Necessary to be able to write the opposite gender?

Any idea how many men (including boys) are raped every year? Any idea how many even consider reporting it? Women think rapist because society tells them they are the "normal" rape victims; men think attacker because the idea of being raped is unbelievable to them - even though it is, unfortunately, not that rare. So no, it's not because of gender - it's because society has conditioned people to think women get raped, men get mugged.

 

Actually, I was responding to the OP, who said:

Everybody talks about writing the opposite gender as 'human' but that's not a terribly practical suggestion—especially for somebody who recognises the problem (as the OP did) but isn't sure how to tackle it. Gender perceptions and stereotypes can get in the way despite best intentions. Then, as a writer, you're back to square one.

However, if everybody in your story is the same gender, you'll be forced to seek out what makes them different from one another. This just MIGHT lead you to writing them as humans, rather than stereotypes.

This is a writers' forum. I do try to keep my suggestions and remarks pertinent to writing, and to make them as practical as possible. Developing an outlook on life is one thing, making the transition to writing about it needs a few practical tweaks now and again.

 

But in using that as a reason why men and women are the same disregards several important points. Growing up, from the earliest days of a child's life there are significant and persistent differences. Every girl knows that she will one day either be cast in the role of mother or be assisting someone in that, in an entirely different way than will a man. When a woman decides to have sex she knows what will happen if she's unlucky enough to get pregnant. She may not understand the realities, but the fact that it can happen places her a very different mindset than a man in the same situation.

Women know, too that they will bear responsibility for nurturing a child. And women are more concerned with fitting their needs into those of the group. Their outlook tends to be that of a gatherer. One has only to watch the average woman in a department store to see that. They touch, admire, and judge the usefulness of everything, while a man tends to the hunter's attitude. They walk in, focus on what they were seeking, capture that prey and leave.

Women wonder why men never ask directions. But in primitive times there was no one to ask. You went into the woods, and if you couldn't find your own way back you probably died, so we learned to find our way because those who didn't didn't get to pass on their genetic predispositions. And as a result we tend to feel we're self sufficient in that respect.

A man went into the woods, found a good spot, and waited for prey to pass by. That meant he had to focus on one thing: waiting for the proper time to throw the spear. As a result, men, by nature, focus on one thing at a time and hold one conversation, on one subject at a time. Women on the other hand, had to watch the kids, cook the meal, gather what was worth gathering, and work together with the other women, who couldn't be out there hunting because they had those kids to take care of. Partly because of this women tend to hold conversations on multiple subjects in parallel. That can be a wonderful point of confusion when writing interaction between gender.

Are there exceptions? Of course. I know several women who shop like a man. There are damn few black and white issues in nature. But the differences are real and widespread. And assuming that a man can write a woman protagonist without working to learn the differences so that can be realistically applied has probably not bothered to learn their craft, either.

And of course there is M.A.S., Man Answer Syndrome. Ask a woman a question and if she doesn't know the answer she says, "I don't know." But a man must answer. He may not have the slightest idea of what he's talking about, but he feels obligated to answer and will almost always do so if a woman asks.

 

Jay G, you point out very interesting exemples, but your interpretation mixes biological, historical, sociological and individual differences and treats them the same way, sometimes mistaking causes for effects and correlations for causal connections. Maybe my English is not good enough to make my point but what I said previously is scientifically proven.
And, as I said, that doesn't mean that you can't find average behavioural differences between men and women. Just that there are not inborn. And, as cogito pointed out, if you write about a character who drives events, he'll probabibly not be your average bloke anyway. And you'll find even average blokes not that stereotyped, while building them. So I really don't think that should be a big issue as a writer.

And honestly, I don't have statistics but I really don't believe that, in our moderns societies, women are THAT much, let's say shoppers than men and that the ones who don't like shopping are "exceptions". We always tend to notice and hang out easier with people who comfort our preconceptions. Trust me, according to my own experience, most people in the world are pacifists, ecologists and slightly vain geeky intellectuals... But as much as I'd like this to be true, I don't believe they are representative of humanity ^^
But seriously, even if that was true, that doesn't mean it's a natural thing. Well... that's scientifically not one.

But I obviously agree with you on one point : it's difficult to write about someone who's very different from you (did I say something about astrophysicists, firemen and elves ? ^^). And if you want to write about a typical girly fashionata, you'll have to work hard on it. But trust me, I'll also have to. And I'm no exception.

 

I, a wo-- I mean human, don't feel special anymore for some reason

 

You're not special—no one is.

"You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all a part of the same compost pile."

 

Just a question on this topic, I can see men and women acting and thinking on the surface the same way when faced with an extreme situation (survival, isolation, etc), but when it comes to something more routine or personal, shouldn't we start to see differences?

 

I actually feel more pressured by society to be "sexy all the time and have a high power job" than to "get married and stay in the kitchen". I would just like to write manga in Japan and be an English teacher.......everything else is irrelevant........

