a real male WOULD do, but add a however. Speaking from my POV as a male of approximately the same age as Harry Potter, and having recently been the same age as he, I would say that most of my thoughts about females consist of something like: "What the hell is going on?" Harry only thinks this SOME of the time. If he was realistic, he would always think that.

I'll avoid making a larger post, so that someone can disagree with me and we can argue.

Sean

[This message has been edited by pygmy_goat (edited July 30, 2003).]
 

No way. Harry is male. He really was thinking "what the hell is going on" most of the time in that short, stormy relationship in book 5. I think the thing that threw you is that Harry doesn't act as much as you'd like him to. He ends up thinking a lot, and not doing much until it really counts.

I'm going to make a suggestion about male vs. female characters that might not go over too well: listen to Dr. Laura.

Whatever you think of her morality, she's got this pegged. (Her next book is called "The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands," and I'll probably buy it for my wife.) Here are some interesting generalizations I've picked up that seem to be borne out through experience:

- Men act; women think. When my wife wants to discuss a problem she had today, she doesn't want advice, she wants sympathy. When something goes wrong, I react immediately, and my wife usually holds me back.
- Men generally experience one or two emotions at a time; women may experience many. I am angry with my daughter. My wife is disappointed, annoyed, confused, and worried.
- Men generally concentrate on one thing at a time; women concentrate on many. I pick one thing and do it. My wife thinks of everything that's left to do - and usually ends up stressed out.
- Men argue based on logic; women argue based on emotion. (That's not to say there's overlap, of course - but each sex has its own preference.) I think, she feels.

(Now again, these are generalizations, which means of course they aren't always true - so stop pointing that finger.)

What I find most interesting is that the well-rounded characters I've liked best in novels didn't tend toward one side or the other completely. The men had a little women in them (usually capable of more than one or two emotions at once), and the women had a little men in them (usually more inclined to act).

 

I think it is probably easier for a female to write a male character than it is for a male to write a female character. This is because, I think, it is much more acceptable - in American culture, at least - for a woman to try to put herself into the mind of a man than it is for a man to try to put himself into the mind of a woman.

Think about it. Women have traditionally been expected to understand men and what they want in order to be good wives and anticipate their husbands' needs. Where I live, this still seems to be a common expectation. In fact, it came up in a conversation at the laundromat today. However, men are often raised to believe that to try to see things from a female point of view is somehow emasculating. Or so I've been told by some of the men I know. Obviously, this is not universally true, and maybe it is because I live in a fairly small town that is still largely agricultural that I still see this dynamic all the time.

Now, this idea may be all bunk. As a matter of fact, I hope I am wrong. I certainly wasn't raised with such stereotypes, but I had a slightly unconventional upbringing. But, I know many people who were raised with such ideas, are raising their children with them, and who still accept them as the natural order of things. Which is what leads me to the conclusion that I outline above.
 

But we're not two different species. If men and women were so incredibly different form one another we would not be able to get along at all. I don't want to make generalizations, but I will speak a little to my own experience.

I'm going to get married in about three months and I'm currently involved in the closest relationship I've ever been in. A lot of times he seems very stereotypically masculine to me. He thinks rather than feels. He also likes to try to fix things when I just want an ear. But sometimes he says or does something that makes me realize that inside there somewhere is a complex emotional human much like me. It is those times that make me feel closest to him.

Anyway, I recently gave male characters a shot in a novel I'm writing. The main main character is female, but there are three important male point of view characters. I did not try anything fancy to make them male. I basically wrote them like me, except that they are attracted to women instead of men (well, except one). I have them thinking and feeling and acting all in good proportion, and if maybe they do not expres their emotions as much as a female character, they still have them. I gave the chapters to my fiance and he said they were good, he did not feel too much like they were written by a woman.

So there you go. I still insist that deep down inside we have more in common than otherwise and that a few simple differences are all that need to be taken into account.
 

quote:

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But we're not two different species.

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Then again, maybe we are. Here's an interesting news story that came out a couple of months ago: http://www.marshill.org/Y%20Chromosome%20Error%20Correction.htm

The key quote:

quote:

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But researchers have recently found that several hundred genes on the X escape inactivation. Taking those genes into account along with the new tally of Y genes gives this result: Men and women differ by 1 to 2 percent of their genomes, Dr. Page said, which is the same as the difference between a man and a male chimpanzee or between a woman and a female chimpanzee.

---

Wait until the honeymoon is over - in two years or so - and then make him into your wise reader.

I sincerely hope that consensus isn't leaning toward the idea that there's not much difference between how men and women think. We'll end up with dishonest writing if that's the case.

At the very least (assuming there is no fundamental difference in the mind), you've got biological differences that definitely influence how the different sexes act. And no, I'm not pulling the PMS card, though that can be a factor. (There is a marked difference in my wife's mood during those times. We both acknowledge it and adapt.) Maybe married people catch these things better, I don't know. But my wife's attitude toward children and safety is miles different from mine. Me? I wouldn't mind terribly if my son, who loves to play with the oven door, gets a little burn sometime to teach him a lesson. But if it happened, my wife would think she was a bad mother.

Mothers care and hug and cry and kiss boo-boos; fathers teach and smile proudly and get annoyed and tell them to buck up and take it. There's plenty of overlap, yes: but I've never seen a pair that didn't act like that to some extent. If it's not indicative of some fundamental difference, I don't know what is.

Besides that, women grow up with a set of different expectations than men do, on the whole. Whether you believe it's because of societal expectations or because they naturally gravitate toward them (I believe both), little boys and little girls, in general, play with different toys. Little girls play with dolls, little boys play with trucks. Little girls get started with the social aspects of life, little boys get started with the mechanical aspects.

