Gendered ways of writing

[KatieTay]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maureen-johnson/gender-coverup_b_3231484.html

This resonates so much, it's uncanny.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

The real culprit is females.

From the time males are babies, the girls are busy working to make the guys, guys. Gender-bending is not OK with girls.

So I suggest you galz hold a convention and all get on the same page before you whine about guys.

 

[Stella_Omega]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maureen-johnson/gender-coverup_b_3231484.html

This resonates so much, it's uncanny.

Yep...

I just read a trilogy of sci-fi.fantasy novels. They were not much, just some summer reading-- no deathless literature. There was fighting and intrigue, blood and gore, betrayals and daring rescues-- People turning into animals (but not for sex) and demons raingin death out of the clouds-- and all through all of this stuff, the female protag was dealing with people that would not respect her, because of her sex. Not only men, several women as well-- classic heteronormative society-- and there were several men who totally understood that she had a handle on the problem and followed her.

I was comparing it to Game of Thrones, and I think the writing quality is about the same-- workmanlike but not deathless prose-- just this little series was written from a female viewpoint, and probably will never gain recognition in the mainstream. It might as well be written in Balinese.

 

[PennLady]

I can certainly relate to this. But it occurred to me that with PennBoy's reading, women feature as authors. He's read all (or nearly all) of Harry Potter, the Owls of Ga'Hoole series by Kathryn Lasky, and is currently reading a YA series about warrior cats by Erin Hunter. And a couple of weeks ago he came home with one of Ursula Leguin's Earthsea books (he took that back, I think, when I pulled out the original trilogy I have). He's also read the Eragon books by Christophe Paolini, so I'm not saying he doesn't read guys, but I found this an interesting counterpoint to the article.

And he's started reading some of The Hunger Games on my Kindle, but that gets a bit lost in the shuffle.

But yes, I have to agree, we're mostly handed books by male authors. And I'll admit that my favorite fantasy series is Michael Moorcock's Elric saga, and that Neil Gaiman is probably my current favorite author. I'd read fantasy by anyone, but mostly I find it by guys.

 

[oggbashan]

I read Dorothy L Sayers, Agatha Christie, Marjorie Allingham, Ngaio Marsh, Patricia Cornwell - OK they are all writing in genre fiction but they were/are popular with both sexes of readers.

Ursula Le Guin, Anne McCaffery and others in Sci-Fi/Fantasy can be women successful in their genre.

There are women writing for women, genres and publishers that aim at a women's market.

But there are also men writing for men such as Tom Clancy.

While I think it WAS true that it was difficult for women to write for men, or for men to write for women, I'm not sure it is still true in the 21st Century.

 

[Euphony]

I can certainly relate to this. But it occurred to me that with PennBoy's reading, women feature as authors. He's read all (or nearly all) of Harry Potter, the Owls of Ga'Hoole series by Kathryn Lasky, and is currently reading a YA series about warrior cats by Erin Hunter. And a couple of weeks ago he came home with one of Ursula Leguin's Earthsea books (he took that back, I think, when I pulled out the original trilogy I have). He's also read the Eragon books by Christophe Paolini, so I'm not saying he doesn't read guys, but I found this an interesting counterpoint to the article.

And he's started reading some of The Hunger Games on my Kindle, but that gets a bit lost in the shuffle.

But yes, I have to agree, we're mostly handed books by male authors. And I'll admit that my favorite fantasy series is Michael Moorcock's Elric saga, and that Neil Gaiman is probably my current favorite author. I'd read fantasy by anyone, but mostly I find it by guys.

I think YAdult tends to skew a little more female than mainstream lit so his tendencies are dictated by current category.

Thats not to say its not UTTERLY FANTASTIC. It will just be interesting to see if it continues as he progresses into the whole of the bookstore, especially when the current order flows against the female author (marketing, covers, reception, reviews, etc)

At least you know he wont discount a female author right off the bat which in and of itself is a huge thing many boys never overcome.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Generally speaking I don't bother with female authors. I bought a romance the other day, and made it maybe 5 pages before I threw it away. The writing confirmed my stereotype for females: Theyre cosmetic and shallow and slaves to fashion with no convictions or principles beyond DONT SHOW YOUR ASS IN PUBLIC. Women are a parade NOT a cause or crusade. Theyre thrift store pragmatists.

That said, I read everything I can find by Florence King, Camille Paglia, and Peggy Noonan. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings is atop my list of favorite authors. The rest blow.

 

[PennLady]

I think YAdult tends to skew a little more female than mainstream lit so his tendencies are dictated by current category.

Thats not to say its not UTTERLY FANTASTIC. It will just be interesting to see if it continues as he progresses into the whole of the bookstore, especially when the current order flows against the female author (marketing, covers, reception, reviews, etc)

At least you know he wont discount a female author right off the bat which in and of itself is a huge thing many boys never overcome.

