Men seeking to write women better

[joy_of_cooking]

Or, you know, go ahead and replace your female character with a very sexy lamp and post your story in 'toys and masturbation'.

What if my sexy lamp has a woman inside? Fetish?

 

[onehitwanda]

... Doesn't that change the plot from "man watching woman shower" to "cat plotting to murder human for food" or some such thing?

A cat would never murder for something as prosaic as food.

A cat would murder for fun

 

[onehitwanda]

What if my sexy lamp has a woman inside? Fetish?

Aladyin ?

sorry...

 

[joy_of_cooking]

The sexy lamp test: If you can replace your female character with a very sexy lamp and it does not change the plot, then your female character is probably not very well developed.

In all seriousness, this is an interesting idea and one I'll think about as I write female characters in the future. Thank you.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

Aladyin ?

sorry...

You are not.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

The Bechdel test - while it's well-meaning, its worth pointing out that the Vagina Monologues don't pass it but Debbie Does Dallas does..

The Bechdel Test was never intended to be used to rate individual films - but rather the film industry as a whole. If 80% of Hollywood output doesn't pass (I think that was the rough figure when the test came out), what does that say about potential to develop new characters and stories that aren't being told?

 

[Jackie.Hikaru]

What if my sexy lamp has a woman inside? Fetish?

I'm sure it'll find its audience.

 

[onehitwanda]

You are not.

Damn. They're on to me.

 

[TheRedChamber]

The Bechdel Test was never intended to be used to rate individual films - but rather the film industry as a whole. If 80% of Hollywood output doesn't pass (I think that was the rough figure when the test came out), what does that say about potential to develop new characters and stories that aren't being told?

Arguing about this further would probably imply that I'm saying the Hollywood film industry was/is great. I'm not.

But any test that doesn't for individual movies isn't going to work on a larger sample either. And you really don't want Hollywood types getting the idea that if you jury rig your movie to pass the Bechdel Test, you're suddenly making a great feminist movie. Honestly, for a comic strip it made a good point in a funny way, but it doesn't stand up to any kind of actual scrutiny.

Mansplaining over.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Chocolate cake.

Make her crave something other than dick. I adds depth.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Aladyin ?

sorry...

It could be "I Dream of Jeannie." It's more than a little strange that she keeps calling him "Master."

 

[EmilyMiller]

Aladyin ?

sorry...

You are on a roll, aren’t you?

Em

 

[onehitwanda]

You are on a roll, aren’t you?

Em

on a role, certainly. Village crazy cat lady

 

[Bramblethorn]

For the purposes of being actually helpful to the spirit of the OP here, I would add that rather than the bechdel test, the 'sexy lamp test' would be a good metric to measure your story by, if your intention is to write women better. The sexy lamp test: If you can replace your female character with a very sexy lamp and it does not change the plot, then your female character is probably not very well developed.
Or, you know, go ahead and replace your female character with a very sexy lamp and post your story in 'toys and masturbation'.

A variant on this one is "sexy lamp with a post-it note", for those lamp characters who deliver a bit of exposition.

Arguing about this further would probably imply that I'm saying the Hollywood film industry was/is great. I'm not.

But any test that doesn't for individual movies isn't going to work on a larger sample either.

But that's just not true. There are plenty of tests out there which are quite unreliable at the individual level and yet very useful for assessing large populations; there are entire branches of study based on this principle.

If I drive downtown, and the first shop I see happens to be closed with the windows papered over, that doesn't tell me much about it. Might be they've closed down, but it could be they're renovating, or that they just moved to a new location and somebody else is about to move in.

But if I drive downtown, and ninety out of the first hundred shops I see are all closed with the windows papered over, I can be pretty confident that this district isn't doing well.

And you really don't want Hollywood types getting the idea that if you jury rig your movie to pass the Bechdel Test, you're suddenly making a great feminist movie.

...we don't?

I agree it's not much, but it'd still be an improvement on where we are now. And then we could start work on raising the bar a little further off the floor.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I don't be calling nobody master no mo, mister.

It could be "I Dream of Jeannie." It's more than a little strange that she keeps calling him "Master."

 

[Whanmore]

I'll go one further. The standard stroke story writes the men even worse than the women. At least the women get measurements and hair color. All the men usually get is a fit bod an a large cock. Probably because the vast majority of stroke readers are straight men and they're not really interested in the guy. They're not really interested in the girl neither, just her body, how dirty she talks and how slutty she is, so if the guy is barely mentioned all the better.

Yeah Thats Antiually intended. Most men wanna put themselves in the story. For me describing a guy too much it's like when a male pornstars sticks his tongue out at the camera. Total mood killer. Guys are also easier to write because it's much more beleivable for a guy to be fueled soley by sex. Indeed fiction in that respect can mirror real life. A lot of guys do really crazy shit for sex, so it's beleivable.

 

[ArdentHemingway]

The problem is that Carol listened in as the communication wasn’t secure.

Actually, that highlights the issue I encountered.
As it was a public request (as with a ping or an ARP), Carol is welcome to listen in and _should_be_ allowed to respond if she has the information Bob seeks (if she wants to, maybe she doesn't want to, it should be her choice).
But the group mod [Alice] shut it down (turned off comments on my [Bob's] post), which disallows other members of the group [Carol] from responding. This particular Alice is (perhaps) an over-eager firewall and could probably use some tuning.