My little girl, when she plays with Legos, plays with the little people. We never emphasized dolls with her; for heck's sake, we started her with Legos. (To be honest, I was a little disappointed. Irrational, to be sure, but there you go.) My son could hardly care less. He likes the blocks.

Evolution? It plays a large part. To say that nurturing traits in women and providing traits in men were positively selected because it increased the chances of the children's survival would be almost declaring an axiom. It influences almost every other aspect of the psyche. But in our politically correct society, we have pressure to ignore these factors. Fight that. Don't let it make you dishonest.

Then we have seemingly superficial things that influence character: physiology, and its extensions into social interaction. Most early teenage girls - when I was growing up, anyway - socialized with the early teenage boys by swatting them away when they caught them leering. Would the male peers' attitude toward females of their own age and the terribly exciting physiological changes taking place affect them? Definitely. Would social pressures on young women to keep themselves prepped and pretty affect them? Oh, yes. These are things that young men don't really have to care about.

For young men, there are pressures to play well at sports, and definite social consequences to not being able to do it well. It has a huge effect on them in some way - and this is something that young women don't have to experience, on the whole.

What's amazing to me about this whole process is that most of us end up similar enough in the end to relate to each other somehow.

Then you have the problem of how men and women perceive each other as having differences, and how they react to that.

I'm currently writing a science fiction short story about a young man with tremendous power who ends up in a hospital ward, and a priest. No matter which way I juggle the genders, it simply cannot work unless I've got two men. It just couldn't be believable. Part of the resolution involves the priest, under the pretense of righteous indignation, using the truth about what the young man has become to upset him so badly that he finally has to face himself for what he is: a monster.

Make the priest a woman? The young man would probably sulk in response. How about a young woman instead of a young man? She'd quite likely break out into tears under the angry onslaught. Having different genders for the main character doesn't work, then. So how about we make them both women? They'd sit in the room and talk it out for days, discussing feeling upon feeling until they got to the bottom of it.

So with anything besides two men, I have something utterly boring, or totally unworkable for a short story.

Fortunately, I believe most of us have enough experience in male-female interaction to figure this stuff out - whether we say we understand it or not. Or at least, we will as we get older and gain experience.

[This message has been edited by pickled shuttlecock (edited August 05, 2003).]
 

Until around a year ago when it collapsed, I regularly roleplayed at White Wolf's Infinity Chantry site. I had designed a number of characters of varying personalities and played many of them, sometimes at the same time.

One of the characters, Linda, was very rational, active, and aggressive, and not particularly emotional; I openly admitted that I was male and simply acknowledged that I had designed the character to match me enough to make her playable. Another character, Dana, behaved more femininely, but in a stock, stereotypical way; I did not reveal that I played Dana and frequently implied that her player was female.

The result? Despite frequent slips of the fingers, practically no one realized that any of my characters were played by the same person. Most people believed that Dana's player was a woman. By making one character definitively against gender, I masked the failings of others. Probably this technique can be adapted to literature, though of course one should try to write any character as well as possible.
 

While we're on the subject of gender roles, bear in mind that a lot of these generalizations are Western in thought. I read an interesting article about the role of women in India. The author (I'm paraphrasing) said that women in India are kept under tight control because of how powerful, and hence dangerous, they were whereas women in the West were considered the "weaker" sex.

Then there's the matriachical tribal societies in China. The words 'husband' and 'father' don't even exist in some of them. Women run the households. Like the Naxi people. "Traditionally, Naxi women have managed trade and commerce, while men have been musicians, gardeners, and child-rearers, and today Naxi society is largely run along those lines. "

(Do a google search on Mosuo and Naxi if you're interested in reading more about them.)

So when you say "This is male" or "This is female" there's not just a danger of stereotypes, but of being eurocentric about the stereotypes.
 

Is that eurocentric?

Stereotypes exist for a reason. Many times, they embody the general consensus on a group. This might go against the grain, but I think they can even be a good starting point for developing a character.
 

I saw this:

quote:

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Christine: You might want to get a more impartial observer. I'm not saying your fiance is a liar, but I remember myself in that position, being perfectly willing to swim through shark-infested waters or run through a mine field to make a good impression on my lady. Did I say things I wouldn't say now? Certainly. I probably also believed them

---

And I thought well, he doesn't know my fiance. He doesn't know that we've been friends for seven years, much of which time I was engaged to someone else so he had no reason to try to impress me. Also, he never tries to impress anyone. He's told me I was fat and needed to lose weight when it was true (I since lost the weight). He tells me when my stories suck in no uncertain terms. But he is also just one opinion, which is why I get others.

But I went ahead past that one and fell upon...

quote:

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Make the priest a woman? The young man would probably sulk in response. How about a young woman instead of a young man? She'd quite likely break out into tears under the angry onslaught. Having different genders for the main character doesn't work, then. So how about we make them both women? They'd sit in the room and talk it out for days, discussing feeling upon feeling until they got to the bottom of it.

---

I think you're right. These characters should not be women, but not because they would ever react that way. None of my female characters would ever react in the obscene ways you've mentioned, you've been watching too many old fashioned horror movies where the girls'r ole is to scream. They're pathetic. Or am I wrong? Maybe, as a woman, I'm no good at writing my own gender? I tell you one thing, though, if you look at women this way you shouldn't write them.

Sulk? Break into tears! Is that how you think we act? I didn't even think this was serious at first. I was waiting for the punchline.

Like I said, though, I drafted a response and let it go. Just let it go, I told myself. Then I saw this:

quote:

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Stereotypes exist for a reason. Many times, they embody the general consensus on a group. This might go against the grain, but I think they can even be a good starting point for developing a character.

