[sillysod]

Exactly, and this is a huge problem here in India, where a large part of society still upholds discrimination. I cannot tell you how many people I've met who are the sort who say "I'm not prejudiced but ..." which actually means "I am prejudiced and ..." (as John Cleese once pointed out). These people pretend to be very open-minded and then tell us how women should stick to traditional roles. And if this is the way educated (I might put that in quotes) people behave, what are we supposed to expect from others, who follow the trend set by the higher class (at least here)?

The thought has been so ingrained in us that I cannot tell you how many friends of mine get angry when we talk about marriage and I say that I see no reason why my wife should change her last name. In fact, when my sister got married, I asked her that question, and she was astounded, which shows the way it's been till now.

And this is a very small manifestation of a much larger problem, which has to be taken out from the root.

[KatG]

Well, but that does provide fodder for writers, doesn't it? All those cultural imposed differences. Though not so great out in the real world.

[alison]

Im just going to jump in here and say i think your right alison it is the way that we are educated that makes us diffrent well in my oppinion anyway its starts in about primary school,maybe even before that.

I think it's both. I remember my midwife saying to me: "I've delivered 500 babies, and I don't care what anyone says: boys and girls are different, and they're different when they're born." But it's what is made of those differences socially that shapes a lot of things, and it includes what you read in books and see on tv. Like a lot of women my age, I spent my childhood imagining myself "into" stories: it was always the boys who had the exciting roles. That's one really good thing that has changed: there are tons of female characters now, and the female heroine wringing her hands and waiting to be rescued is mostly a thing of the past. I always imagined myself as the man. Especially as my mother used to say to me that I mustn't appear intelligent, as if a woman seemed too intelligent men didn't like it. (!) I still can't believe she said that, but she really did, and quite often... but if I had to be stupid, why should I be a woman?!

Luckily there are lots of ways of being a woman, and I found some for myself. But I know that in my work, I want women to be on an equal footing, imaginatively speaking, with men. I think the stories we tell each other matter, because they can open possibilities - or close them off.

[glendalarke]

Fascinating topic.
I suspect that as this century advances, the difficulties that a writer of one gender has with portraying characters of the other gender will continue to diminish down to about vanishing point - and one reason is that real life is blurring roles. Men now take a wider role in things like childcare and housework and childbirth, they are sensitized to empathy issues; women take more responsibility with everything from being the handyman to physical protection of themselves. Even though there may remain the physiological differences, human beings will deliberately override them more and more. Generally speaking, 21st century writers will have it a little easier.

The thing fantasy writers have to be a little careful about though, is not to make our strong women or empathetic males impossible for their times. If you draw a mediaeval world, and you make your women behave as a man, she's going to be labelled either mad or bad, and end up either in jail or a madhouse - or like Joan of Arc. And the latter only got where she did because she used religion to get there (amazing what you can do if you convince your audience that you have God behind you). An empathetic male on the other hand is likely to be ridiculed and labelled as weak or homosexual by his peers.

I am having a fascinating time at the moment with a strong woman living in sort of Roman-Empire-like world. She's a killer - a sort of secret agent type - and does it by hiding that side of her from society. However, by the end of the trilogy she is leading a slave rebellion, so I have to make her leadership credible... Oh, and she does have a weakness. She makes an utter fool of herself when she falls in love. Now, which of us hasn't done that at one time or another?? :rolleyes:

[alison]

Hi Glenda - nice to see you here!

I suspect that as this century advances, the difficulties that a writer of one gender has with portraying characters of the other gender will continue to diminish down to about vanishing point - and one reason is that real life is blurring roles. Men now take a wider role in things like childcare and housework and childbirth, they are sensitized to empathy issues; women take more responsibility with everything from being the handyman to physical protection of themselves. Even though there may remain the physiological differences, human beings will deliberately override them more and more. Generally speaking, 21st century writers will have it a little easier.



I wish I could think that! It seems to me that, rather, things at present are going a little backward as far as that's concerned. Also, I've never bought the argument that men can't write women, or vice versa - I've simply read too many compelling characters of either sex written by both men and women. The classic example is Madame Bovary, of course - and as Flaubert said, "Madame Bovary, c'est moi!", which suggests a way through this dilemma, empathetic imagination. And there are hundreds of other examples.

