Crossing Gender Mentality

[Discount_Blade]

and DAMN, there's a reddit thread for ANYTHING now.

 

[Moonpearl]

Not a great recommendation. The whole subreddit is akin to r/mendrawingwomen. I've seen some genuinely well written descriptions of beauty (from the standard of normal guys anyway) and got pointed away because the chick isn't some 1 to 1 representation of generic women in society. I'm not saying there isn't god awful, literal sex objects posted there, but 6 out of 10 times the subreddit just cast it aside as "blatant objectification" just because the author used the privilege of writing a fiction work to write his dream girl.

The problem isn't male writers describing attractive women, it's the ridiculous and/or degrading way they do it.
Or the way that they describe literally every female character in a "sexy" (read: creepy) manner, largely focusing on their breasts and how well they live up to the author's idea of womanhood - twelve-year-old children not excluded.
Or how they make female characters talk about themselves and other women the way a horny straight man fantasising about them would.
Or how everything their female character does somehow finds a way to be about their breasts, prompting this meme:

There are times where sexy descriptions are appropriate and times where they're not. Also, some people really need to remember that a character is a personality, not a body, and that people don't think about their sex appeal constantly (and definitely not in that way).

 

[BenJepheneT]

Or the way that they describe literally every female character in a "sexy" (read: creepy) manner, largely focusing on their breasts and how well they live up to the author's idea of womanhood - twelve-year-old children not excluded.
Or how they make female characters talk about themselves and other women the way a horny straight man fantasising about them would.
Or how everything their female character does somehow finds a way to be about their breasts, prompting this meme:

Hence why I said 6 out of 10 times. These are the rare 4 out of 10 with materials that actually makes me grit my teeth out of cringe and are genuinely creepy.

Most of the time these post just show one paragraph without any context. There was this one paragraph that went like "Her scent reminded me of cauliflowers. She did look like a farm girl that worked her body till her breasts were supple and hips were draping with great buoyancy." I've asked for the book and as it turns out, it was from the Jack Reacher series. A series where the main focus was about a nomad bravado going around solving vigilante cases and banging women. A series whose main demographic are men in their thirties looking to put their hands on gritty, grounded power-fantasy.

In short, the subreddit doesn't actually screen for their post. They just see what they think as creepy without considering the context and demographic and just lay it out.

To put it in perspective, that's like grabbing a page off a smut in our very own ScribbleHub and posting it on there but not telling everyone that it came from literal porn wish fulfillment for a certain gender demographic.

I'm not gonna argue that they aren't creepy or degrading, even under the context. But that's like complaining about chunky peanuts morsels in a jar of chunky peanut butter.

 

[PrincessFelicie]

baby's first female character: write a dude and change the pronouns at the end. It's very very imperfect, but if your idea of a girl is an incomprehensible thing that you need a nature documentary to grasp, it's gonna be better than whatever else you could be attempting.

 

[DubstheDuke]

I mean, I'll be honest, I've written a ton of female characters in my novel, however I don't really tend to let gender define who they are. When I think of a character, I am not really focused on 'how would being a female influence this person's mindset', but rather on 'Who is this character? What would THEY do in this situation. What type of person are they?' Being male or female may influence some things about their personality, but at the end of the day I don't lock them into things based on gender. I lock them into things based on who they are.

 

[Redemit]

"Don't try to understand woman woman understand woman and they hate each other"

 

[Deleted member 29081]

Just write a character. Come up with a background, a motive, and a plot. As long as it satisfies your target audience, it should be okay. If you get flack for it, learn to differentiate the legitimate criticism from the whining. Legitimate criticism is something that points out how what you're trying to achieve and what you're actually doing don't match. Whining is someone complaining about how the story doesn't meet their own aesthetic requirements without regard for the intended audience.

 

[Deleted member 29081]

Oh and I glanced at r/menwritingwomen and my other tip is don’t make a female protagonist that you’ll be attracted to.... lol...

r/menwritingwomen is mostly composed of butthurt fugly girls envious of the good-looking fictional ones and their simps trying to appease them.

 

[Discount_Blade]

"She breasted boobily to the stairs, and titted downwards".......................I'm still laughing inappropriately about this one hours later.

That scott guy is a legend in the making.

 

[Mwpensword]

I understand that feel. The arcane ability of writing someone you know on paper and having the ability to CONTROL THEIR FATE while knowing full well it doesn't affect reality one bit does gives me chills every once in a while.

I stopped doing that though. Don't wanna sound like "that guy" but everyone I've met IRL so far isn't interesting enough to be put into paper.

