On Writing Women. Looking for honesty...

[Annoyingkid]

In Japan it was custom for many women to train in the Naginata in order to defend themselves against a home invasion. There's nothing inconsistent at all about training someone to fight and telling them not to go to war, especially somebody like Eowyn whom an enemy might target.

I just said they didn't stay to face any home invasion. They fled and hid when the men left.

 

[Devor]

I almost didn't post this because the derail has probably gone on long enough, but I expect somebody might react well to the AU thought below, so here we are.

I just said they didn't stay to face any home invasion. They fled and hid when the men left.

I mean, let's rewrite the ending for a moment, and have the orcs kill all those men who went off to war. LOTR alternate universe, where the women of Rohan are the only people defending the last remnant of humanity. Are you really saying it was a waste of time to train somebody - anybody, warrior or not - in Middle Earth how to fight? It's not like hiding and fleeing guarantees any kind of safety.

 

[Annoyingkid]

I almost didn't post this because the derail has probably gone on long enough, but I expect somebody might react well to the AU thought below, so here we are.

I mean, let's rewrite the ending for a moment, and have the orcs kill all those men who went off to war. LOTR alternate universe, where the women of Rohan are the only people defending the last remnant of humanity. Are you really saying it was a waste of time to train somebody - anybody, warrior or not - in Middle Earth how to fight? It's not like hiding and fleeing guarantees any kind of safety.

If women were trained for home invasion why didn't any of them fight at Helms deep? Helm's Deep is a home invasion.

 

[Rkcapps]

Just discovered this thread. As a female reader, I never found LotRs engaging or Dune. Just recently though, I was able to finish The fellowship of the Rings via Audible. I could appreciate so much of the writing. Beautiful. But, I'm not engaged enough to read the second book. It is very likely that I prefer more emotion. That's a personal preference but possibly it's a female preference. I honestly doubt LotRs would be picked up in today's fast paced market. Luckily it was discovered before the market took off. As much as it wasn't for me, it would be a shame if it hadn't been discovered. I really appreciate so much of what Tolkien did. As a side, I had no trouble with The Hobbit and that wouldn't have had emotion. Loved it. So figure that out!

I started out with Stephen Donaldsons books. Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever. I vaguely recall only one female character but largely a male cast. I couldn't read now but 30 years ago? I couldn't put it down.

 

[noob of the north]

I will write it down and try to see if i can make it come to life! The only thing is, I am in the middle of a WIP and several short stories and have like twelve story concepts gestating, including a couple graphic novels and a novel in verse O_O

I know the feeling. So many ideas, so little time. Happy holidays!

 

[Xitra_Blud]

I am female, and I never had that trouble as a reader. I've never cared whether a book contained any males or females. I only cared whether or not the characters were interesting and carried the story along well.

In truth (or at least for me) stories don't need females and they don't need males either. They need characters. They need characters with roles that benefit the story and emotion. I've never found myself entertained by a book because the story contained someone who looks like me or shares the same gender as me, and likewise, I have never disliked a book for if it didn't.

I entirely disagree with putting in a character of a certain gender or race strictly because you feel the story needs that gender or race, and usually this only leads to the character being a love interest or existing in the story but not doing much for it--a waste a pages. I say, just write characters who serve a strong purpose in the story, even if it's only two characters of only one gender.

 

[Steerpike]

Xitra_Blud as a general rule I don't think the character's sex or gender serves or disserves the story. In other words, you could make the character either male or female and it would serve the purposes of the story just fine either way. There are exceptions, of course.

 

[Michael K. Eidson]

Xitra_Blud as a general rule I don't think the character's sex or gender serves or disserves the story. In other words, you could make the character either male or female and it would serve the purposes of the story just fine either way. There are exceptions, of course.

For my WIP, switching the genders of some of the characters but not all of them would make for a story I would find difficult to write. In that respect, the genders of the characters do serve the story, in that the story wouldn't be written otherwise.

 

[Russ]

Xitra_Blud as a general rule I don't think the character's sex or gender serves or disserves the story. In other words, you could make the character either male or female and it would serve the purposes of the story just fine either way. There are exceptions, of course.

Unless you are writing a story set in a culture which is gender blind, I think the gender of the character will often have a significant impact on most stories if the characters are interacting with a culture that treats different people differently.

For instance if you are writing a story set in a lonely woods where the protag is going to fight a bear and then travel 300 miles through wintery woods to safety than gender is no biggie, we all bleed/freeze/despair etc.