I think gender (or any other "typing", race, for example) is a problem in writing when gender stereotypes overlay the particular of any character. In other words, consciously or not, the character becomes less than fully human and only men (for example) are given the full gamut of action and emotion.

As far as the historical business goes - well, when you read history, you find the story is always a bit more complicated. There have always been strong women - mediaeval Europe was full of autonomous businesswomen, running breweries, bakeres, jewellers, teaching, spiritual leaders, writers - though these tended to be aristocrats, a surprising percentage of troubadours were women. They were even warriors - as you say, Joan of Arc. This is not to say that there weren't terrible sexisms, but the close-up story is often surprising: and there's also an awful lot that simply isn't known, as the stories of women are ignored by later historians, distorting the actualities (though there are a lot of historians working on these "opaque" areas). So I think there's a fair bit of room to move, imaginatively speaking.

But, in case I wasn't clear, I don't mean that stories should be written to give strong "role models", which falsify the story as much as any imposed ideology. I just mean that I want the men and women in my stories to be each imagined wholly, and not through a veil of prejudice or assumption.

[glendalarke]

You're absolutely right. I never meant to imply that some writers haven't managed to portray the opposite sex brilliantly in past ages. I just feel that it is going to be easier for future writers to do it.
We talk about things more these days. How would a nineteenth century man know what it was like to be a woman? To, for example, have one's menses? He couldn't pick up a copy of Cosmo...or talk to his girlfriend. Or even to his wife. (My grandmother married in 1901 at the age of 28. She once told my mother that my grandfather had never seen her naked, and never would! I am quite sure she never spoke of "female" things to her husband.)

And I think you're reinforcing my point about strong women in the past - they had to be strong within the confines of their society by bending the system rather than standing up straight. If they behaved the way we think is the norm: give a forceful opinion unasked, for example, they would have been broken, rather than successful. Of course there were plenty of wonderful women out there - and sometimes men who supported them...and many who ended up burned as witches - or similar fates - because they didn't work within the system.

The overlay of race is an interesting one. As you may know, I am married to someone of an another race and I live in a culture that is not mine, among people of a religion I don't necessarily ascribe to. You would think, then, that I would say there is no such thing as a racial stereotype. And of course you would be right. But you may be surprised to hear that I would also maintain that there are cultural norms which do manifest themselves in individual stereotypical behaviour... It is surprisingly easy to think to oneself, hmmm, X group of people, brought up in Z country and practising Y religion do tend to be a) fatalistic b) largely uncompetitive and a little on the lazy side c) arrogantly unbending and intolerant on religious issues d) gullible.
The trick as a human being (and as a writer) is to see through all this cultural baggage to the person beneath. Such tendencies as those mentioned above may be more frequently encountered where I live, than in say, suburban Sydney, but everyone is still an individual and no one is a cultural norm. No one even entirely fits the cultural norm in all its complexity.
Much, much harder than this, is to stop feeling superior about my own cultural norms. That one is tough, and I doubt whether anyone can do that entirely - if we do, then we negate the things we believe in or live by. The most we can do is empathise or at least understand even when we do not subscribe.

And I've kinda got off the topic. I love being a writer...trouble with finding ideas to write about? Never!

[alison]

Yes, women had to be very resourceful if they wished to speak in public voices. In some ways, they still do - women are still judged publicly in ways that men are not (whether they're good mothers if they work, their personal appearance, &c). One of my personal interests is mediaeval mystic women - people like Julian of Norwich, or Hildegard, or Margery of Kemp, or the Beguines. They left some amazing, not to say startling, writing... A lot were burned as heretics or otherwise silenced by the church, but they creatively managed to subvert the patriarchal norms and, in various ways, change their worlds to suit their needs and desires better. And some of them (Julian and Hildegard, for instance) were not only not burned, but greatly respected.

I imagine living in another culture must be a constant challenge, although stimulating as well. (It's not off-topic, I'm sure, it's utterly linked to the whole question of stereotyping). It must be hard also to look past your cultural expectations too, we learn how to "read" things, and how do you know you're not superimposing your own assumptions about something and misunderstanding? How do you negotiate these things? Still, some things do undercut language and cultural differences.

[Dazzlinkat]

This is an amazing thread!

Women authors add more dimension to characters than the men, generally & I think this difference has sparked a change. More and more men authors are delving into their characters & learning to make their women real. Male heroes aren't just Conan anymore, either.

