Male Vs Female

[SeverinR]

Re: Tiptree, it is strange no one suspected her even after she wrote two stories about how men are the scum of the earth. Typically men don't write like that unless they have some deep self-esteem issues.

I could over look it, Some men are "scum of the earth", it doesn't mean the writer believes all men are scum. I think either male or female writers could support the claim, and do so believably.

I can tell the difference between Anne and Todd, I prefer Todd, but I don't think its male or female based.

 

[Androxine Vortex]

One thing to keep in mind is how males and females are defined/used in a particular book. I'm currently reading a novel and one of the antagonists is a powerful cult leader seeking to gain dominance over a demonic entity and is leading hordes of minotaur like creatures. This character is female. But because of typical make female portrayal its easy to assume that the character is male.

Now in terms of authors I think for the most part yes. If I pick up twilight I can assume it was written by a woman for a female audience (mainly female) but would it be possible for it to be written by a man? Of course, I think that a author is capable of writing any novel geared toward any audience. If they can make that novel worth reading is a totally different story (pun intended)

 

[Taytortots]

I answered no.
If an author weaved a story, and I want to read that story, I'm not sitting there thinking about the author, i'm thinking about their work. If you wrote something properly, you will have me engaged in your story not in you.
I know people often say that women talk more about emotions etc, but I really don't believe that to be true. All writers have a different style, and there are no distinct gender differences in these styles. Writing about a certain thing or in a certain way doesn't make you more feminine or masculine.

 

[Ophiucha]

So, I'm taking an online class on SFF (it's offered by University of Michigan, over on coursera; I'd recommend it, it has a rigorous course load and interesting lectures), and since we just read some Ursula K. LeGuin, our professor brought up this very subject. According to a study he did (exclusive to science fiction, but one must imagine it is true of fantasy by proxy), the only significant difference between male and female writers was this: 70-90% of stories written by male writers have male protagonists; 50% of stories written by female writers have male protagonists.

 

[Devor]

According to a study he did (exclusive to science fiction, but one must imagine it is true of fantasy by proxy), the only significant difference between male and female writers was this: 70-90% of stories written by male writers have male protagonists; 50% of stories written by female writers have male protagonists.

Just out of curiosity, do you know if they tested for specific differences and what they were?

 

[Ophiucha]

Just out of curiosity, do you know if they tested for specific differences and what they were?

Based on how he was talking about it, it sounded like it was primarily based on the characters (since this was part of a larger study on character development in SF), but he mentioned that they found no significant stylistic differences, so I assume they had a metric for that as well.

 

[Caged Maiden]

I just want to mention something... I recently read a work to crit, by an author called Michael Surname omitted. When I offered to crit the manuscript (which I thoroughly liked) the author contacted me back by email and the address read Michelle Surname omitted...

I had to think back and wonder whether I simply misread the name... or did she write under another name? I think when we read, we trust in the author. While I'd like to say I'm more drawn to male writers... there's no guarantee a writer with a male name is actually not a woman.

SO that's that. Also, regarding romance novels... many men write the novels and then publish under a female name, knowing full well no woman is going to trust a man to write their romance books. SO there you have it... male, female... it's all the same things, really, isn't it? Some people are good romance writers, some great at epic fantasy.

 

[CreatorOfBotis]

I voted yes, but to me it really depends on a lot of different things. I would say that it's painfully obvious to me in certain genres. If, in urban fantasy, for example, a book is written by a male, I can tell pretty quickly, regardless of the main character's gender. I'm not sure what it is. In high fantasy, epic fantasy, etc, I find the distinction much more blurry. I went through a phase of only being willing to read books written by women, though - around the same time I decided to only read urban fantasy. I'm not stuck in a niche anymore, but that distinction used to matter a lot to me.

 

[Steerpike]

Yeah, but it is easy to say you can tell quickly, because you know the author's name when you start reading (barring a gender-changing pseudonym). So you bring your own perceptions to it. I suspect most of us, if confronted with a blind test, would find it is not as easy as we might think.

 

[CreatorOfBotis]

Yeah, but it is easy to say you can tell quickly, because you know the author's name when you start reading (barring a gender-changing pseudonym). So you bring your own perceptions to it. I suspect most of us, if confronted with a blind test, would find it is not as easy as we might think.

That's definitely very true - our preconceptions influence what we interpret while we read. Have you read much amateur work on sites like fictionpress? Often enough the username doesn't imply gender, and even a lot of user pages don't identify it. This of course brings us back to it being more obvious in less experienced writers, but I've had several writing/editing relationships in communities such as that. I could usually tell before I got to know the person I was working with.