No pictures of man-boobs here, sorry.
So this blog post was occasioned by two seemingly contradictory view points being championed by an overlapping set of people.
Exhibit 1: A series of tweets by Joe Abercrombie
All very reasonable. Absolutely no reason why any trait should be denied to a female character. They can be as ruthless, vindictive, predatory, heroic, bold, dark, and foolish as any male character. No argument there.
The flip side though is that the only use of the 'man with tits' accusation I've seen previously (and I've seen it a fair bit) has actually been by women, concerned with the representation of women in literature (primarily fantasy) and using it when accusing male authors of failing to write a female character convincingly.
I think the idea here is that the male author has essentially written a character identical in style to his male characters and then, after the event, globally substituted 'Mary' for 'Mark' or 'Kate' for 'Chris' and said "job done".
The implication here is that the writer has not been skilled enough to present whatever differences there are between the genders, &/or their experience of the world, in a convincing manner.
...
But these two cases, both put forward by people firmly in the non-sexist camp, appear to be in opposition. One side is angry at the 'men with tits' accusation because they feel it puts conditions on what a woman can be. The other side is using the 'men with tits' accusation because they feel some male authors write female characters badly and they come across as men ... with tits.
And yet I've seen the _same_ people retweeting Abercrombie as I've seen using the phrase to condemn an author.
I'm not one of the authors I've seen targeted with the accusation, but it is one I've given some thought to because I don't feel I would write a very good female point-of-view character. I think I would write one essentially the same way I'd write a male character and I would get the 'man with tits' label put on them. So, Abercrombie seems to be telling me, "fuck 'em" write that female character any way you want, who are they to put limits on what a woman can be ... and those same people that were dishing out the label ... cheer him on.
Colour me confused.
There are of course two levels to this discussion. Firstly, do the chemical and structural differences from the cellular level to the organ level actually have any impact at all on the behaviour, nature, and character of the genders? I don't know. The question would seem to be so politicized that I'm certainly not going to hazard an uninformed guess.
Secondly, there are clearly very often differences in how the genders experience and act within their societies. These differences may be embodied in the societies' structure and expectations and inculcated into individuals raised in those societies.
My trepidation about writing female characters lies in my lack of confidence that I would do a good job of presenting those differences. I know female authors who do a great job of capturing the small talk and social interactions between women. I don't feel I do a convincing job of that when I try it.
So which is it? You can write a female character just like a man, because that's equality right there? Or there are differences and writing a female just like a male will look awkward and be unconvincing?
Hum. I've given this some thought and I'd like to play a reversal here for a moment. While a published author I may not be, a life long writer with varying degrees of success in the odd fantasy contest, I am. And I have never had any issue writing a male character (hey, hi, female here). No one has ever stepped forth and declared that I've written an unbelievable characterization of a male. I find the difference interesting. Because, in my experience, the accusation of a female author writing a poor portrayal of a male is almost non-existent. Why is that?
ReplyDeleteIf I had to pick a ship to jump aboard I think I would identify with the idea that women can encompass the same varying range of emotions and actions as a male. Why can't a woman be a 'man with tits?' Are women not as varied and dynamic as men and thus capable of encompassing all those things society has dictated as 'male.'
tl:dr: I'm with Abercrombie here. We can write men who are very 'feminine' in nature why are we up in arms about women who behave in a 'masculine' manner? Mightn't we just peg them as another creature within the grand spectrum of humanity and not feel the need to objectify everything into genders?
I've written a male character and later gone back and changed that characters gender without changing anything else, just substituting "him" for "her" etc. When I went back and read through it, there were certain things that seemed off about the way she spoke and acted. Really minor things, like the way she stood, and it wasn't hard to change them. I wonder if that's the difference between writing "women" and "men with tits". I don't think you can just substitute pronouns, there are minor differences that stand out if the author doesn't pick up on them.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting post!
ReplyDeleteAs a woman who feels totally distant from the usual "small talk and social interactions between women", that I don't understand, like, or want to be involved in, my preferred stance is "writing a female just like a male". It will definitely not "look awkward and be unconvincing", in my personal opinion, and to be honest, I wish there were more female characters like that.