[Lemur_Girl]

oooh good thread... I know I'm not going to sound or be as intelligent as anyone else here, so bear with me :o

I find alot with fantasy written by men and fantasy written by women there is a big difference...it might all come down to genetics, I'm not sure...but I find there is alot more description of the characters feelings when it's written by women, and alot less about intricate machines...that is, for me, really putting it in general with fantasy books, there are so many other things but I'm not in the mood to expand on them all.

As for more leading women, I am very relieved when I can agree with the fact that yes, there are alot more of them. It just bother's me so much when people just assume that men are stronger than women. Women can be and are stronger that men in a variety of ways, so much so that both can be assumed in most cases as equals. Of course there is the unavoidable fact that men in general have a stronger build than women, but that is no reason to claim that,"they are stronger". Luckily in lots of countries today, people are recognising this. Maybe this is perhaps what led to the increase in female heroes? Or perhaps that the male hero was just getting old?

That's one really good thing that has changed: there are tons of female characters now, and the female heroine wringing her hands and waiting to be rescued is mostly a thing of the past.

anyone wringing their hands and waiting to be rescued kind of rubs me the wrong way, male or female...it's just a display of weakness, or feigning weakness, and the latter makes me even more annoyed. I strongly dissagree with the ways girls are behaving these days...in my school, some of the girls are strong enough to take someone out with a volleyball, but they literally climb up on the desks and scream bloody murder (when the teacher's giving a lecture) over a common house spider. It just makes me sick. Of course, if someone has a phobia of spiders then it can be excused, but afterwards you see them looking around to see who noticed their little tantrum.

[Dawnstorm]

I remember reading this thread when it came round the first time. Somehow, I didn't reply, despite being very interested in that issue.

One thing I find interesting is that when you look at the biology, the differences are not as clear cut as they seem. Looking at the ambiguous cases is enlightening: there's a variety of conditions that are loosley termed "intersexual"; from ambiguous genitalia, to interesting genetic constellations, to people whose bodies have both male and female cells, all kinds of things exist.

Then there's people who feel like they're trapped in the wrong body. I used to think it was a purely social thing, but looking into intersexually, and reading people talking about their experience it appears that there is such a thing as a brain confused with its body.

Then there are transvestites; people who like to dress up.

And homosexuality.

Many people lump all that together. They're unaware of intersexuality and all that probably conjurs up is the bearded virgin in circus freak shows. Transvestites are often not distinguished from transsexuals; and both are often linked with homosexuality (which is, once you start thinking about it, a pretty confusing issue with a transsexual).

None of this means that there are no differences; just that what - socially - makes up gender isn't necessarily supported with the same rigidness by biological factors. Hormonal differences, etc. make for lots of variety even in typical fe/males.

Last year, I read Ian MacDonald's River of Gods. There's a character "Tal", who is a neuter; neither male nor female. I couldn't help thinking of yt (MacDonald's pronoun) as male; interestingly, my sister couldn't help thinking of yt as female. What this suggests, to me, is that often gender assignment is a thing of the reader, rather than the author. Here, the author has created a character who explicitely is neither male nor female. That both my sister and I superimposed our own respective gender onto the character (btw, neither I nor my sister identified with Tal; it's simply a perception thing) suggests to me that MacDonald has done a good job portraying the difficulties of seeing people for what they are (instinctive gender assignments is a nuisance Tal has to conted with in the novel, and here, we, the readers, go and do the same).

What this also illustrates, I think, is that assigning gender to a character often isn't a feat the author pulls off, but it's a feature of the collaboration between author and reader in creating a coherent gender-devided world (when the substratus of what's male/female is a pronoun instead of a chromosome).

Again, that isn't to say that writers can write anything, or that writing gender is simply a matter of dealing out pronouns. An interesting exercise is to take a story you've written, reverse the protagonist's gender and adapt the story to the changing circumstance. See what changes, and what doesn't.

What's the point of my post? All of us only have an experience of being ourselves. For most of us, this entails a very limited range of experiences along the gender trajectory. (Some, transsexuals for example, have a greater range of experience.) The question, then, is how do we separate the me-ness from gender generality? That's an analytic separation at best, because there are only individuals with their unique gender constellation.

So the question is, really, more: Can a woman identify with a female character written by a man (and vice versa)? Or: What problems does a fe/male author run into when writing about the opposite gender?

What SFF allows is playing with the biological and social givens. Why that should appeal to men only, I have no idea.