So far if I've used anyone as a model for a character it has been people from years ago that aren't part of my life now. Keeps people from feeling certain ways. Abbey Adams in Becoming an Incubus is one such character. The attraction of them being old memories is that my imagination of them is what counts.

 

[Mwpensword]

My best advice would be to not fall into the trap of thinking of us as an alien species that you need to study up on to understand.

Also to avoid believing the lies of incels and other people who think women really are an alien species.

Lol I've been alive long enough to pretty well understand that women are no aliens. I'm actually in a long term relationship and such but anyways.. I think this was more to see if there was anything beyond the obvious. As the old saying goes, he who never asks receives no answer.

 

[JayDirex]

Lol I've been alive long enough to pretty well understand that women are no aliens. I'm actually in a long term relationship and such but anyways.. I think this was more to see if there was anything beyond the obvious. As the old saying goes, he who never asks receives no answer.

PLEASE -_- My PFP you see here. That is one of my spirited-ex girlfriends. In fact, at least three of the my female characters I have written were my fiery exes love em all.

 

[Moonpearl]

Lol I've been alive long enough to pretty well understand that women are no aliens. I'm actually in a long term relationship and such but anyways.. I think this was more to see if there was anything beyond the obvious. As the old saying goes, he who never asks receives no answer.

Living a long time and having a relationship means nothing. My dad's been married for twenty years and he still treats women like the Other. Idiocy and sexism has no sell-by date.

The only things I could think that might differ are a result of social conditioning. For example, women are taught to be more passive and to doubt themselves more, are more frequently interrupted in conversation, more likely to experience Impostor Syndrome...

We're also more aware of danger because we're taught to expect it at every turn, whereas some men think that walking down Rape Central in the middle of the night all alone is Just Fine because they're Manly Men and all that. Men also tend not to believe you when you get attacked/put in danger. (That said, I do know some idiot women who refuse to believe victims and walk home at night in the dark saying it will be fine. We all hate them, though.)

Women are also generally conditioned to care about others and take caretaker roles, and are taught that it's selfish to put our needs first. There's also this expectation that women should be therapists for their lovers and are responsible for changing them for the better. That's why women put up with a lot of shit from men who aren't worth wiping the floor with.

Ugh, well... That was depressing to type up. I feel like you probably don't need this information to write excellent female characters, though. The best ones are those who defy gender conditioning and spread a little bit of hope.

 

[FlutterOfCrows]

Living a long time and having a relationship means nothing. My dad's been married for twenty years and he still treats women like the Other. Idiocy and sexism has no sell-by date.

The only things I could think that might differ are a result of social conditioning. For example, women are taught to be more passive and to doubt themselves more, are more frequently interrupted in conversation, more likely to experience Impostor Syndrome...

We're also more aware of danger because we're taught to expect it at every turn, whereas some men think that walking down Rape Central in the middle of the night all alone is Just Fine because they're Manly Men and all that. Men also tend not to believe you when you get attacked/put in danger. (That said, I do know some idiot women who refuse to believe victims and walk home at night in the dark saying it will be fine. We all hate them, though.)

Women are also generally conditioned to care about others and take caretaker roles, and are taught that it's selfish to put our needs first. There's also this expectation that women should be therapists for their lovers and are responsible for changing them for the better. That's why women put up with a lot of shit from men who aren't worth wiping the floor with.

Ugh, well... That was depressing to type up. I feel like you probably don't need this information to write excellent female characters, though. The best ones are those who defy gender conditioning and spread a little bit of hope.

*look it over and be confused bout passive comment*

 

[Moonpearl]

*look it over and be confused bout passive comment*

As in they're:

• less encouraged to speak up and more encouraged to be polite even at their detriment
• encouraged to be less direct when they speak in order to spare people's feelings
• less encouraged to be proactive and solve problems
• discouraged from taking the lead in romantic situations (it's commonly said that men will be "put off" by women showing an interest first)
• discouraged from any sort of wild play because it gets their dress dirty and makes them aesthetically displeasing
• punished for having a sexuality (see: society's creepy virgin obsession)
• encouraged to help others rather than take the role of a leader
• encouraged to wait for a man to save them (see: every fairytale and conventional romance story, ever)
• sometimes even discouraged from exercising and gaining strength because it's "unattractive to men"

And so on, so forth. It takes a toll on the mind.