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Yes, they do exist for a reason. They exist because some people perpetutate them and cling to them like a security blanket. They exist because people need them to make sense and order their world into perfect geometric patterns. It is good to know what stereotypes are out there when writing because blatantly going against them is going to turn a character from a side character into a main character, but in terms of gender stereotypes, we've been attempting to throw them out the window since at least the 1960's, and for good reason! I am a female programmer. I am good at math and science. That goes against the stereotype. But you know what, I am hardly alone. I played with legos when I was a kid. Many women I know did. In fact, gender stereotypes as we kn ow them are so outdated as to be USELESS!

Yes, there are differences between men and women. I know that! But always these are GENERALIZATIONS. There literally are women inside men's bodies and vice versa and there are women who act as pathetically as mentioned above. But they're not the norm. Women are trying to come out of the era of men who thought they needed to be taken care of. Why don't you let us be who we are instead of who the stereotypes say we are?

[This message has been edited by Christine (edited August 08, 2003).]
 

Say I wanted to throw in a person in a story that was a bumb. I can outright declare them a bumb, or I can throw in some of the common traits (stereotypical identifiers) and get it across that its a bumb without having to say so.

As for gender stereotyping it still can be used and it will work. Although you may not fall into the typical concept of a woman that does not mean there are not millions of women out there that do. Some women do break down and cry even for reasons that seem ridiculous. I know because I've been in meetings where I was the one who managed to cause it. And I still don't understand why they were crying, it was work related things that were not that important.

You have to remember some people hold hard to their rationalization of how they percieve the actions of others, I'm as guilty as most others too. But don't take it personally. Some people cannot accept the fact that a woman can be independant and logical just like they percieve men to be. But I've known allot of men who couldn't think their way out of a wet paper bag. No logic at all. So you are correct in your thinking that stereotyping is not fair. But it works and it can be usefull in writing. Maybe not for a main character, but for minor ones they can be quite usefull.

I'm also looking forward to reading your story from the 1000 ideas thread. I'm not expecting a stereotypical main charicter either.

[This message has been edited by Lord Darkstorm (edited August 08, 2003).]
 

Darkstorm, you're right. About everything you say. I'm afraid my previous post was written in anger. Yes, it happens sometimes.

The truth is, I think many women are still caught up in the same stereotypes. I don't blame men for forcing them on us, I actually blame women just as much. I was struck by your comment about accidentally making a woman cry at a meeting. I'm not saying that the woman was this way, but I've known women to cry for the power it gives them, or they perceive to get.

I had a conversation with a friend once about crying. It embarasses me when I do it. I have long hair and I sort of take it down if it's pulled back and hang my head so no one can see. She laughed and me and went on about how other people seeing you cry was the entire point! And even I used tears against my fiance in that manner once. (Don't tell him I said that!) I felt lousy afterward. It was a cheap trick.

And you should absolutely make sure you know what people's expectations will be when you write. But then you should come up with better reasons for them to act the way they do then, "They're a bum." or "They're Native American." and especially, "They're a woman." because women are a "minority" that make up 50% of the world. (Actually, more than that, we outnumber men slightly.)
 

This is just a point, but someone would say this justifies their stereotype. Emotial response over logical thought response. But since I am just as guilty about responding in anger sometimes. I guess one of the points I was trying to make is that we all fit into the stereotypes to a degree. Since stereotypes are really a look at the average way a certain group is perceived. So for women on average they are more emotional, and men are more sex driven and self centered. Most black people are stereotyped as low life criminals, although I work with a black man I have the utmost respect for and trust quite allot.

So for me a stereotype is a cheap way to not describe a minor/extra character that fills in a setting. It works, and although is not an accurate representation of all people that could be grouped in there I'll abuse it.

So, I do agree with you that they are wrong, but they are also usefull. Don't disregard it in writing because you disagree with it though.

As for the things some (not all) women do...well, I'll leave that one alone since it could get me in real trouble.
 

quote:

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Why don't you let us be who we are instead of who the stereotypes say we are?

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I think it's more, Why don't they let us be who we are instead of foisting new stereotypes on us? My eyes are starting to glaze over in movies where a woman beats up a man -- or men. Maybe on occasion, with the right factors.

Just saw on the news the awful fact <deep intake of breath> that young women aren't going into the science and technology fields. Although they're in college in higher numbers than men, and even if they graduate in one of the male-dominated fields, they often go into traditional fields by choice. Saw an interview with one gal, honors in structural engineering or something, but she went into childcare or nursing (I forget which -- they were talking about several women).

My grandkids play with my dollhouse. The three-year-old girl sets up tea parties. The five-year-old boy flies the bicycle around the roof yelling "BikeBoy!"

Even more telling, when they play trucks, the girl doesn't see trucks and earth-moving equipment, she sees a mommy truck, a daddy truck.... At this early age she's into relationships.

Men and women are wired different. As that French actor used to say, "Vive la difference!"

[This message has been edited by Kolona (edited August 08, 2003).]

[This message has been edited by Kolona (edited August 09, 2003).]
 

But knowing what makes a stereotype allows them to be used or broken as needed. Which I think opens up lots of possibilies for making the generall assumptions work for us as writers.

[This message has been edited by Lord Darkstorm (edited August 08, 2003).]
 

One thing I've noticed is that, when people argue about high-tension subjects like this, they tend to take sides.

See, I'm betting that my ideas and Christine's ideas on this subject are actually pretty close. But I thought people were arguing too much in favor of individualization (turned homogenization), and then she thought I was arguing too much in favor of generalizations, and...you know the rest of the story.