So go ahead, simply write men and women as 'people' and all will be well :)
ScarletBea
Meh. You did fine. Please for being to forgive people who haven't got it all sorted out yet, and thanks for giving a crap.
ReplyDeleteI feel that Brandon Sanderson touched on this in 'Words of Radiance' when his character Jasnah writes that trying to define, place women in a certain category, or in this case limit the way one can write a woman, is ignoring 'the greater assumption - that a 'place' for women must be defined and set forth to begin with. Half the population must somehow be reduced to the role arrived at by a single conversation. No matter how broad that role is, it will be - by nature - a reduction from the infinite variety that is womanhood.'
ReplyDeleteI agree with Brianne, too, in that women or men can write a stereotypically 'feminine' male and no one will say too much about it, but when anyone writes a 'masculine' female character, it's either progressive or odd, or a mix of the two.
Then there's whole point that 'feminine' and 'masculine' are societal constructs that, to a point, otherwise wouldn't exist. It's certainly an argument with many layers.
On specifically the 'men with tits' side of things, I find it to be a rather ignorant claim. It's saying that you can't be a woman and be both 'feminine' and interested in traditionally 'masculine' things like, in the context of fantasy, sword fighting, archery, and the like. In fact, whenever a woman fits that description, people do a double take. Women like that make some people confused, unable to pigeonhole them into whatever categories they believe are the only ones women can fit into. If I were to wear a dress and do archery and someone called me a 'man with tits', I'd be offended, because they can't seem to understand that being a 'woman' isn't as simple as they think. While this is a rather mundane example, comments like that are, as Sanderson points out, a reduction from the infinite variety that is womanhood.
Similarly, if a woman does fit the mould of what society believes to be 'feminine' that's okay, too; to negatively judge her would be counterproductive to supporting this side of the argument.
The archery thing isn't the main problem. :) I ran into some trouble at university but that was less about me learning the sword, it was mostly about my way to argue in a discussion, to focus on getting things done instead of talking, talking, talking. That's when I got told by other women I spoke and behaved like a man. I didn't mollycoddle my remarks in nicety phrases like, "please don't take it personally but if you ... maybe ... could ... " I said, "this paragraph is convoluted. Take out that second sentence, change the order in the third and do this .... and it will say what you want to say more succinctly." Boy, did I get a shitstorm for that.
DeleteMost of my female characters are equally pragmatic, no matter if they can use a sword or are play a role more typical for a woman in a Medieaval-ish or Roman (for my historical fiction) setting. They even *gasp* accept arranged marriages and sometimes make them work. ;-)
Well, I'm not going to change my behaviour or my characters. I've never worried that much about being liked if it comes at the price of not being myself.
I find both Katherine and Miana to be fantastically written female characters. I'll focus on Katherine more since we actually get a view into her mind in King of Thorns. What I always admired about Katherine was that in many ways, she did fit the stereotypical 'feminine' mould. Dresses, court, the like...it was all there, but at the same time she was pissed off at the way she was perceived, and in a flashback graveyard scene she voices her opinion to Jorg about being treated like a 'container for men to grow their babies in'. She kicked ass, but kept to being 'feminine'. These two things are not mutually exclusive. To quote Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's TEDTalk: '[Women] grow up--and this is the worst thing we do to girls--they grow up to be women who have turned pretense into an art form'. Katherine realistically both embodied and broke that. She was human and while at first I was skeptical as to her what her purpose was in the story, it wasn’t to serve only as a love interest or plot point to advance a male storyline, as shown in her journal entries in King of Thorns.
ReplyDeleteAnother series that a lot of feminists (and otherwise) are on the fence about would be Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire. You have Brienne of Tarth, who almost entirely encompasses the stereotypically 'masculine' mould. On the other end of the spectrum, you get Sansa Stark, who has definitely kept her femininity in the face of a world that has, on occasion, asked her to change that fact. She uses people's perception of her as 'feminine' and the knowledge that many associate that with 'weak' and 'stupid' to her advantage to beat them at their own game, sometimes even before they know they're playing. That is a series that, with all of its whores and objectification and sexualisation of women, certainly has a wide variety and breaks the barriers of limiting definitions of 'womanhood'.
