Gendered ways of writing

[Verdad]

But-- do both genders really enjoy both? Trash is trash, for sure. But the original article claims that female authors are rarely even considered to be 'good stuff' in the first place. Even when they are, "good stuff" means "like a man would see it."

That's the article's opinion. What do you think-- is that something you see happening in our society? I agree with you, it shouldn't happen. I try not to do it, personally. But I have read plenty of Notable Critic types who hurl nasturtiums at female writers for being female.

I remember a thread about V.S. Naipaul’s little trolling episode, but I’m not aware of critics habitually putting down women writers. His statement was ridiculous because it was ridiculous, not because it’s some kind of tacitly accepted orthodoxy.

I am aware of our entire culture being tilted in favor of male perspective. If you want to say that even when you compare trash to trash, the stereotypically male-oriented kind gets more respect than the stereotypically female-oriented kind, I’ll agree. Likewise if you point out that in many types of fiction a female protagonist is a publishing and selling liability.

But the original article isn’t talking about female protagonists or about topics that strongly cater to traditionally female interests. It’s talking about women writers, and in order to make its bogus claims, it ignores all women who’ve done well in mainstream lit, all women who’ve done well in formerly male-dominated genres, even all women who’ve written a male protagonist. It accepts as women writers only romance writers and chick lit writers, then it proceeds to be outraged that they’re called fluff.

Really, I’ve no doubt there are publishing and marketing iniquities it would be interesting to know, but the article hasn’t taken time to research and present any. All it does is moan because the world isn’t sufficiently impressed with the likes of Meyer or James, and in the process it creates an impression that all women writers share their interests and levels of competence.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Ayn Rand got lotsa fame and fortune and credibility from her writing and screenplays during her life and beyond. She still shakes things up a bit. Patricia Cornwell, Sue Grafton, Poppie Z. Brite, and others, ditto.

So I wonder if we aren't really whining about a few segments of the female repertoire that fail to impress the general public? Its almost like Bulgarian shepherd singers bitching how they get no respect.

FOR STELLA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ycdn75RbuuE
BULGARIAN FOLKS SONGS

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

You see in my mind, the writer who I would most closely equate to the style and ability of Ann Davison... ...is Truman Capote.

Now I don't know what others think of Capote's style but I think it was just stunning. He maybe had a tendency to make his endings overwrought and sort of hanky-tearingly over-anxious to get to the page that said 'The End' on it, but fucken hell he could write a yarn.

And so can Davison.

Now if one is to say that okay, what we are really considering here is not if or whether women can write IN MALE GENDERED STEREOTYPICAL OR SOCIO-CULTURAL NORMATIVE ways - but that women, writing from a woman's viewpoint and to some kind of bio-archetypal 'women's interest' are automatically considered bad writers by a social normative, more or less Chauvanism, mmn, that's a much more complex discussion than it would appear.

Because, I do believe that the propositon is partly true: there most certainly is a polemic ideology among commercial interests and their political and social associates that pushes a kind of gender stereotyping. And therefore certain material is promoted into popularism artificially, against other writing that is also available but regularly left to one side.

Would I say, for instance because I am more used to seeing a lot of the normative styles, that some extreme example of a different style is lesser writing, as such, and might I be less inclined to find it 'interesting...?'

This is such a complicated question... It's a bit like wondering whether Sappho wrote as 'well' as the war poet Homer and if people would find her writing as 'interesting' and entertaining as the bloodythirsty and action-filled pages of the Iliad. We'll never know because angry Athenian scholars destroyed her blasphemous poems and writings.

But I will take Plato as a good enough critic and he mentioned that clever people at the time who were familiar with her work regarded her as 'the tenth muse' - literally that she was among the ranks of the immortal muses. Now what we know of her style and content is along the lines that she was 'so much more passionate in her understanding of things to do with love and men and women and flowers and all manner of things - as to disturb the ears of the manly, and to affront the ears of noble women, and to be a generally wasteful and utterly frivolous influence.'

Plato, on the other hand, writes that their criticisms were very misguided, and that the correct word about her was 'sensitive' and not 'passionate,' which was a means by which - according to Plato - the Athenians slandered her TO SUITE THEIR OWN ENDS .