However if you are writing a story set in say...the Roman empire, or some version of it, and you want your portag to be a military officer, or senator, then gender matters.

The Joan of Arc story would not be what it was, if it was John of Arc.

 

[Steerpike]

For my WIP, switching the genders of some of the characters but not all of them would make for a story I would find difficult to write. In that respect, the genders of the characters do serve the story, in that the story wouldn't be written otherwise.

However if you are writing a story set in say...the Roman empire, or some version of it, and you want your portag to be a military officer, or senator, then gender matters.

The Joan of Arc story would not be what it was, if it was John of Arc.

Thus, the concept of "exceptions" that I attempted to establish, above.

However, most stories I come across aren't written with these factors in mind, and that's particularly true of stories within SF/F/H. If the idea is that when you're writing a female character, then you've suddenly got to alter your entire story to show discriminatory behavior against females, well...no, you don't. That's a conscious decision you choose to make, not one that is typically required by the story.

Citing examples where it is required by the story is the citation of exceptions, which are just that. More often, it makes little to no difference, story-wise, and you don't have to twist the logic of the story world to have, for example, a female protagonist.

 

[Michael K. Eidson]

Taking a movie as an easy example, in A New Hope, if you changed the gender of Luke Skywalker to female, and didn't change the gender of any other character in the story, would that not change the dynamics between the characters? Wouldn't it be a different story, even if you made the character a lesbian? I don't think you can just flip the gender switch on a character and have a similar story in general. There will be all sorts of relationships (forget discriminatory behavior) that will need rewriting.

I just feel that in general, the rule would be you can't switch genders on your protagonist without needing to rewrite extensively. The exceptions would be the cases where you can switch genders without much rewriting. But I'm looking at it from a relationship viewpoint, not a discrimination viewpoint.

 

[pmmg]

I do think it is a little too far to say the gender of a character does not matter or can be transposed without any difference. I suppose I could change the gender of characters in many stories and not change significantly the events of the story, but it would still cause me a lot of rewriting if I did. Gender matters, it affects how the MC may come to view the universe around them, affects how others respond to or treat them, effects how the reader relates, and how I as an author fashion the character in my head. I am not sure I would want a story where the gender of a character did not matter, at least for those I am supposed to follow.

I suppose I would say, in some areas, gender makes no difference at all, and in others, it makes all the difference. I could not flesh out a real world with real characters without having both areas.

 

[Steerpike]

I do think it is a little too far to say the gender of a character does not matter or can be transposed without any difference. I suppose I could change the gender of characters in many stories and not change significantly the events of the story, but it would still cause me a lot of rewriting if I did. Gender matters, it affects how the MC may come to view the universe around them, affects how others respond to or treat them, effects how the reader relates, and how I as an author fashion the character in my head. I am not sure I would want a story where the gender of a character did not matter, at least for those I am supposed to follow.

It affects those things if you write it that way. Many, many stories are written ignoring those elements entirely, so that idea that you'd only have to include them if you decided on a female character is erroneous, in my view. I think a lot more stories than we acknowledge are more like the original Alien, where the lead character was originally written as a male. When the producer of that movie was asked about the difficulty in changing the script to feature a female lead, he said they basically had their secretary change "he" to "she." You could do that with a lot of stories without affecting the story itself, and without readers batting an eye. The hand-wringing by writers over whether the female character can work is largely a product of the male being seen as the "default," not needing explanation, whereas deviation from the default requires a reason.

This above is said, of course, acknowledging exceptions to the general statements.

 

[Devor]

I wrote a short story for a challenge here a few years ago that pitted three boys against two male biker thugs. I thought, that's five boys and no women, but if I switched genders for characters that age I felt that I would also have to in some way bring up the question of who-likes-who and how does that play out?

It would, wouldn't it?

For that particular short story it felt encumbersome to the tense overall tone I was shooting for. In rewrites since then, I merged two of the characters, and included more women as "extras" to kind of lessen the gender imbalance effect (and the MC's mother was always present).

It's hard for me to understand how changing a character's gender is supposed to be as simple as switching a pronoun, unless it's a plot-heavy story about adults who are more or less at work the entire time (i.e., characters are too professional, and too distracted by the events, and are well-developed in their lives, to consider romance). That certainly isn't most stories.

 

[TheCrystallineEntity]

Funny, I was just thinking of Alien before you posted, Steerpike.

 

[pmmg]

Well, I for one think that if Ripley had been a male the story would not have been as successful.