To complete Sanderson's quote, 'I say that there is no role for women - there is, instead, a role for each woman, and she must make it for herself. For some, it will be the role of scholar, for others, it will be the role of wife. For others, it will be both. For yet others, it will be neither.
Do not mistake me in assuming I value one woman's role above another. My point is not to stratify our society - we have done that far too well already - my point is to diversify our discourse.
A woman's strength should not be in her role, whatever she chooses it to be, but in the power to choose that role.'
It is my belief that a woman can have many masculine traits. Especially if they're living in a harsh culture or have had several severely brutal experiences in the past. I am not saying these are the only contingencies for there being masculine women I am just saying that in fantasy there is a lot of stories of hardship and brutality and that can affect characters in the same way, or in very different ways. But by no means is a woman limited to only acting a certain way in response to the events of a story, they are justified to feel whichever way makes sense to the story and not ourselves.
ReplyDeleteThis is a key theme that I have thought about a lot. The leading characters in my books ("The Lady of the Hellm" and "The Wrath of the Medusa") are predominantly female, but I am male. However, I am more comfortable just bashing out a thousand words of female point of view story, than I am trying to articulate how I feel about the conviction and realism with which I present that PoV. How do you tell if you've written a man with tits or not.
ReplyDeleteI am writing this in a break from writing a scene in which a female character comforts a dying farmer and then berates a male priest for failing to save him. Would I write it the same if the comforter was male and the priest female, or would it still work if I just swopped the genders around? I don't think so. But that's because I am in the head of both characters and they are both more than their genders. It would be hard to say what is written that way because it is Elise the character, and what is written that way because Elise is a woman.
I've had some pleasing reviews of the books and it is one of the female characters (Dema the Medusa) who is generally considered one of the most interesting and complex characters. (Now there stands a "man with tits and snakes", whose entire story arc is this conundrum in a nutshell - a woman striving to make her way in a male dominated environment and making some drastic choices to take on more male characteristics.) However, the reviews so far have been written mostly by men so I'd be curious for more female perspectives on how far the characterisation has worked for Dema, or the other leading female characters.
I dunno, I guess we just try to write people, think up their interests and motivations - some of which will be shaped or influenced by gender - and then throw some situations at them and see how the character "model" responds to the environmental "stress"
Two other thoughts to throw out there, "The Wasp Factory" and Jack Nicholson's OCD mysoginist writer character in a film whose title I got distracted from googling by the news that he's just died!
I find both Katherine and Miana to be fantastically written female characters. I'll focus on Katherine more since we actually get a view into her mind in King of Thorns. What I always admired about Katherine was that in many ways, she did fit the stereotypical 'feminine' mould. Dresses, court, the like...it was all there, but at the same time she was pissed off at the way she was perceived, and in a flashback graveyard scene she voices her opinion to Jorg about being treated like a 'container for men to grow their babies in'. She kicked ass, but kept to being 'feminine'. These two things are not mutually exclusive. To quote Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's TEDTalk: '[Women] grow up--and this is the worst thing we do to girls--they grow up to be women who have turned pretense into an art form'. Katherine realistically both embodied and broke that. She was human and while at first I was skeptical as to her what her purpose was in the story, it wasn’t to serve only as a love interest or plot point to advance a male storyline, as shown in her journal entries in King of Thorns.
ReplyDeleteAnother series that a lot of feminists (and otherwise) are on the fence about would be Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire. You have Brienne of Tarth, who almost entirely encompasses the stereotypically 'masculine' mould. On the other end of the spectrum, you get Sansa Stark, who has definitely kept her femininity in the face of a world that has, on occasion, asked her to change that fact. She uses people's perception of her as 'feminine' and the knowledge that many associate that with 'weak' and 'stupid' to her advantage to beat them at their own game, sometimes even before they know they're playing. That is a series that, with all of its whores and objectification and sexualisation of women, certainly has a wide variety and breaks the barriers of limiting definitions of 'womanhood'.
To complete Sanderson's quote, 'I say that there is no role for women - there is, instead, a role for each woman, and she must make it for herself. For some, it will be the role of scholar, for others, it will be the role of wife. For others, it will be both. For yet others, it will be neither.