I'm priviledged to be married to a very non-traditional woman. She has a BS in information systems, for example. (So...as a computer programmer, I got the geeky girl. I win!) Of course I realize that nobody really fits into a stereotype exactly...but then, I can't ignore that there are generalizations that really need to be taken into account.

By the way, about not being able to juggle genders in my short story: it has more to do with how men and women perceive each other than with gender stereotypes - except of course for my "two women" example. (I thought I made that clear enough, but perhaps I didn't. If not, I apologize.) In fact, my young, powerful male monster is quite emotional through the entire thing. It's the source of the major conflict in the story. The priest - except for the last part where he acts angry - acts much more compassionate than gender stereotype, or even age and occupation stereotype, would dictate. Go figure. I must be into deep characters. (It's probably why I enjoy Card so much.)

At the same time, I think if you break stereotype too far, your reader won't be able to buy the ideas in your story. That is, unless you put them in an alien setting, or an un-Western-like civilization. Or you better have a darn good reason for it. (Not for breaking stereotype, but for breaking it too far.) For example, if my priest talks like a scientist and dresses like a woman, I really, really need to explain that.

(Which of course goes back to Lord Darkstorm's idea of using stereotypes as secondary characters: you just don't have time to explain a secondary character that acts way out of stereotype.)

[This message has been edited by pickled shuttlecock (edited August 08, 2003).]
 

Is there a "male" and "female" psyche? Are men and women, in general, psychologically fundamentally different?

(Please refrain from answering with antecdotes about feminine men and masculine women. And yes, I know everyone is an exception in some way. The question is asking about generalities.)

[This message has been edited by pickled shuttlecock (edited August 08, 2003).]
 

Yes, there is. But there can also be similarities. Basicly it doesn't matter since a woman can have dominant male charicteristics, and men can have dominant female charicteristics. So overall, just make them believable.

Asking a member of the oposite sex if your character has enough of the proper qualities to be believable will give you an idea.
 

quote:

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Is there a "male" and "female" psyche? Are men and women, in general, psychologically fundamentally different?

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This is not a simple question to answer. What do you mean by general, psychologically fundamental differences? There is no such thing. Personality is not lumped into one number and put on a 1-100 scale, psychologists have tried.

Let's take a different approach. All humans, no matter their gender, have similiar psyches. We all need love, companionship, and we have a fundamental urge to reproduce. Some people (the bottom of the barrel) seem to not have much more needs than these. They're content just goinw tih the flow, not trying to create or explore or discover. (This is not a class issue, these people transcend classes too.) Then there are the creators, artists, scientists, writers, engineers, the top notch people who get things done.

Here's my point. Lining up all the woman and all the men in two lines and comparing them will get some differences, but I don't want to be in the same line as certain women, or certain men for that matter. There are more meaningful ways to organize people.

Here's another way of putting it. Let's take a specific personality dimension. Thinking/Feeling. More women are feelers, more men or Thinkers, but the *average* woman (not the masculine one) is more logical than a lot of the men out there. Let me draw a picture. (I hope it formats right.)

Thinking Feeling
--------------------Av. W---------------
------------------Av. M-----------------

Does that show what I mean? My statistics teacher said it perfectly once. "With a large enough group any difference is statistically significant," he said. And you're asking me to talk about all the men and all the women in the entire world.

I hope I've made my point well. I made itr better the first time I went through. Sigh. Next time I'm drafting in notepad.
 

quote:

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Asking a member of the oposite sex if your character has enough of the proper qualities to be believable will give you an idea.

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Yes! I said that in my first draft, too. Grr....what button did I hit?
 

"For golly's sake, I might just write about people from a very Western-like civilization almost all the time, because that's the kind of civilization I'd be most familiar with. Gasps and astonishment: that might just be the kind of civilization that my readers would find most familiar!"

Well, duh. If you are writing for Americans, sure. I work in theater, and there's a lot of stories that I can't sell to an American audience because they don't fit with what people expect.

When I write (sci-fi or fantasy) I'm not dealing with mileau that are based on European principles. Do I have to keep my audience in mind? Yes. But that should have gone without saying.

Sigh. I would have let the point about other cultures drop but for the question of "fundamental psychological differences". A lot of the diferences that we think are biological are cultural. Kids don't grow up isolated, they get input not just from their parents, but from media, their friends, and their friends' parents.

Besides that, I think Christine answered it very well.

I think I'll go back to lurking now.
 

Not all humans have similar psyches. We do not all share the same emotional needs, any more than we all possess the same intellectual or physical talents. If you say otherwise, then you place me--and however many others like me happen to exist--outside your definition of humanity.

I've fallen outside most humans' definitions of humanity for most of my life (since I was about two years old), and as a result I have little fondness for humankind. So it is a matter of definition, which is to say that you can define all humans as being fundamentally similar, but be aware that some of us are not like the rest of you.
 

quote:

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there is a fundamentally "human" psyche, then I fall outside it.

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Really? OK, you got me curious. This should probably go on a different thread, though, the fundamental definition of humanity. It's a really complicated philosophical issue. The traits I mentioned as belonging to all members of humanity are pretty broad, and frankly belong to most animal groups as well. (Need to reproduce...I mentioned love and socialization, but they all go to reproduction really.)

Care ro explain? (You don't hav to if you don't want to, of course. )
 

Of course, I often feel as though I'm separate from the rest of the human race, too, but I don't take it too seriously.
 

"Splice the mainbrace"

Vycye
 

quote:

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Is there a "male" and "female" psyche? Are men and women, in general, psychologically fundamentally different?

