Male vrs. Female Authors

Discussion in 'Discussion of Published Works' started by Gloria Sythe, Oct 5, 2014.

  1. Hwaigon

    Hwaigon Senior Member

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    I think the "inborn differences" is rather matter of preference; in this over-correct world it's almost blasphemy to say one preferes male authors or female authors and vice versa. The scientific differences may just be a kind of crutch to back up one's preference. It's not that the other sex writes more badly, it's just certain people prefer certain styles.
    I think you might have mentioned it, but I've observed several times that women authors tend to be not more emotional but emotional in a different way than men. Sometimes this difference seems so striking that it hinders the reading itself (my personal experience with reading women-authors, and those were some quality books)...while when reading a male author, I can value and appreciate the hints of emotional stirrings deep inside their style. It corresponds to me better...if you know what I mean.
     
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  2. jazzabel

    jazzabel Agent Provocateur Contributor

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    @Hwaigon : I understand exactly what you mean. But this impression you (and most of us) have is more based on cultural biases, from how we were all raised, to what areas of activity and kinds of expression are strongly encouraged in each gender, all the way to overall publishing bias towards male authors (throughout history, so much so that to this day women are encouraged to take male or male-sounding pseudonyms to improve chances of sales).

    It's already been mentioned that there are plenty of male authors who are verbose, or purple, or insightful, or sentimental, and vice versa. But the cultural expectations, based on long-held erroneous beliefs that male and female brains and personalities differ fundamentally based on their gender, bias us all towards feeling that somehow, authors of our gender will speak more clearly to us, or for us. Having said that, there just are that many more male published authors (the bias I mentioned) that chances are that much higher for anyone, regardless of gender, to identify with their stories.

    This book just explains in easy to understand terms, the scientific reality - there is no such thing as 'all women' and 'all men' and the studies which produce most robust data confirm that inborn differences in how men and women think, speak and process information, are primarily individual as well as the result of different upbringing men and women have, rather than some imagined inborn differences (like a few posts above, when someone claimed that "male and females have very different brains, eye sight, and hearing" which is simply untrue).
     
    Last edited: Oct 12, 2014
  3. shadowwalker

    shadowwalker Contributor Contributor

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    I can't help but wonder if this male/female style thing is why male romance writer use female pseudonyms, or female writers use male pseudonyms. Amazine how one's style changes along with the name... :rolleyes:
     
  4. Alexa C. Morgan

    Alexa C. Morgan Member

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    Ahem. I'm writing under a male pseudonym as well. I sent some chapters to two beta readers. one knew it was me, another thought was written by a male friend of mine. guess which reader had more positive comments :) about the style.
     
  5. Kekec

    Kekec Member

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    My experience with reading male and female authors is:

    Female: maudlin, subjective, mostly 1 POV character who is basically the author herself or who the author thinks she is, dearth of believable male characters, unnecessarily extensive, the protagonist is more important than the story, etc.

    Male: sense of humor, to the point, a plethora of believable characters to whom I'm able to relate people I've met (both male and female) and myself, story above everything, broad philosophical views, the character representing the author is hardly if at all recognizable, etc.

    Of the male authors I've read, I'd like to take Terry Goodkind out of what I've enumerated in the male category. He's a plagiarist who blatantly injected his almighty self into his work where he can solve everything, achieve everything, diddle the most beautiful and powerful woman whose weaknesses are actually her strengths and with whom he can defeat any all-encompassing evil that could befall his imaginary world he probably envisioned when he was 5.
     
  6. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    How many books by female authors have you read, and what were they? The same for male authors?

    I'm suspecting that you've read very few books by female authors.
     
  7. AlannaHart

    AlannaHart Senior Member

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    Hey now ... I could list a variety of male authors that have particularly verbose prose, but let's just go with a simple 'no'.
     
  8. SocksFox

    SocksFox Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023

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    I would like to see a list these female authors. The Twilight Saga, perhaps.

    There are just as many male authors, who a equally dismal, if not worse. I know I'm stepping on a landmine by tossing this one out there, but James Patterson comes to mind. His style is enough to give me hives.

    On a final note, what author hasn't been their main character at one time or another. Characters are reflections of their creators, and as such, the knowledge and emotions contained therein.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 28, 2014
  9. Cogito

    Cogito Former Mod, Retired Supporter Contributor

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    One perceives the world through the lens of one's biases.
     
  10. SocksFox

    SocksFox Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023

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    Yeah, I get that, such is the beauty of debate.
     