Do not mistake me in assuming I value one woman's role above another. My point is not to stratify our society - we have done that far too well already - my point is to diversify our discourse.
A woman's strength should not be in her role, whatever she chooses it to be, but in the power to choose that role.'
I don't write my female characters much differently than I do the males, but I do take into account the different socialization of the society I am writing. How many societies have there been who treated males and females exactly the same as if there were no differences? I think ignoring socialization is a mistake, but other than that I don't see why there should be any big difference in writing male or female characters.
ReplyDeleteAs I understand it, whenever certain character traits have been scientifically examined, the most you can say is that men "tend to be" more like this and women "tend to be" more like that. When you look at the data,
ReplyDeletethere is usually much more variety amongst women or amongst men than there is difference between the sexes, and you have members of both sexes all across the spectrum. The difference lies only in the position of the peak of the bell curve for each sex.
This is of course before you even get to the question of how much of whatever differences there are are down to differences in biology and how much to society, and that's a whole separate can of worms.
In the end, the idea that you can write a character of either sex with a particular set of traits, and it be "unrealistic" just on that basis seems odd to me. Given a large enough population, such people are surely bound to exist. I suppose that, if anything, your job as a writer should be to explain how they became that way and to make them feel believable, especially in their interactions with a society that perhaps expects them to behave in a certain way. As has been mentioned, I think you did a great job of that with Katherine, for example.
I find the discussion about this as a bit silly. I agree with Ted. I think the society and the culture a person grows up in, can strongly determine how a person acts and talks, but I also think that some girls are into rough and physical games, enjoy the outdoor more than playing with dolls, as some boys are more into gentle arts and playing with dolls.
ReplyDeleteWhy on earth shouldn't this be the case in books as well.
As a girl I was one of those who had a lot of male friends, because I enjoyed the same things as they did and couldn't stand playing with barbie dolls. Naturally I tended to use the same vocabulary as my male buddies. I constantly heard I resembled a boy. I still grew up to be a women and I doubt anybody would accuse me of being masculine today.
We are different from each other. We are also a different person today than we were a year ago, as we change, mature and evolve. Characters in fiction should be allowed to be just as different, shouldn't they?
I get annoyed and/or disappointed if a character is poorly written, but that has never been because I doubt their gender.
I think that "men with boobs" can be taken a bit more literally. For example, my sister is currently reading a book in which the women behaves in almost all ways like any other person, so, good. Mostly all that is needed is to NOT make the woman character a cause, or a symbol, or a decoration, but rather a whole person in herself. However, the author DID make her think of her boobs all the time. Constantly. "My boobs looked great in the red shirt." "My perky breasts..." etc. You can tell right away therefore that it was written by a man. Now, this may not cover the "man" part (unless we want to go down the road of wondering whether people think a whole person can only be a man), but it definitely covers the "with boobs" part.
ReplyDeleteI don't even think it's an issue of inaccurate depictions of women.
ReplyDeleteI mean, let's be honest, there are certain things about women, men simply can't understand (hormonal, unreasonable moodswings; monthly bleeding from an open wound; the physical experience of intercourse; hell, even the experience of actually having boobs) - and, admittedly, vice versa.
But, from my point of view, I can't remember any female character I've ever thought wrongly portrayed.
I simply didn't like many female characters I've encountered (excluding, btw, Katherine, Miana and Chella - great job, Mark!)
And maybe that's the whole problem here, since, as I gather, it's mostly women complaining about misinterpreted female characters.
Maybe women are more empathetic, trying to see themselves reflected in a female character, and, failing that, are more eager to voice their discomfort with certain types of personalities, resulting in accusations of falsely presented women in fiction.
Well, that at least, is my personal theory.
And at the risk of outing myself here, I am a born woman and for over thirty years I tried to somehow fit into my gender role until, only a few years ago, I realized I don't have to.
I feel male - always have, though still subjugated by female body chemistry.
I dress and behave male, I wear my hair short and masculine, I even tie my boobs back -
Still, people call me lady.
And that's the sad truth.
People see boobs (no matter how hidden) and have a certain expectation.
People see dicks (no matter how hidden) and have a certain expectation.
People always see gender first, then, maybe, personality.