Writing from the Female POV

[Feo Takahari]

I don't understand your point, Steerpike. If I'm going to develop a character, I'm still going to think:

This character grew up a farmer, she's spent all her life toiling the farms, so she's going to think . . . .
This character has two brothers, maybe they treat her poorly, so she'll have to . . . .
Now this character is the chosen lady of destiny, so she'll need to . . . .

What you're saying is that I can't add "woman" to that list? Does being a woman mean so little to the character?

This character is a farmer. She's spent her life toiling on the farm. She hates it and wants to escape.

This character is a farmer. She's spent her life toiling on the farm. She's proud to be one of the people whose labor keeps society going.

This character has two brothers. She gets along well with them. She's picked up some of their hobbies and attitudes.

This character has two brothers. She gets along poorly with them. She places less value on family bonds.

At some point, you need to develop your characters past their descriptions.

 

[Devor]

Seriously? Read that a female character will focus on, let's say, the losses of war because she's a woman instead of winning the said war offends me. She might do this because she's emotional, not because she is a woman.

I'm not going to be around for a couple of weeks. Before I head offline, I just want to be clear that the only differences I've really meant to talk about are fundamental and rooted in the brain science which I posted about, and which I understand to be pretty well accepted in the psychological community. The male brain tends to be more specialized, needing to shift gears from one region to another, while for most women, most parts of the brain are always active. Men also tend to think more abstractly, while women tend to empathize more and think about people more directly.

I've said repeatedly that it happens on a continuum with tremendous overlap. So I can understand being offended if you took the war example as an absolute - it was just an example of how those differences might play out, and there's a reason I used the same example more than a year apart, so that I wouldn't over-state them - but I don't understand trying to ignore something that's rooted in the biology of who we are.

And, y'know, I haven't in any way characterized those differences as a bad thing - I think those kinds of differences are something to proud of.

 

[Feo Takahari]

Edit: Completely removed my original post.

I guess it's a matter of nature versus . . . Actually, I don't know what it's nature versus. I believe that even if you can easily pick out trends, applying several of these trends to any individual person will almost certainly yield at least one inaccuracy. I also believe that the most interesting characters to write about are the ones who're different from what's expected (not necessarily different from what's average, but different from what society allows them to be.)

(As for being proud of difference, I'd actually consider it a character flaw to look at a war in terms of win and loss rather than in terms of suffering.)

Edit 2: Looked back at that article you linked back on the first page. I can't believe I let that slide. To give just one example, the size of a part of a brain has nothing to do with the efficiency of that part of the brain (and I'm amazed someone's still making that argument after racists used it to argue that blacks had inferior brains to whites.)

Edit 3: I'm sorry if I get a little worked up about this. I admit a lot of it's personal (since I feel like people like me are excluded by mainstream fiction.) I'll try to calm down.

 

[Alex Beecroft]

I'm not going to be around for a couple of weeks. Before I head offline, I just want to be clear that the only differences I've really meant to talk about are fundamental and rooted in the brain science which I posted about, and which I understand to be pretty well accepted in the psychological community. The male brain tends to be more specialized, needing to shift gears from one region to another, while for most women, most parts of the brain are always active. Men also tend to think more abstractly, while women tend to empathize more and think about people more directly.

I've said repeatedly that it happens on a continuum with tremendous overlap. So I can understand being offended if you took the war example as an absolute - it was just an example of how those differences might play out, and there's a reason I used the same example more than a year apart, so that I wouldn't over-state them - but I don't understand trying to ignore something that's rooted in the biology of who we are.

And, y'know, I haven't in any way characterized those differences as a bad thing - I think those kinds of differences are something to proud of.

And then there are all the people like me who have male brains in female bodies, (or vice versa) with varying degrees of gender dysphoria as a result. If I have a male brain and a female body, what am I by your categories? The body determines the way other people treat me, what they see, how they react, the assumptions they make, the way I need to behave in order to be treated as acceptable. I don't stop being what society thinks of as a woman because I happen to have a male brain - most people don't see that part.

What I'm saying is that yes, perhaps there are broad differences between the minds of cis-gender men and women which are physically determined. But then there's all the other people who find themselves not being one or the other, or being one but looking like the other. And it's not great to make us invisible just because we're not a majority.