  11. Kekec

    Kekec Member

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    I knew you'd come here vilifying me. People get predictable even on forums. And no, I will not give you an honest answer. Instead, I will indulge your cemented belief and tell you that I only read one line by a female author in my entire life. :)
     
  12. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    Dude, you think that's 'vilifying'? Really?

    You posted something ridiculous. I mean, obviously there are lots of women who write spare prose and lots of men who write emotionally. If you say you've never read any of either, it make it crystal clear that your reading is limited. It's not 'vilifying' you to point that out, it's just reality.

    And leaving one author out of your dataset because he doesn't match your thesis? Intellectually weak, really. You could at least come up with a theory about how Terry Goodkind was horribly corrupted by the feminist conspiracy, or something! Come on, stretch yourself!
     
  13. T.Trian

    T.Trian Overly Pompous Bastard Supporter Contributor

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    You weren't vilified, but even if you were, the appropriate response is not to vilify someone back, but to either
    -ignore the offending post
    -respond only to the non-offending parts
    -respond even to the offending parts but in a polite, respectful manner
    -if the post is very offensive/breaks the forum rules, report it to the moderators, and we'll deal with it.

    Keep it civil and respectful, folks.
     
  14. Swiveltaffy

    Swiveltaffy Contributor Contributor

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    @Ossean: quit making extra accounts.
     
  15. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    I read both male and female authors, and my 'favourites'—authors I love enough to buy all of their books—are pretty evenly divided between male and female. I never sat myself down and tried to compare them by gender. I'd say the only comparison I've noticed is that female authors tend to have male POV characters more often than male authors have female POV characters. I have no idea if this is significant or not. Or even if my observation is correct beyond my own reading experience.

    As a matter of interest, I am a female, interested very much in the history of the Old West, and that's where my book is laid. However, it's not a formulaic Western by any means. I'm not a fan of formulaic writing of any kind. Westerns, Romance, Mystery, etc. All leave me fairly cold. And bored.
     
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  16. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Asking for some evidence for a generalization is "vilifying"? Wow. I guess newspapers, scientific journals, and courts do a lot of vilifying.
     
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  17. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Ah! I forgot the previous thread and the works you mentioned there:

    On Beauty by Zadie Smith (I hadn't heard of it, but it was shortlistd for the 2005 Man Booker prize.)
    The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
    Vampire Diaries
    Hunger Games
    Twilight
    50 Shades of Gray

    So, using the evidence that you have provided, you have disliked two well-regarded books by women, and four books that are either acknowledged to be mental junk food, or intended for non-adults. You may have more evidence for your criticism of the literary work of half the planet, but you decline to provide it. There is so far nothing of substance backing up your assertion.
     
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  18. Kekec

    Kekec Member

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    Openly assuming someone is uneducated is vilifying, or in this case a libel. There is nothing wrong with asking for evidence, but that is not the part of your post I quoted.

    I won't specify here the complete list of female authors I've read. It doesn't matter really, since the most important part of my post is "My experience with reading male and female authors". There must be exceptions out there to what I've said, but I haven't come across any, thus I said my experience, because I didn't want to meddle in useless politics that skewed the world to the point of lunacy.
     
  19. Shadowfax

    Shadowfax Contributor Contributor

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    No, a libel implies that one's good name has been damaged, and that damage can be remedied in court. Unless you were planning to use this forum as a character reference for a job application, perhaps, there is no way that your good name has been damaged. And if you DID use this forum as a character reference, you yourself would be publishing the libel, and thus YOU would be the one responsible for any damage that you suffered. Especially as you are anonymous on this forum, so, again, you would be publicising the fact.
     
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  20. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    When someone offers a summary opinion that is wildly contrary to evidence that I'm aware of, in an area that I'm fairly familiar with, it's not unreasonable to suspect ("suspect"--not identical to "assume") that that person is not familiar with that evidence.

    If you are familiar with more female authors, please, do, offer that information.

    But meanwhile, it's not libel to "suspect" that you may be unfamiliar with many female authors, any more than it's libel to "suspect" that you may be unfamiliar with French cooking, particle physics, automotive repair, classical perfume, finish carpentry, or marine biology.

    Now, familiarity with the literary work of half the planet shouldn't be as esoteric as marine biology, but educational institutions, sadly, tend to focus on male authors, so the average education is likely to leave one less than thoroughly informed about female authors.

    If the only male author I had read were Russell Hoban, I could truthfully say that "in my experience", books by male authors tend to have fairly simplistic, moralistic plots, a strong focus on food, are about anthropomorphized animals, and are dependent on pictures to tell part of the story. But it wouldn't be meaningful in a discussion of male versus female authors.