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A couple of thoughts on this:

To the extent that there are separate and distinct "male" and "female" psyches, I truly believe that they are culturally determined much more than they are biologically determined. It starts with a blue or a pink blanket at birth, and proceeds with how boy babies and girl babies are talked to and treated and encouraged or discouraged from doing and being interested in certain things as they grow up. American society still pushes those gender roles, just like they did in the fifties and before. Just watch the ads during television shows targeted at children if you don't believe me.

I was lucky enough to not be brought up with those sorts of stereotypes within the home and so I test out slightly more androgynous than most on psychological tests, despite cultural pressures I was exposed to in school and in the media. This is probably why I feel the way I do on this question.

I also think that the natural variation within males and within females probably allows for females with many "male" psychological characteristics and for males with many "female" psychological characteristics without this being pathological in any way.
 

quote:

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To the extent that there are separate and distinct "male" and "female" psyches, I truly believe that they are culturally determined much more than they are biologically determined.

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As soon as I saw this my mind flashed back to the other day when I was at a picnic for my fiance's nephew. (He's 4) There were lots of kids running around about knee height, along with their parents. When the parents came in they said to the one girl who was present, "Aren't you pretty!" The boys were told, "Aren't you getting big!" if anything was said at all about their apperance. Most of the things said to the boys were actually more personal.

<rant>
The whole scene actually depressed me, I tried to push it out of my mind. When I was growing up gender was never menetioned. My dad told me, "You can do anything you put your mind on!" and never once said, "Despite the fact you're a girl," or anything remotely like that. I would try to treat my kids the same way, but here I am at a picnic, and the other adults take it all away from you by doing crap like that. I'm worried enough about being an adequate mother without seeing that I could be undermined by the rest of everyone. I suppose it's something I'll just have to deal with.
</rant>
 

Firefighting and the military come to mind, though I worked where men complained about women getting the same factory jobs, but the men were asked to help the women with the heavier aspects of the work. The men were doing their own jobs and part of the women's, but everyone got the same pay. So much for "equal pay for equal work."

Sure, some women can do some of the traditional male work, but they aren't the norm. And even among those who can, there are those who don't want to (see my earlier post). If they can really, truly cut it, fine. But they're not going to have it all and look like little miss sex kitten and have everything fine on the homefront.

If feminizing the male and masculinizing the female is the agenda, count me out. Talk about homogenizing! Talk about lack of diversity! Suppression is a dangerous solution. Look at all the Ritalin used on little boys to keep them in line. We need the fullness of both the male and the female, not a watered down version of both.

quote:

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"....boys need to be civilized, their agression properly channeled and their boisterousness constrained....But...a boy's heart can be made of pure gold...his capacity for unselfishness is vast, and...his strength and courage, when he becomes a man, is still necessary...."

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That's an excerpt from Mona Charen that gave me goosebumps yesterday. That's the male I want to write. But the stock female character today isn't worthy of him.

See the full Charen article, "Masculinity makes a comeback", 8/8/03, at http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/charen:html
And Janet Albrechtsen's "Stop tampering with the male" at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,6870772%255E7583,00.html
And very appropriate to this whole thread discussion is Christina Hoff Sommers' "Men--It's in Their Nature" in the September 2003 issue at http://www.theamericanenterprise.org

 

My opinion on this is actually pretty close to littlemissattitude's, except I think there's a bit more. From experience, I would say that women are generally better suited for doing things that require multitasking (doing and thinking of many things at once), and men are generally better suited for doing things one at a time. I believe this is supported by the fact that four times more boys are diagnosed with ADD/ADHD than girls. (ADD/ADHD is mainly characterized by the inability to concentrate on things that are not interesting, and the extreme ability to concentrate on just one interesting thing.)

I've also noticed that women seem to be more patient (you could call it less agressive) than men, which may be linked to that. It makes sense to me, anyhow.

I think we also tend to downplay the physical. The physiological differences between men and women will definitely affect the environmental input that goes into their psyche. Women are far more likely to have their appearance be a factor in the early stages of their relationships because of culture. I don't stop at just blaming "culture," though. Isn't it possible that one reason "culture" is the way it is is that women's physiological changes during puberty are so much more apparent? (I'm not talking about just breasts, here. Girls simply go through more changes to their shape than boys do. Boys get bigger and grow some hair. Big deal.)

Already I can tell I've upset somebody again. Oh, well.

Kolona's got some good points, I think. Personally, I'm very glad that my wife chooses to stay home and raise our children, rather than cheating them by having them raised by someone else. She has the capacity and education to be a very successful businesswoman. Is it an assault on her individuality that she believes she can do more important work at home?

(I know. I've upset more people again. I'm truly sorry...really.)

[This message has been edited by pickled shuttlecock (edited August 09, 2003).]
 

A couple months ago my fiance and I met with a woman we had never met before about putting together music for our wedding ceremony. We made introductions, and my fiance and I both mentioned that we were programmers. The woman smiles brightly, turns fully to my fiance, and says, "Oh, then you can help me with my computer problem!" What am I? Chopped liver?

I've seen people who think standards need to be lowered so that women can have jobs like firefighting. I think they're nutsoid. If I'm in a burning building I want a firefighter who can pull me out. Asking that standards be lowered is an insult to women, as far as I'm concerned. Those women who are strong enough to do it on their own (and some do exist) need to be proud that they have attained what they've done. Getting there on pity is useless.

On the other hand, physical strength is a factor in fewer and fewer jobs nowadays. Even in the military there are a great many jobs that have nothing to do with physical strength. They may have to do with coordination and reflexes but not so much strength. I have no problem with women in combat.