I think I cannot agree that those stories where gender can easily be transposed are exceptions. I think more likely the opposite is true and the exceptions are the ones in which they can. The hand wringing by authors goes on in many other circles too. But putting all that aside, I don't think I want to write a character where their gender makes no difference at all. I want the differences. I want the characters, who they are, and what they are, and what they are made of to matter.

 

[Mythopoet]

To be honest, I think most of the differences between genders that people tend to think about when this question comes up are not actual differences in the fundamental nature of the genders, but are rather the result of how society treats people based on how it perceives gender. And a lot of society's perception of gender is pure bullshit.

Also, the idea that because you switch a character's gender you automatically have to rethink all their relationships because once you have two people of different genders together they automatically, probably, have feelings for each other is very misguided. There shouldn't automatically be romance just because two people are different genders. That whole idea is a very poisonous outgrowth of the way society treats sex and sexuality. You can stick two characters of different genders together and let them continue to have a non-romantic, non-sexual relationship. In fact, there should be more of that. More platonic relationships. More friendships. More relationships that don't necessitate the characters jumping into bed with each other at the first chance.

 

[pmmg]

To be honest, I think most of the differences between genders that people tend to think about when this question comes up are not actual differences in the fundamental nature of the genders, but are rather the result of how society treats people based on how it perceives gender. And a lot of society's perception of gender is pure bullshit.

Perhaps. I don't think I quite agree with that, but I'm open to it. I think there are certainly many areas where gender will not matter, but there also many areas where it will. It can be bullshit, or a million other things, but that does not mean it would not be in play.

Also, the idea that because you switch a character's gender you automatically have to rethink all their relationships because once you have two people of different genders together they automatically, probably, have feelings for each other is very misguided. There shouldn't automatically be romance just because two people are different genders. That whole idea is a very poisonous outgrowth of the way society treats sex and sexuality. You can stick two characters of different genders together and let them continue to have a non-romantic, non-sexual relationship. In fact, there should be more of that. More platonic relationships. More friendships. More relationships that don't necessitate the characters jumping into bed with each other at the first chance.

I don't know where it was said that two genders present in the story together equates to automatic romance and thereby a need to rewrite all the relationships. There is a lot more than romance that can be at play. I'm pretty sure Ripley did not have a romantic relationship of any sort on Alien (excluding the sequels). Still I think a simple change of her gender would change a great deal about the success of that franchise.

 

[Devor]

Also, the idea that because you switch a character's gender you automatically have to rethink all their relationships because once you have two people of different genders together they automatically, probably, have feelings for each other is very misguided. There shouldn't automatically be romance just because two people are different genders. That whole idea is a very poisonous outgrowth of the way society treats sex and sexuality. You can stick two characters of different genders together and let them continue to have a non-romantic, non-sexual relationship. In fact, there should be more of that. More platonic relationships. More friendships. More relationships that don't necessitate the characters jumping into bed with each other at the first chance.

Insomuch as you might be referring to my post above, I didn't mean to take it anywhere near that far. I was talking about a story with teenagers, and only that I would have to take time to address it in a short story, not that it would immediately turn everything into a full-blown romance.

I think part of the question here is how large a part of the character's life the story covers and what part. There are times in life when relationships are front and center, when they're new experiences and you don't even understand much about your own instincts and are still learning how to interact with others. Then there are other times in your life when you're in control of yourself, you've matured in your relationships, you know what you want - may even have what you want - and may be more concerned about developing in ways other than those romantic relationships.

And seriously, why does Alien always come up in these conversations? It's a thriller script that bears little resemblance to a fantasy novel.

 

[Svrtnsse]

I think most of the differences between genders that people tend to think about when this question comes up are not actual differences in the fundamental nature of the genders, but are rather the result of how society treats people based on how it perceives gender.

I'm fully with you on this. We're all products of our surroundings, and it's not difficult to see how men and women are treated differently within modern society (talking the real world here, not a designed fantasy world). We're subjected to different expectations and they help shape who we are.

If we remove or change these expectations, we also change the effect they have on people.

I think it's safe to say that a fantasy world can have expectations of men and women that are different to those in the real world, and it will be reflected in how the men and women of that world relate to each other.
I think it's less safe to assume that a society in a fantasy world will have the exact same expectations of men as it does of women. It could be done, but it might then raise the question of why you didn't just go with a single-gender society instead.

If the expectations of both genders are exactly the same, wouldn't it imply that there are no actual differences at all between them?