That could very well be true. When I scan the juvenile and YA fiction shelves at the library, I do think I see more female than male authors, though I've never actually counted.

I'll be curious as well as he gets older to see how he shops for books. Right now we do a lot of library, and he gets books from his school library, and then there's whatever we mention to him, or I guess what he hears about from friends. I was also pleasantly surprised when he was reading these books because he does -- he's only nine -- have a bit of the sexist streak in him that many kids do at that age. And of course he's only looking at whether he enjoys the book, not breaking it down into styles or anything like that.

I wondered whether he would like The Hunger Games, since there's a female protagonist, and I told him that before we watched the movie, which he saw before reading anything, but he told me that was fine and does like the movie.

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

Oh hell.

I literally grew up in a United States Information Service Library - I have never been 'handed a book' in my life. Both my parents were professional educators, and I can count a Harvard Professor as one of my private tutors.

Okay, so I didn't get the same upbringing or education most others seem to have had. No one - not either of my parents nor any of my school teachers ever handed me a book and told me what to read. They wouldn't have had the temerity.

I had total access to the library and the whole idea about 'education' that the people who raised me had, was all about being able to see other people's ideas and compare and contrast them without the 'benefit' of propaganda. That is what education was meant to be for - to give you freedom in your own mind and a broad basis of information from which to arrive at independent personal decisions that you were happy to call your own.

I am very certain there was no compulsion on me to read from any particular socio-moral-'normalcy' angle. Of that I am very very sure.

Did I gravitate towards one thing or another...? I must tell you that having lived in a fairly isolated part of the world for a very long time, meant that by the time I got to 'the rest of the world' I was very unfamiliar with all the fuss. I had always just taken a good read on its merits and have been entertained more or less by a variety of different perspectives, rather than feeling a desire to become 'founded' in anything narrow.

Okay I need to understand what people are saying here: who hasn't read Pauline Reage, or Enid Blyton or Tanith Lee or Dorothy Sayers or Virginia Woolf. Don't tell me you are not going to think about Emily Bronte? What about Elizabeth Browning? Mary Shelley? Mitford Haven? Edith Sitwell?

I had never supposed Sheharezade to be anything other than a woman.

Someone please explain to me what this controversy is about. Seriously I don't get it. Is it that people have been FORCED into certain books and steered away from others in most urban developed parts of the world...? That was not something that happened to me at all from my own consciousness - although I have become aware how important it is that people tell me what I should think all the time nowadays.

And I find it extremely easy to say that Ayn Rand was a particularly turgid, if not quite poor, writer. I'm sure I can find some very mediocre women writers.

I mean if you want to go into the underground literature of the witch culture excluding whatsisname, some of the very very very best exponents of a decent turn of phrase in the English language are all women and I can't see how anyone is going to ascribe a male gender-centricity there.

Someone enlighten please me as to precisely what this is all about. I don't get it. I DO get that there is an awful lot of gender bias in big publishing and in conservative or conforming written material and in the economics of it all - that is afterall why there ever was a Golden Bough publishing house in the first place. But this bias stems from the politics and economics of maintenance of control from a Cromwellian era - not from any natural bias either in society or the literati or the actual intelligentsia.

I have lived in South Africa off and on and I get that the people there were NEVER ALLOWED and therefore did not even (most of them) know that movies like In the Heat of The Night or Guess who's Coming to Dinner or Zulu existed.

Are people here saying they were deliberately not made aware of the works of the women writers I mentioned, or is the issue more to do with attributing 'gender normative' (a functioning though probably not optimal phrase) styles of writing even in the hands of these women?

If it's the latter, I don't see it myself.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Apart from sex males find females boring, and the female mindset comes thru in their writing.

 

[TxRad]

Apart from sex males find females boring, and the female mindset comes thru in their writing.

There you go speaking for yourself again.

 

[sr71plt]

I was told what to read in school, of course, but other than that no one pressed their agendas on me to read what they wanted me to read--and thereby to believe. And the author's gender doesn't rank high on my list of selection criteria. Although I do shy away, as JBJ notes, from shallow "is-my-slip-showing-in-the-middle-of-a-serious-crisis" chick lit.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

There you go speaking for yourself again.

Goddamned right, Old Hoss. You don't think I'd let our cast of numnutz do my thinking for me, do yuh?

 

[destined]

Generally speaking I don't bother with female authors. I bought a romance the other day, and made it maybe 5 pages before I threw it away. The writing confirmed my stereotype for females: Theyre cosmetic and shallow and slaves to fashion with no convictions or principles beyond DONT SHOW YOUR ASS IN PUBLIC. Women are a parade NOT a cause or crusade. Theyre thrift store pragmatists.