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Truman Capote was the best. And he mentored Harper Lee to write TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, Pulitzer Prize quality.

So women can and do write great stuff that all admire. Why don't more of them do it, is the real question. I think they aim low trying to impress gals rather than everyone.

 

[madam_noe]

It's probably the publishers

It is, in my opinion, due to publishing houses. I'd like to relate a story from back in 2000.

I wrote a series of books in the style of Dale Brown (not Dan Brown) which is equivalent to better-written more-informed Tom Clancy novels. I got agents interested, but as N. Quick. When they discovered N was for Nora I heard the same thing "go write romance novels."

I'd written erotica but never romance at that point, but I wanted to write so I thought, okay. I didn't want to work with agents so I submitted a romance novel to a publisher that accepts direct submission. I can't say who, I'll explain in a moment.

I signed a contract, entered editing, got an advance. The editor came back and said "women don't want a heroine as smart as the hero, change it." I was confused because, though 20 at the time, I'm fairly smart and most of my lovers have always really liked that about me. But okay, the rules of fiction don;t follow real life, so I made him a little smarter, her less so.

Then the same complaint came in three more times. I was told basically "make her dumb." My reply was "she's a counter-terrorism expert for the United States who trained in Israel...you have to be pretty smart to do that." Their reply was "go fuck yourself and do what we say."

It got ridiculous. Eventually I realized they wanted my heroine to be either without a college degree or without a substantial one or graduate work, and essentially retell Cinderella only instead of being poor, this Cinderella's disadvantage was to be an utter twit.

So I balked, we sued each other, end of contract. It made me bitter towards publishing for many years.

Even now I've long since given up on my espionage Dale Brown-esque novels because the basic reasoning is "women can't write military novels, and even if they could we'd have to put a romance-type cover on it and women wouldn't buy it." It doesn't matter I worked long hours with a former CIA agent who is a family friend and my father and other family members, current or retired Marines. Apparently no one cares how much research you do if you're a woman writing a "man's" book.

I think the publishing industry is stuck in the previous age for the most part, a century behind the times or so. There was an age when there were clearly defined books for men and books for women and they seem to believe it's still that way.

No one can argue that fluffier work like romance or chick-lit isn't popular, so publishers still steer female writers into it, but if anyone out there thinks all women write fluff, they haven't been to a a library, and probably buy their books at Walmart.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

It is, in my opinion, due to publishing houses. I'd like to relate a story from back in 2000.

I wrote a series of books in the style of Dale Brown (not Dan Brown) which is equivalent to better-written more-informed Tom Clancy novels. I got agents interested, but as N. Quick. When they discovered N was for Nora I heard the same thing "go write romance novels."

I'd written erotica but never romance at that point, but I wanted to write so I thought, okay. I didn't want to work with agents so I submitted a romance novel to a publisher that accepts direct submission. I can't say who, I'll explain in a moment.

I signed a contract, entered editing, got an advance. The editor came back and said "women don't want a heroine as smart as the hero, change it." I was confused because, though 20 at the time, I'm fairly smart and most of my lovers have always really liked that about me. But okay, the rules of fiction don;t follow real life, so I made him a little smarter, her less so.

Then the same complaint came in three more times. I was told basically "make her dumb." My reply was "she's a counter-terrorism expert for the United States who trained in Israel...you have to be pretty smart to do that." Their reply was "go fuck yourself and do what we say."

It got ridiculous. Eventually I realized they wanted my heroine to be either without a college degree or without a substantial one or graduate work, and essentially retell Cinderella only instead of being poor, this Cinderella's disadvantage was to be an utter twit.

So I balked, we sued each other, end of contract. It made me bitter towards publishing for many years.

Even now I've long since given up on my espionage Dale Brown-esque novels because the basic reasoning is "women can't write military novels, and even if they could we'd have to put a romance-type cover on it and women wouldn't buy it." It doesn't matter I worked long hours with a former CIA agent who is a family friend and my father and other family members, current or retired Marines. Apparently no one cares how much research you do if you're a woman writing a "man's" book.