Even if gender essentialism is a real thing, that just means that instead of having to deal with all humans as people, you suddenly have to bear in mind that not all humans are either male or female. Some of us are both.

 

[Nihal]

Nah, what offends me is seeing a character, who happens to be a female, being reduced almost to a piece of cardboard due her gender. She would be a richer character—rich as we are in real life—before having her personality "trimmed" to fit abstract conclusions draw from these studies (I couldn't find any reliable source for the conclusions in this blog post). While some of these differences really exist, who can dictate they affect behaviour so radically as this post wants us to believe?

There is a reason it can be accepted by some people in the psychological community but it's not the norm: Two Myths and Three Facts About the Differences in Men and Women's Brains

I call these conclusions abstract, yes, since many of these facts are assumptions rooted in popular beliefs. I could go pastafarian and argue how the decrease in the number of pirates is causing the global warming. If I linked both of them in a graph would it become true?

 

[Steerpike]

I've said repeatedly that it happens on a continuum with tremendous overlap. So I can understand being offended if you took the war example as an absolute - it was just an example of how those differences might play out, and there's a reason I used the same example more than a year apart, so that I wouldn't over-state them - but I don't understand trying to ignore something that's rooted in the biology of who we are.

Yes, it is a continuum with overlap. So it doesn't make any sense to adopt the approach of "what would a woman do here" because not all women are the same. Even if there is a statistical distribution along the continuum, it doesn't make sense to write an individual character as though she has to be in line with the greatest statistical distribution. That's not how statistical distributions work. They talk about groups, but they break down on the individual level. They're not meant to be some kind of oracular science that predicts the characteristics of one person.

Your character is an individual, not a statistically likely distribution of traits. Approaching it as though she's the latter is a huge mistake, in my view, just like writing a black character based on some idea of how most blacks feel about something (whether borne out by studies or not) would be a huge mistake.

You're dealing with an individual. She has the character traits you assign, which can be literally anywhere on the continuum for any given trait, including on the male side of the continuum (like males can be on the female side). Again, statistics won't help you here. If I give you a population and a set of statistics that distribute that population along some set of data, and then I present you with an individual from that population and ask you, based on nothing other than the fact that the individual belongs to the population, to locate that individual along the distribution, you can't do it. All you can do is deal with a likelihood.

In writing, however, you have complete control over the character's traits. So pretending she has to be at point X along the distribution instead of point Y, just because she's female, doesn't make any sense. She falls along the distribution at whatever point is determined by the characteristics you gave her, and it could literally be anywhere and still be reflective of reality. So her sex becomes meaningless when you're trying to decide where her reactions fall in relation to the reactions of others. The only thing that matters are her individual traits.

And then you're back to just saying "what would this person do" and forgetting about trying to say "oh, but she's a woman, so she'd do X."

 

[saellys]

And then there are all the people like me who have male brains in female bodies, (or vice versa) with varying degrees of gender dysphoria as a result. If I have a male brain and a female body, what am I by your categories? The body determines the way other people treat me, what they see, how they react, the assumptions they make, the way I need to behave in order to be treated as acceptable. I don't stop being what society thinks of as a woman because I happen to have a male brain - most people don't see that part.

What I'm saying is that yes, perhaps there are broad differences between the minds of cis-gender men and women which are physically determined. But then there's all the other people who find themselves not being one or the other, or being one but looking like the other. And it's not great to make us invisible just because we're not a majority.

Even if gender essentialism is a real thing, that just means that instead of having to deal with all humans as people, you suddenly have to bear in mind that not all humans are either male or female. Some of us are both.

Excellent points here. On a given day I tend to not feel particularly male or female despite my physical sex. I find biological determinism (particularly when based on questionable research conclusions) incredibly silly even when it is applied exclusively to people who are cis and fall into oversimplified gender categories and even stereotypes. It's even sillier in fiction, where characters are most interesting when they do things the reader doesn't expect.

Nah, what offends me is seeing a character, who happens to be a female, being reduced almost to a piece of cardboard due her gender. She would be a richer character—rich as we are in real life—before having her personality "trimmed" to fit abstract conclusions draw from these studies (I couldn't find any reliable source for the conclusions in this blog post). While some of these differences really exist, who can dictate they affect behaviour so radically as this post wants us to believe?