Now, Kolona, you said my story earlier depressed you in the opposite way, that telling women they can do anything is bunk. But what good is it to tell a girl that she can't? What good is it to constantly tell her that she's weaker and less able? What, do you think we're getting her hopes up? Because I don't even believe that. With enough strength training and hard workd women can become powerful fighters and body builders. Yes, women can do ANYTHING AT ALL. I truly believe it. You want to be a firefighter, well, you'll have to work at it harder than a man to get to the same point, but you spend hours in the gym and go for it.

Here's the real point, and the one I firmly believe in with all my heart. Tell someone that there are no limits, that they can do anything, and they'll find their own natural talent and niche. Tell someone that there are limitations, though, and they'll end up only ever living up to the low expectations they feel you have set for them. I say they feel you have set for them because you might not even think you're setting such low expecations, but in their mind you are. Give them the stars and they'll go to the moon. Give them the sky and all they'll find is earth.
 

quote:

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Here's the real point, and the one I firmly believe in with all my heart. Tell someone that there are no limits, that they can do anything, and they'll find their own natural talent and niche. Tell someone that there are limitations, though, and they'll end up only ever living up to the low expectations they feel you have set for them. I say they feel you have set for them because you might not even think you're setting such low expecations, but in their mind you are. Give them the stars and they'll go to the moon. Give them the sky and all they'll find is earth.

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Nice quote, Christine.

I just feel, though, that I should point out that there are always a few who will take being told they can't do something as a challenge....
 

Sexism is a slippery word. A guy can get in trouble just being a gentlman. Sure, I've had things like you mentioned happen. But all Feminism is doing -- at best -- is shifting the barbs. For instance, on a white water rafting camping trip I was one of only a few wives -- I was also the only one not rafting and the only housewife. A banker was complaining about his job, how he wanted it to be more exciting, not have to deal with housewives and their unbalanced checkbooks. He caught my eye when he realized his foot was in his mouth so I just let him stew. (I guessed he'd rather deal with businesses and their messed up books. )

People are human. There'll always be those who like the taste of shoe leather. However, at its worst, the vendetta against sexism is restricting free speech and criminalizing merely stupid or crass behavior.

News flash: The standard-lowering nutsoids are winning -- on several fronts. That physical strength is needed is less jobs doesn't negate the fact that in those in which it is needed there's a lot of foolishness going on. Even with strength training, a woman won't surpass a man with comparable training. We're just built differently.

I, and many others, have a problem with women in combat. A wise person I know asked: Why do women want to give up the best parts of being a woman for the worst parts of being a man?

There's a wisdom and tact involved with speaking to people of their dreams. No, you don't browbeat a person with negatives. Trying and failing are good life lessons, after all. But encouragement and false hope are two different things.

Kind of like the self esteem fiasco, which is really all about ego inflation. We're raising a generation of kids who think they're pretty rad, but have no basic skills. Self esteem comes from accomplishments, not trite little self-love messages.

So -- the problem in all this in writing is twofold: audience and publishers. I read far less than I ever have because of all the
Feminism-inspired claptrap. Publishing is a pretty liberal industry. A rock and a hard place.

[This message has been edited by Kolona (edited August 12, 2003).]
 

I am sometimes frustrated that women who choose the life of a housewife/mother are looked down upon. Just because women have been given other choices does not mean that we should give up the single option we used to have.

I also am frustrated about the walking on eggshells bit, that men can't say the least thing wrong without getting bashed. Political correctness has gone too far too, but honestly, it's a separate issue.

quote:

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I, and many others, have a problem with women in combat. A wise person I know asked: Why do women want to give up the best parts of being a woman for the worst parts of being a man?

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Because that is their choice. And who am I to judge the best parts of being a woman and the worst parts of being a man? In my mind, the feminist movement was about giving women options, and we are not all cut from the same mold.

Some people have taken their feminism too far, but these are a small and very vocal minority as far as I can tell. Here's something I've noticed about humans: we're reactionary. We see people taking an idea too far so we back off of the neutral opinion so that we can counterbalance the wackos. As long as I have more trouble finding work as a programmer because I am a woman, as long as people assume my fiance knows more about tech stuff than I do, as long as little girls are prised for their beauty and little boys for their strength and intelligence, there is still some room for improvement.

I don't belive I'm taking any of this overboard. I am not out to get men. In fact, I am very much in love with one of them. I don't want men to start staying home and raising babies (unless they want to), I don't want men to suffer or receive less. I'm afraid that what I do want, though, is a genera iattitude adjustment that will only come with time and patience. I am not at all a patient woman.

[This message has been edited by Christine (edited August 12, 2003).]
 

quote:

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Some people have taken their feminism too far, but these are a small and very vocal minority as far as I can tell.

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That small and vocal minority are calling the shots and setting policy.
 

I know a few women in the military, and believe me, no one lowered standards for them to succeed. They went through the same boot training, go through the same obstacles, and yes, run the same risks as men. Should they be there? If they can keep up with the boys without any standards being changed, then hell, yes. It's their choice, just as not joining is another woman (or man's) choice (so long as the draft isn't reinstated).

Sorry, but I'm a pinko liberal commie by nature, and when people start talking about where women (or anyone) does or doesn't belong, it gets my dander up. No offense meant to anyone else, and I realize we're straying dangerously off-topic (I think I hear Kathleen knocking on the thread door), but I just couldn't resist.

 

I'm no pinkie liberal commie , in fact, most of the time I think I'm a little conservative, but I agree with you, Hildy. I, too, have known female officers and I got to tell you, they could kick most guys behinds!
 

And as long as you all can keep from getting offensive to each other, we can consider it an acceptable discussion.