That said, I read everything I can find by Florence King, Camille Paglia, and Peggy Noonan. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings is atop my list of favorite authors. The rest blow.

I hate to have to admit this but I generally agree with your stereotype. Most serious reading I have done has been written by male authors.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I hate to have to admit this but I generally agree with your stereotype. Most serious reading I have done has been written by male authors.

Women can and do write industrial strength prose, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings is the best example of it, but from my experiences women cant relate to MKR's writing. She preferred the company of men, and toiled like a man, and drank like a man tho proud of her culinary gifts. The women in her stories are austere and silly and victims. None of them are noble tho none of them are so base as the men are. She failed at writing romance.

 

[3113]

Cover Flip!

Love the coverflip.

 

[damppanties]

Love the coverflip.

Yes..

 

[destined]

Women can and do write industrial strength prose, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings is the best example of it, but from my experiences women cant relate to MKR's writing. She preferred the company of men, and toiled like a man, and drank like a man tho proud of her culinary gifts. The women in her stories are austere and silly and victims. None of them are noble tho none of them are so base as the men are. She failed at writing romance.

Agreed - Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings is not one of my favorite authors.... When it comes to novels, am more of a Julie Garlwood kind of reader.

 

[lovecraft68]

Generally speaking I don't bother with female authors. I bought a romance the other day, and made it maybe 5 pages before I threw it away. The writing confirmed my stereotype for females: Theyre cosmetic and shallow and slaves to fashion with no convictions or principles beyond DONT SHOW YOUR ASS IN PUBLIC. Women are a parade NOT a cause or crusade. Theyre thrift store pragmatists.

That said, I read everything I can find by Florence King, Camille Paglia, and Peggy Noonan. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings is atop my list of favorite authors. The rest blow.

But understand the majority of "Romance" out there is formulaic, bubble gum, top forty stuff all made in the same mold to sell copies to the same people who bought the last one.

A) a slightly older female character that is widowed/divorced/ or is just a reserved lifetime single lady

B) meets ruggedly handsome, but slightly dangerous bad boy.

C) she is so into Mr. Bad boy, and he is into her, but he is trouble! Yet she still finds her loins moistening and her nipples hardening for him! But....but...

D) will he change for her? WILL HE? insert dramatic music here

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

But understand the majority of "Romance" out there is formulaic, bubble gum, top forty stuff all made in the same mold to sell copies to the same people who bought the last one.

A) a slightly older female character that is widowed/divorced/ or is just a reserved lifetime single lady

B) meets ruggedly handsome, but slightly dangerous bad boy.

C) she is so into Mr. Bad boy, and he is into her, but he is trouble! Yet she still finds her loins moistening and her nipples hardening for him! But....but...

D) will he change for her? WILL HE? insert dramatic music here

For sure. I ran into Mister Bad Boy on page 2 when the real estate agent to the rich and famous left her rich clients in the lurch to drive off with Mister Bad Boy. I didn't stick around to discover what the hurry was, but to paraphrase Mark Twain, HIS APPEAL WAS WORTH $4 A MILLIMETER.

 

[MatthewVett]

Love the coverflip.

I think it's interesting, but what does it really prove? She asked people to design covers for a gender-flipped author, but won't everyone who responds already agree with her? I better test would be to ask different publishing companies to suggest cover designs for the same book, but with flipped gendered names. Having random people make up covers doesn't really show much besides this is how people view the situation, which, while I agree with their general outlook in male versus female authors, doesn't necessarily agree with reality. You could just as easily get people who would create the same cover for both male and female authors.

 

[Euphony]

I think it's interesting, but what does it really prove? She asked people to design covers for a gender-flipped author, but won't everyone who responds already agree with her? I better test would be to ask different publishing companies to suggest cover designs for the same book, but with flipped gendered names. Having random people make up covers doesn't really show much besides this is how people view the situation, which, while I agree with their general outlook in male versus female authors, doesn't necessarily agree with reality. You could just as easily get people who would create the same cover for both male and female authors.

I agree that this was about as far from scientific as one can get .

For me though, the value was the surreal moment where it *felt* more true than not.

Had I not had similar thoughts already in my head from years of perusing all manner of library and bookstore, it would have rung false.

It did not. Not even a little. Thats kinda scary to me because it makes me wonder if it's been influencing my choices.

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

(Stuff deleted by me from here just 'cause.)

My attitude towards people who want to claim they are part of the female sexual/gender or any other kind of revolution is partly if not largely to do with my upbringing - none of which was either twisted or bad at all.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I have stories like that, too-- the ones where you think; "Naw, no one is going to believe me," and then you have to decide if you should tell them anyway, knowing you sound a little mad...

 

[sr71plt]

Well, I do worry a bit about Desiremakesmeweak only "mostly" being in Australia. One wonders where the rest of Desiremakesmeweak is and what part that is.