 

[PrincessFelicie]

in this thread: moonpearl speaks the truth in the middle of a sea of misogynists showing their asses and poor spectators caught in between

 

[K5Rakitan]

I'm going to pass along a word of advice from the person who inspired my character Marc Aurelio:
Don't draw the woman you want. Draw the woman you want to be.
Now simply apply that to writing <3

 

[sereminar]

If you want to write good female characters then work on unlearning your misogyny. It's there, it's inside you, you've been taught it sense birth. You will never unlearn it passively, you won't unlearn it just because you like your mom, you won't unlearn it just because you like your partners, you won't unlearn it just because you love your daughter. You can do all those and still be misogynystic, you can do all those and still contribute to the patriarchy. You have to acknowledge that and actively intentionally work to unlearn it. It's going to be very uncomfortable and take like your whole life. You don't have to wait until your done, you won't really ever be done, but you do need to wait till you've moved past your knee-jerk reaction to dismiss you misogyny.

You can do a lot of this process through writing if you want, but try your best not to contribute to the harm women and non-binary people experience along the way. Listen when people say what you wrote hurt them, thank them, learn. In fact a great way to do this while writing is to find a women to proof read your writing, sensitivity readers exist. Many of them are professionals that will charge you for their work. You can also ask friends and family, but don't shift all the work to women, don't make them do all your work for you. Just it's another option to keep in mind, and if you go that rout than pay very very close attention to the changes and comments they make and learn from them.

When you see people calling out other writers/anyone listen to what they say, think about how you might be doing similar things, learn.

When you see things that men have written that make you uncomfortable really examine why you feel that way. Dig into the underlying reasons.

Most importantly you have to listen to women. Just. Please, listen to women. Listen to non-white women, listen to poor women, listen to women from other countries/cultures/societies, listen to trans women, listen to non straight women, listen to sex workers, listen to women.

 

[Mwpensword]

Living a long time and having a relationship means nothing. My dad's been married for twenty years and he still treats women like the Other. Idiocy and sexism has no sell-by date.

The only things I could think that might differ are a result of social conditioning. For example, women are taught to be more passive and to doubt themselves more, are more frequently interrupted in conversation, more likely to experience Impostor Syndrome...

We're also more aware of danger because we're taught to expect it at every turn, whereas some men think that walking down Rape Central in the middle of the night all alone is Just Fine because they're Manly Men and all that. Men also tend not to believe you when you get attacked/put in danger. (That said, I do know some idiot women who refuse to believe victims and walk home at night in the dark saying it will be fine. We all hate them, though.)

Women are also generally conditioned to care about others and take caretaker roles, and are taught that it's selfish to put our needs first. There's also this expectation that women should be therapists for their lovers and are responsible for changing them for the better. That's why women put up with a lot of shit from men who aren't worth wiping the floor with.

Ugh, well... That was depressing to type up. I feel like you probably don't need this information to write excellent female characters, though. The best ones are those who defy gender conditioning and spread a little bit of hope.

This, this is exactly what I was looking for. It is of course good to give women a main character that allows them to feel empowered but first you need the vulnerabilities that underly the power in order to make them relatable.

 

[Mwpensword]

If you want to write good female characters then work on unlearning your misogyny. It's there, it's inside you, you've been taught it sense birth. You will never unlearn it passively, you won't unlearn it just because you like your mom, you won't unlearn it just because you like your partners, you won't unlearn it just because you love your daughter. You can do all those and still be misogynystic, you can do all those and still contribute to the patriarchy. You have to acknowledge that and actively intentionally work to unlearn it. It's going to be very uncomfortable and take like your whole life. You don't have to wait until your done, you won't really ever be done, but you do need to wait till you've moved past your knee-jerk reaction to dismiss you misogyny.

You can do a lot of this process through writing if you want, but try your best not to contribute to the harm women and non-binary people experience along the way. Listen when people say what you wrote hurt them, thank them, learn. In fact a great way to do this while writing is to find a women to proof read your writing, sensitivity readers exist. Many of them are professionals that will charge you for their work. You can also ask friends and family, but don't shift all the work to women, don't make them do all your work for you. Just it's another option to keep in mind, and if you go that rout than pay very very close attention to the changes and comments they make and learn from them.

When you see people calling out other writers/anyone listen to what they say, think about how you might be doing similar things, learn.

When you see things that men have written that make you uncomfortable really examine why you feel that way. Dig into the underlying reasons.

Most importantly you have to listen to women. Just. Please, listen to women. Listen to non-white women, listen to poor women, listen to women from other countries/cultures/societies, listen to trans women, listen to non straight women, listen to sex workers, listen to women.

Ouch, kinda feel attacked by this one. But yes I understand that moat people have a built in layer of social conditioning that causes them to see the world in a specific light. That being said, I was raised by a single mother and have always spoken to and listened to everyone. On top of that my partner is a remarkably strong woman so misogyny would not go over well lmao.