Devor brought up the example of the female character's attitude toward casualties in the war vs. winning or losing in another thread:

So if I catch myself writing a woman who's upset about losing the war (an abstraction), I go back and change it to being upset over how many people are dying.

I can't get behind that as a reader. Even if the generalization is as accurate as a generalization can be, the conscious decision to conform to it "just because" is at best suspect, and at worst lazy and could potentially interfere with the development of a character.

 

[Mindfire]

I think what Devor is trying to say is that the difference between man and woman adds a certain je ne sais quoi to a character that, while difficult to define or describe, is one of those intangibles that are part of what it means to be human, and that such things shouldn't be callously ignored.

I agree with that sentiment and I incorporate it into my characters, but it's instinctive rather than statistical. I want my male characters to "feel" male and my female characters to "feel" female, regardless of what their role is. What that precisely means I can't say, but I know it when I see it.

 

[Steerpike]

I think what Devor is trying to say is that the difference between man and woman adds a certain je ne sais quoi to a character that, while difficult to define or describe, is one of those intangibles that are part of what it means to be human, and that such things shouldn't be callously ignored.

I agree with that sentiment and I incorporate it into my characters, but it's instinctive rather than statistical. I want my male characters to "feel" male and my female characters to "feel" female, regardless of what their role is. What that precisely means I can't say, but I know it when I see it.

Again this is a mistake, because women and men aren't monolithic groups where all members 'feel' a certain way.

 

[Steerpike]

You can see how silly this all is by simply applying it to another group. Polling data from the last Presidential election showed that 58% of black males oppose gay marriage. So if I have a black male character who supports gay marriage, am I supposed to change it?

Also, what percentage of the population is gay? 10%? So if I have a male or female character who is gay, should I change the character to be straight to be in line with the majority distribution of the population? Obviously not.

In both situations, my character is defined by his own traits, not by a statistical distribution of what the population as a whole does.

Similarly, a female character is defined by her own traits, not by a statistical distribution of what females are supposed to be.

It's lazy writing in some instances, and in others just a serious misunderstanding of how statistics work in relation to individuals in the sample.

 

[saellys]

I think what Devor is trying to say is that the difference between man and woman adds a certain je ne sais quoi to a character that, while difficult to define or describe, is one of those intangibles that are part of what it means to be human, and that such things shouldn't be callously ignored.

I agree with that sentiment and I incorporate it into my characters, but it's instinctive rather than statistical. I want my male characters to "feel" male and my female characters to "feel" female, regardless of what their role is. What that precisely means I can't say, but I know it when I see it.

You say "I know it when I see it"; I say "It varies from character to character". Either way, it's not a template that can be applied across the board. All your female characters don't react the same way to a given situation, I'm sure, but they all "feel" feminine to different degrees, in different ways.

 

[Mindfire]

You say "I know it when I see it"; I say "It varies from character to character". Either way, it's not a template that can be applied across the board. All your female characters don't react the same way to a given situation, I'm sure, but they all "feel" feminine to different degrees, in different ways.

That's what I said. I don't know what Steerpike is crucifying me for but I assure you I haven't done it. To clarify, I agree with Devor that there is a difference between men and women and that the difference is important. I don't agree however that it's something that can be accurately represented through statistics or by assigning certain traits male or female values. In my view its something you sense intuitively, not a hard line you color inside. It is, as I said, an "intangible". Such intangibles may not be important to you, but they are to me.

 

[Steerpike]

That's what I said. I don't know what Steerpike is crucifying me for but I assure you I haven't done it. To clarify, I agree with Devor that there is a difference between men and women and that the difference is important. I don't agree however that it's something that can be accurately represented through statistics or by assigning certain traits male or female values. In my view its something you sense intuitively, not a hard line you color inside. It is, as I said, an "intangible". Such intangibles may not be important to you, but they are to me.

Again, this treats all women as the same. If you change something that your character would otherwise do because she's female, you've got a problem in your characterization.

 

[saellys]

That's what I said. I don't know what Steerpike is crucifying me for but I assure you I haven't done it. To clarify, I agree with Devor that there is a difference between men and women and that the difference is important. I don't agree however that it's something that can be accurately represented through statistics or by assigning certain traits male or female values. In my view its something you sense intuitively, not a hard line you color inside. It is, as I said, an "intangible". Such intangibles may not be important to you, but they are to me.