    If the only male authors I had read were those who had the biggest, brightest displays at the bookstores--rather like Twilight, Hunger Games, 50 Shades, and Vampire Diaries may be the biggest, brightest displays for female authors--I suspect that I could truthfully say that "in my experience" male authors have a strong focus on guns, spies, and horror. That also wouldn't be meaningful in a discussion of male versus female authors.

    "In my experience" can be useful in asking for help in broadening one's experience, explaining the root of one's prejudices, explaining why one is unable to weigh in on a discussion, offering an initial hypothesis while acknowledging that evidence is required for proof, or any number of other situations. But unless one's experience is fairly broad, it's not meaningful as evidence.

    In the other thread, you seemed to feel that your six data points did have weight as evidence--you defended them.

    And by my standards of evidence, no, six data points definitely don't count as evidence.

    Imagine that my experience of male authors were limited to:

    - One book by Chekov (old classic)
    - One book by Michael Ondaatje (newer, Booker Prize winner)
    - One book each by Lawrence Block, Stephen King, Tom Clancy, and Michael Crichton (big shiny displays).

    I think that this would be a much better sample of men's writing than your six samples were of women's writing--they're all written for adults, and none of them is at the regarded-with-contempt level of Shades of Gray. But it's not a fraction-of-a-fraction-of-a-fraction of the coverage that I'd have to experience to be able to defend a general opinion of male authors.

    And if you can offer some general impression of what you've read and what you like, we could suggest some. You clearly, from your first statement, feel that reading female authors is required in order to be educated; wouldn't you prefer to enjoy that reading?
     
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  21. T.Trian

    T.Trian Overly Pompous Bastard Supporter Contributor

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    @Kekec, in general, it's preferable to have a sample size of at least a hundred to support an argument like this, preferably hundreds. You might not even have to read all the books as long as you've studied authors and their works in a manner and quality similar to that of university level literary studies. It also helps to have studied at least a few dozen thesis, essays, and scientific articles about literature, i.e. materials that discuss your subject, in this case the differences between male and female authors.

    Having read a dozen or two dozen books by female authors doesn't even scratch the surface of the subject and amounts to nothing when considering it as evidence of any kind of trend among female authors because there are so many of them and even more books written by them. Fiction may not be as quantifiable as physics, but it should be treated like any other academic subject when drawing generalizing conclusions.
    That means you need a significant sample size to support your arguments. Otherwise your argument is as valuable as me saying all male authors are boring after reading a dozen boring books by male authors representing only a few genres.
    Saying "in my experience" doesn't really add any value or weight to the argument, it just means that at least you recognize your view is subjective and hence has very little to no worth as a representative of the empiric truth. Now, if you had a few hundred people who all had read about a dozen different books, i.e. several hundred to thousands of different books read, and all the readers saw a trend among female authors, the subjective opinions would have some worth.

    To give you some perspective, I have read well over a hundred novels written by female authors (excluding poetry and such), I've studied them (alongside male authors) at university for around 4 years, and I still can't draw generalizing conclusions about female authors because my sample size is too small, meaning any subjective observations I made would be practically worthless when we consider the big picture. All I could say is that the particular authors I read were like this or that... in my experience (since many observations regarding any art medium are highly dependent on personal taste).
     
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  22. SocksFox

    SocksFox Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023

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    Writing isn't determined by gender, but by that of the individual.
     
  23. Hwaigon

    Hwaigon Senior Member

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    Sorry it took me so long to respond; yes, principially I agree with you about the cultural background forming the generally acknowledged biaes...yet - and this is where, in my honest opinion, nature comes in - these are mostly based on true physiological differences between man and woman. It thus seems that the scientific attempts at proving these true have
    a kind of logical motive behind them.

    I can only add that reading a book without knowing the author's title, enjoying the book to the fullest and afterwards claiming only a guy can write like this, expounding on all the pros of being a male-writer and learning in another moment that the alledged, acoladed male-author was a earth-bound female with tough world experience, I would feel dumbfounded but would in no way detract her qualities.
    In plain words, I'd just be surprised. Not disappointed or anything. There's always an exception to the rule, myself being an example of an exception to manifold categorisations, though by portraying different characterists I do not feel alien to those categorisations.
     
  24. Lemex

    Lemex That's Lord Lemex to you. Contributor

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    ^This. That's all I can say, and all I need to say.
     
  25. Hwaigon

    Hwaigon Senior Member

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    It seems unlikely after over a hundred read female-authors not to draw at least some (personal, that is) observations.
    I feel sloppy for drawing some with a smaller total number of books read in English.
     

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