I think the publishing industry is stuck in the previous age for the most part, a century behind the times or so. There was an age when there were clearly defined books for men and books for women and they seem to believe it's still that way.

No one can argue that fluffier work like romance or chick-lit isn't popular, so publishers still steer female writers into it, but if anyone out there thinks all women write fluff, they haven't been to a a library, and probably buy their books at Walmart.

Every editor and publisher has rejected best sellers. All editors and publishers know is what's hot right now. Some classic-best sellers were rejected for many years. Its like fashion, the kewl kids fall over something they like, and then the whole school goes nuts for it. But if your wares are THAT good they'll soar like eagles inspite of you and editors and publishers and PC school boards.

 

[KatieTay]

It got ridiculous. Eventually I realized they wanted my heroine to be either without a college degree or without a substantial one or graduate work, and essentially retell Cinderella only instead of being poor, this Cinderella's disadvantage was to be an utter twit.

So I balked, we sued each other, end of contract. It made me bitter towards publishing for many years.

That is just fucked up.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Even now I've long since given up on my espionage Dale Brown-esque novels because the basic reasoning is "women can't write military novels, and even if they could we'd have to put a romance-type cover on it and women wouldn't buy it." It doesn't matter I worked long hours with a former CIA agent who is a family friend and my father and other family members, current or retired Marines. Apparently no one cares how much research you do if you're a woman writing a "man's" book.

I think you could publish them now. There are small e-pub groups that would gladly take it, or you could self-publish. I know it's not "real" publishing, but actually... it really is.

And there are a lot of people who would relish reading a smart heroine, both male and female.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I think you could publish them now. There are small e-pub groups that would gladly take it, or you could self-publish. I know it's not "real" publishing, but actually... it really is.

And there are a lot of people who would relish reading a smart heroine, both male and female.

Hmmm, a hermaphrodite gumshoe. That's gotta be a first!

 

[KatieTay]

"It’s frustrating to me that I don’t see anybody developing one of these [movies with strong female leads]. It actually pisses me off. My daughter watched The Avengers and was like, 'My favorite characters were the Black Widow and Maria Hill,' and I thought, Yeah, of course they were. I read a beautiful thing Junot Diaz wrote: 'If you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves.'"

- Joss Whedon

 

[KatieTay]

http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2013/08/i-hate-strong-female-characters

So thought-provoking.

Unfortunately, for my stories on here, I do need my female characters to be strong primarily in the physical sense.

But I really would love for more multi-dimensional, fully fleshed-out female characters everywhere.

I totally agree - why couldn't more side characters in movies be actually female? Not even talking about the main cast... though parity there would be really nice...

 

[oggbashan]

Georgette Heyer's An Infamous Army was required reading for British Army officers because of its reasonable (i.e. not Brit-centric) account of the Waterloo Campaign.

Her historical research for the majority of her books was meticulous. She tried to suppress some of her earliest novels because they didn't meet her own standards of historic accuracy.

Her plots and hero/heroines were formulaic. So what? They were still entertaining reading.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2013/08/i-hate-strong-female-characters

So thought-provoking.

Unfortunately, for my stories on here, I do need my female characters to be strong primarily in the physical sense.

But I really would love for more multi-dimensional, fully fleshed-out female characters everywhere.

I totally agree - why couldn't more side characters in movies be actually female? Not even talking about the main cast... though parity there would be really nice...

No one goes to the movies to see females. Put a woman in a good movie and it loses money. Porn is their place.

 

[lawn]

a woman's POV

Since this is Literotica I wanted to address my own preconceptions of what I thought and/or expected of women writers of erotica and pornography.

I expected more vivid and graphic depictions of sex and bodies from men. I expected more interest in feelings and relationships and words from the works of women.

Since joining Lit I have explored the writings of women and from those who proclaim themselves women. It's sort of like computer sex - you never really know for sure unless you are willing to go meet those women writers. (I am not willing to do this.)

I am finding some of my preconceptions to be true, some not so much. Like most men, I suppose, I'm vision oriented and like prose that paints graphic images in my head.