Nope, I totally agree. My problem with Devor's statements (and I feel bad about hammering them over and over when he's not here to defend them) is that he's trying to turn a nebulous intangible that can be completely different from character to character into a very tangible difference based on outdated research and fallacious conclusions.

 

[Steerpike]

Nope, I totally agree. My problem with Devor's statements (and I feel bad about hammering them over and over when he's not here to defend them) is that he's trying to turn a nebulous intangible that can be completely different from character to character into a very tangible difference based on outdated research and fallacious conclusions.

So, this gets us back to just treating the women as a person, and asking what that person would do in situation X. If, as a person, she is more prone to behave in a stereotypical way, then that's what she does. If, as a person, she's apt to do something completely different, then she does that. If you have to change what the character would do as a person, because you want her to behave in line with some stereotypical assumption of what the average woman would do, then you've got a problem

 

[saellys]

So, this gets us back to just treating the women as a person, and asking what that person would do in situation X. If, as a person, she is more prone to behave in a stereotypical way, then that's what she does. If, as a person, she's apt to do something completely different, then she does that. If you have to change what the character would do as a person, because you want her to behave in line with some stereotypical assumption of what the average woman would do, then you've got a problem

I think it's important to note that Situation X can be a variable based on the gender of the character, depending on what the writer has established in the worldbuilding process. Situation X could be "You can't join the army because you're a girl." Character X could say "Screw these guys--I'm going to cross-dress and join anyway," while Character Y could say "Meh, maybe the army isn't for me and I'll go find a sympathetic knight who will take me as a squire," and Character Z could say "Why are you telling me this? I'm busy with my needlework and courtship," and Characters A through W could respond in any number of other ways. I think making outside influences contingent on a character's sex or gender is perfectly legitimate, but basing the character's reactions solely on their gender is not.

 

[Steerpike]

I think it's important to note that Situation X can be a variable based on the gender of the character, depending on what the writer has established in the worldbuilding process. Situation X could be "You can't join the army because you're a girl." Character X could say "Screw these guys--I'm going to cross-dress and join anyway," while Character Y could say "Meh, maybe the army isn't for me and I'll go find a sympathetic knight who will take me as a squire," and Character Z could say "Why are you telling me this? I'm busy with my needlework and courtship," and Characters A through W could respond in any number of other ways. I think making outside influences contingent on a character's sex or gender is perfectly legitimate, but basing the character's reactions solely on their gender is not.

Yes, I think that is exactly right. And as you said, how a woman might react to external forces is highly variable depending on the character's individual personality traits.

 

[Mindfire]

Again, this treats all women as the same. If you change something that your character would otherwise do because she's female, you've got a problem in your characterization.

None of that follows from what I said. You seem to be viewing gender as external to the character and therefore irrelevant to characterization. I view it as something internal, one element of many that comprise the essential mixture that makes that character who they are. A character's actions are not dictated by any singular trait, but by the whole mixture. Isolating that singular trait from the others is a mistake, but that does not make that trait irrelevant.

 

[Steerpike]

None of that follows from what I said. You seem to be viewing gender as external to the character and therefore irrelevant to characterization. I view it as something internal, one element of many that comprise the essential mixture that makes that character who they are. A character's actions are not dictated by any singular trait, but by the whole mixture. Isolating that singular trait from the others is a mistake, but that does not make that trait irrelevant.

I don't think you've been reading my posts. Nothing I've said indicates it is external. Just think about it a minute. If a person can fall anywhere along the spectrum, then the only way to approach it, unless you just want stereotypes, is to treat the character as an individual and not a slave to some likelihood imposed by gender.

 

[FatCat]

It seems to me that all societies differentiate between male and female, and different aspects of gender are applied to either man or woman. In fantasy, you can create whatever social construct you want, but in the end, men and women ARE different and are treated as such. I'm not arguing that those differences are extreme or even biological beyond physical characteristics, but to not view a character as a woman, in whatever context that applies, seems like an oversimplification. Why not just write a story where there's only unisex characters then? If you don't treat your characters differently because of their gender, then that makes there gender useless, and I don't see the point in that. Unless your idea of a woman character is an overly-emotional baby-factory that is chained in the kitchen and holds to whatever other stereotypes there are, then why shy away from writing a women as a women, whatever conclusions can be drawn from that. Just my two cents.