Some of the posts have been close to the edge, but I don't think they've gone completely over yet. I really appreciate the efforts to stay on topic and to get along. That's hard to do on a subject like this.
 

quote:

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It's their choice, just as not joining is another woman (or man's) choice (so long as the draft isn't reinstated).

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There's the rub. Should there be a draft, those of us who believe women shouldn’t be in combat or even in the military are suddenly in a bind.

None of this is to say women are weak, retiring creatures, incapable of doing the hard stuff when necessary. History proves otherwise. Circumstances often demand from women, and men, a measure over and above what even they think they're capable of. But too much of what is the Feminist agenda is deadly to traditional families.

Hildy, you surprised me – in a nice way, though. I fully expected you to call me a hypocrite since you critiqued my chapters and may remember that my main female character throws a guy. Although maybe that’s egotistical on my part, thinking you’d remember, since I’d hardly expect my story to be any long-term memory priority to you , but I choose to think you have an especially good memory and remembered the circumstances of the throw and that’s why you didn’t make such a charge.

For the benefit of those looking over our shoulders here, the poor guy thought he was kissing his girlfriend and of course he wasn’t and she flipped him. Total surprise. Actually, she does it again just a couple chapters later when he’s about to do her damage, this time thinking she’s a thief, but in a split second he realizes who she is and pulls his punch and – surprise again – she throws him. I maintain, however, that in a one-on-one, no surprises, she’d be no match for him.

There’s an article by Vox Day entitled “Beating Down a Woman” that’s a bit unsettling. Day is a member of SFWA, so maybe Kathleen will continue to overlook our little tete-a-tete.
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=32034

Okay, on topic (which was what? oh, right) - I think your story is actually an excellent example of a woman writing both strong female AND male characters. I don't think you have to be a member of a sex to write a believable, well-rounded character...you just have to know a lot of people, period. Borrow the traits you like from friends and use the aspects you dislike from enemies. This is as reasonable a method for developing well-rounded, realistic characters as any.
 

I enjoy many stories writen by women with male characters, and I enjoy many stories about female characters writen by men, but I am also incapable of believing a fictional representation, however amusing, is accurate unless my own experience tends to confirm it.

Plato's Republic presents conscription of women into the military as a necessary condition of true equality between the sexes...but of course it also discusses the abolition of marriage, the family, and even romantic love as being even more necessary. I would add that genetic or eugenic engineering to insure that the average physical strengths of men and women were more equal would also seem to be a necessary precondition, given how Socrates and friends seem determined to define "equality" in this context. I myself can't really take the idea all that seriously, particularly as I am completely opposed to conscription, and theoretically opposed even to paying soldiers to be part of the army as such. But that is neither here nor there.

In discussion of ideas, men and women tend to both use the dialectics current in their intellectual community. But this is simply a matter of reproducing a certain style of language. In POV narrative, despite some similar influence from the accepted conventions of the particular genre, there are moments when a writer displays a grasp of experiential truth beyond the conventions common to the genre, and that truth comes out of his or her own experience.

Those experiences are peculiar to the individual, not only because of the differences of situation but also because of the differences of temper ment. And men and women almost always have circumstances as different (or even more different) than their various internal characters.

Hey, I'm a sensitive guy. I can cry and still feel manly (well, as manly as I ever feel). But I refuse to write the POV of a person that cries over stupid crap like every woman I've ever known at all well (and far too many I haven't known very well). I don't know why women cry about some things, so I won't write them doing it from their POV. I also don't know what makes some women subscribe to the theory that men are some kind of monolithic organization of oppressors, so my female POV characters never think like that (on the other hand, I do know what makes men think that women are all a different kind of beings altogether).

When I write a female's POV, I make her completely atypical, because otherwise I would just be mocking what I don't understand. Some men can probably do it...though I wouldn't know. I do know that even my favorite female authors make some really funny mistakes in the way they portray men, but then, everyone makes mistakes. My favorite male authors make just as many mistakes for no readily discernable reason (or perhaps they are all actually women writing under pseudonyms).

If you've never whacked your head with a hammer just because it was fun, you don't know why anyone would.
 

The main character is a female officer in a space navy. I think Weber does a good job of writing a female character, but if any women who have read the series would like to comment on things you think he got right or wrong, I'd be interested in hearing.

Honor gets into combat quite a bit, and I don't have a problem with that. Nor do I have any problem with Captain Janeway commanding Voyager in combat.

I have no problem with fictional women engaging in fictional combat. But when it comes to real women in real combat, for some reason I feel that shouldn't happen unless there is no choice. Probably the male protective instinct coming into play there.
 

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If you've never whacked your head with a hammer just because it was fun, you don't know why anyone would.

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That is deep. No, really.

 

Take an intelligent, analytical woman because most men can relate to her better than any other type. Stick her in the middle ages. Does she protest her situation, which probably involves housework, lots of babies, an arranged marriage, and an early death? No. Because that's all she knows. Feminists in the 1500's crack me up. They had bigger things to worry about. Now, if that woman was married to a dunce, ruining the farm and putting them all in danger, would she take control of the family and assert herself in order to keep her family alive? Probably.

Anyway, you can put here in all kinds of futures, but you have to have a culture to put her in. What are the expectations for women? For ideas, look at existing cultural norms for women all over the world as someonje on this thread already mentioned. (I'd attribute it, but I don't remember who said it.)
 

(Hmmmm....if a he-man is an especially strong man, is an especially strong woman a he-woman? Couldn't be a she-woman because that would seem to suggest an especially feminine woman. So would an effeminate man be a she-man? )

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I have no problem with fictional women engaging in fictional combat.