As a non-'erotic' example I'm reading Jean Marie Auel's Earth's Children series. Many of her 'sex' scenes or as graphic as can be and I wondered if she had help. They seem to be so strongly graphic that I might have written them and they seemed to have the female character like sexual experiences as I would like them. I've not heard many of the women I know think of those things in that way. They would not have described lovemaking as Auel did.

Like most male writers, I'm still working on less 'objective' prose as I am still working on as accurate a depiction of the minds and feelings of women as I can muster. Part of my writing erotica and porn is to do just that - create believable female characters. I think it continues to strengthen my 'art'.

I'm working on stories to appear here soon written from a woman's point of view so I'm hoping...

So that's my two cents.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Spare yourself the mental math, women are as groady or more groady than men. I saw more pussy as a psychotherapist than youll see watching a porn marathon, and that was just my female colleagues.

Gals do it all. But they don't wanna be caught doing it. So they lie their asses off to save face. They wont say COCK with a mouth full.

So write it up how you want and adjust the gender of the nouns to match the sex.

 

[lawn]

Spare yourself the mental math, women are as groady or more groady than men. I saw more pussy as a psychotherapist than youll see watching a porn marathon, and that was just my female colleagues.

Gals do it all. But they don't wanna be caught doing it. So they lie their asses off to save face. They wont say COCK with a mouth full.

So write it up how you want and adjust the gender of the nouns to match the sex.

Well, the do it well enough - walk the walk, I guess. Talk the talk - write the write - so far I've found that to be a bit more rare.

 

[TxRad]

Well, the do it well enough - walk the walk, I guess. Talk the talk - write the write - so far I've found that to be a bit more rare.

You have to take JBJ with a dose of salts. He loves to stir the shit just to see the reaction.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

You have to take JBJ with a dose of salts. He loves to stir the shit just to see the reaction.

^^^^The closest TEX has ever been to real pussy is sneaking outta his mom's house late at night to sniff bicycle seats.

 

[lawn]

You have to take JBJ with a dose of salts. He loves to stir the shit just to see the reaction.

Seems so. Thanks.

 

[lawn]

Spare yourself the mental math, women are as groady or more groady than men. I saw more pussy as a psychotherapist than youll see watching a porn marathon, and that was just my female colleagues.

Gals do it all. But they don't wanna be caught doing it. So they lie their asses off to save face. They wont say COCK with a mouth full.

So write it up how you want and adjust the gender of the nouns to match the sex.

That may not be bad advice. So, thanks to you also.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

That may not be bad advice. So, thanks to you also.

Hemingway suggested the same. Change the pronouns.

 

[KatieTay]

@lawn:

Stereotypes exist for a reason.

But 60% accuracy is enough to be the basis of a stereotype.

40% is still a pretty big chunk.

Meaning, your preconceptions are understandable, but people are so varied and complex that it's meaningless to try and guess, just from a piece of fiction (wherein the author may well be trying on different voices and personas for size), whether it's by a male or female author.

This is just my personal take.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Females conform, males cooperate.

 

[lawn]

@lawn:

Stereotypes exist for a reason.

But 60% accuracy is enough to be the basis of a stereotype.

40% is still a pretty big chunk.

Meaning, your preconceptions are understandable, but people are so varied and complex that it's meaningless to try and guess, just from a piece of fiction (wherein the author may well be trying on different voices and personas for size), whether it's by a male or female author.

This is just my personal take.

Thanks for the insight, KatieTay.

 

[StrangeLife]

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...

Whether these authors books are readable for guys depend on whether they deal with relationships or not.


Case in point Patricia Cornwell...

The early books are great, but the later ones will leave most male readers wishing they had a button with the text: "Kill Benton Wesley... horribly and with extreme prejudice!"


Case in point Dorothy L. Sayers...

Most of her books are fine (if a bit long-winded) but male readers are advised to end the Peter Wimsey series with Gaudy Night. That's when he gets married and the whole things turns into the Oprah Show.


Case in point Agatha Christie...

Her "bachelor heroes" - Poirot and Miss Marple - are awesome and rightfully iconic of the genre, but as soon as she introduces relationships into the mix she goes off the rails.