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I agree for the most part, but I guess I have more reservations about it. I loved Wonder Woman as a girl, but she wasn't a normal woman so she could do all sorts of ridiculous things. Depicting supposedly normal women doing absolutely outlandish things causes me to grind some mental gears, though. Pirates of the Caribbean goes for a stretch in having the young heroine take over command of a ship among other things.

Okay, it's all fun and games. Trouble is, there seems to be an unsettling trend to believe what's on the silver screen. From people asking Robert Young (I'll date myself here) medical advice, to news reporters today trying to interview the cast of West Wing about political events, to the entertainment factor in too many news shows, the line is getting a little blurred between reality and make-believe.

Even in societies that strictly limit women, a few will pick up any given skill. If those are the characters you wish to write about, go ahead. Stories about totally ordinary people are boring! (also unrealistic -- no one's totally ordinary) Do explain how she picked up the skill (close older brother, took over for husband who slowly went to drink, grew up in a poor neighborhood that just had to be practical, whatever) and how it effected her place in society.

As for fighting, a woman who knows what she's doing will beat a man who doesn't. Generally speaking, women are less eager to fight than men, and far less likely to engage in pseudo-fights (fights for status in which any attack with a real risk of injury is highly taboo), but give your character a good reason and she'll do either.

P.S. Survivor: I've never seen anything from you posted here that fell outside of human range. You pass the Turing Test flawlessly. Making sure you know how to kill everyone near you isn't all that far out. I typically have plans to deflect and disable anyone in the same room as myself, should that person try to attack me. This is fairly recent for me, the result of severely betrayed trust, but it doesn't seem far from what you described.
 

Some scientists have come up with an algorithm that is supposed to determine whether the author of some text is male of female. They claim 80% accuracy.

Someone put up a web page that you can paste text into and have it analyzed according to the algorithm:
http://www.bookblog.net/gender/genie.html

I plugged in the text of five short stories or scenes that I've written, plus my longest blog entry, and all but one came back as having been written by a female.
 

Go figure.
 

Of course, things get skewed by the self-electing nature of the samples.
 

I submitted a passage I wrote in a female POV, a subsequent passage of the same story written from a male POV, a short journal entry f, a longer journal entry, a series of journal entries f, an essay about Antigone f, an essay about Edward (Irish folk song, if you wonder) f, an essay about a dance concert, an essay about math education, and finally a short humor essay written by my brother.

Out of the ten entries, the program gave incorrect analyses of four entries, the short journal entry, the series of journal entries, and the essays regarding Antigone and Edward.

Of course, the program's "analytical" algorithm is so simple as to be laughable, it just counts the frequencies of a few common words, judged to be more characteristic of male or female writers, then bases your score on that. Just by using
"the" a lot you end up scored as a male, simply by using "with" a lot you end up scored as a female.

Male Keywords
[the] x +17
[a] x +6
[some] x +6
[number] x +5
[it] x +2

Female Keywords
[with] 1 x -14 = -14
['s] 0 x -5 = 0
[possessive pronoun] 2 x -3 = -6
[for] 1 x -4 = -4
[not] or [n't] 2 x -4 = -8

I think the fact that using negators and possessives is associated with a female score is actually very interesting, but hardly seems a firm basis for telling men and women apart.

I was reading a book by Jane Yolen (or whatever) the other day. It had a lot of passages that were just (to me) embarrassingly feminine ("I'm going to cry", "We're such good friends", "You just don't understand!") enough that I would never in a million years write a female POV that way, but Yolen gets away with it. Why? Probably because she actually knows what that kind of stuff is about from her own experience. If I were to try writing that kind of thing it would just be a sour falsetto.
 

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Such are the advances in technology and understanding that PET radioactive-imaging and MRI magnetic-imaging scans can now show whether a man and a woman are truly in love by measuring the amount of activity in the cingulate gyrus, an emotion center in the brain, Gurian says.

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Seriously, though, I have two points that may help here.

First, as with any character, if you want to portray them realistically...do your research. If you write a story about a protagonist who's a prison guard, you'd definately read about and, in a perfect world, talk to a few prison guards in orde rto better understand them. Why should it be any different when your a guy writing about a woman.

And, actually, understanding women really isn't so difficult. You want to get inside a woman's head? Read the stuff she reads. Again, I know I'm going to get hit with the generalization card here, but devote an hour or two to reading everything from Cosmo to Ladie's Home Journal to Bride's. Pay close attention to the areas where the readers write in with questions, seeking advice or to relay some particularly embarrassing event.

Women can do the same. The good part about htis approach, is there is a magazine targeted at just about every gender/hobby/vocation breakdown you could come up with for your characters.

Second, I have a slightly modified version of the Logic vs. Emotion theory of behavior...which has worked pretty well in letting me understand people.

It is my experience that Humans in general ACT based on emotion, then use logic to rationalize their behavior. Every one of us.

Now, Men, apply their logic to optimizing the facts of a situation. Women tend to apply their logic to sustaining relationships.

In other words, we do, for the most part, whatever we want. Then we justify it to the rest of the world as "the right thing to do, because..."

I'm not saying that all our motives are simply selfish. Indeed, the soldier who throws himself on a grenade is definitely NOT acting out of self-interest. Nor is the corporate whistle-blower. But I believe such actions arise from a gut-level feeling of right and wrong, more than a logical analyis of pros vs. cons.

For instance, my natural state is one of paranoid anti-socialness, but many persons who believe themselves close to me would characterize my personailty as friendly and outgoing - not because that is how I would like, but because that is how it should be.

Sometimes, the mind wins over the heart, but it is always the soul that guides.