 

You will see individual differences - not gender differences.

 

It depends on what your subject material is. Non-fiction, as in technical, textual or scientific writing, does not need any gender reference. Non-fiction, as in a documentary, can hardly dispense without it. Fiction is a wide open field. A gay guy can write about only men. He likely has only that audience (and a corner in the market as well), so the story can be centered around the male gender. The rest of us really will find it tough to write a meaningful story involving the average social situation. Two dudes in a bathysphere is not the average setting...

There are good gay authors on both sides of that fence. I find the mental image of two dudes together revolting, still I remain responsibly tolerant. For me to think of myself as doing a good job of writing, I need both genders of a wide variety of species. Multi faceted thinking covers more realistic ground than a specialist.

 

Wow. Just, wow. I'm not even going to comment on this, because it's that stupid.

And then you went on to say this:

You're really are an ignorant close minded old man—who is utterly out of date.

 

Are you serious?

 

I believe the man who writes the Wicked series is gay. He did a great job with his female characters.

 

That depends on what you extracted from that tiny abstract.

 

I don't think anyone knows the exact numbers, you and I included. However, although statistics show only a part of the truth, they still indicate male on female rape is notably more common than male on male (or any other kind of) rape. On what statistics or other facts do you base your assumption that incidents of male on male rape are so close to male on female rape (numerically speaking) that men being more inclined to think "attacker" instead of "rapist" is a response prompted solely by what society tells them to think?

If we look at the process of victim selection, what are the most prominent aspects? This has actually been studied, and so far it seems that muggers, robbers, and rapists are not looking for challenges; they are opportunists looking for easy prey. Even if we were to assume that all male rapists were bisexual (hardly the case) and had no social conditioning that would make them more partial to choose female victims, it would appear they would still be more inclined to choose females as victims since, them being generally weaker than men, the chances of finding an easy victim is greater than if the rapist chose a male victim. That hasn't really got anything to do with social conditioning or societal input.

Again, although the statistics offer only some information on the subject, what facts have been recorded, support my interpretation of the situation (that male on female rape is far more common than male on male rape and hence the tendency to think "attacker" instead of "rapist" or vice versa is related to the thinker's sex). Since that is the case, I believe the burden of proof lies on you. On what facts do you base your claims?

Another thing: why would society condition us to think the way you claim it has anyway? Or could that conditioning have roots in biology, i.e. male rapists choosing victims who both, fit their sexuality (even though rape is less about sex and more about power, many rapists acknowledge that they are drawn to a specific sex) and provide the easiest targets?

 

Define rape.

 

The point I was making was that male rape is considered so taboo by society that no one wants to talk about it, report it - many don't even want to admit it's a possibility. So no, most men don't think rapist. But all women don't automatically think that either. The immediate thought is danger, and humans react to that, regardless of what form that danger may present itself.

 

It matters not a bit if the behavior is the result of some sort of pre-wiring, social pressures, or any other factors. The result is what matters.

One incontrovertible fact is that more than half the fiction sold is romance. And in that, two things stand out: first, the vast majority of people reading it are female. And, except in small amounts romance writers are, too.

Now with a market that large, if you're a writer it's a pretty damn tempting target. And if people are pretty much the same, men and woman should read it in pretty much equal numbers. But they don't. And no amount of rationalization and "explanation" will change that. In fact, the entire argument that men and woman see the world in the same way and have the same needs comes crashing down because of the fact that they, obviously don't find the same genre equally interesting.

It's all well and good to talk about what should be. But in the real world, if you're a man trying to write fiction that's attractive to woman you damn well better learn how those customers think.

 

Possibly. I haven't seen the numbers, or their source.

Probably true, although I suspect there are many male readers reluctant to admit to it.

Whoa there, cowboy. There are many male writers of romance novels, but a good number of them do use female pen names when they do. I don't think they make up a majority, but I'm sure there are a lot more of them than you think.

There is a social stigma against men reading or writing romance novels, or attending "chick flicks". But many of the men who grumble at being dragged into the theater by their wives or girfriengs (may they never meet!) are surreptitiously drying their eyes before the lights reach full glow for the exit crowd.

 

I'm going to assume in your syntax that you mean a gay man is at liberty to write only about men, not that he is incapable of writing women because the latter is insupportable and simply not true at all. Michael Cunningham (The Hours, A Home at the End of the World) who is gay writes stunningly deep and powerful female characters as does Clive Barker, also gay. As a gay man myself, I say that there are only so many stories where there are no female characters I could write before it became apparent that I'd chosen to revise history to remove them. Even in the erotica I write, there are always women in top billing. I love the female form in imagery and concept. My being gay doesn't exclude me from knowing Woman, to the contrary, it gives me a pass into their world where I am privileged to know them in a way that is often humbling.

 

JayG : You're talking about marketing a very specific target in a very specific king of literature, that doesn't have that much to do with building believable characters.
About the science... well, you're still mistaking the average for the majority and behaviours for personalities.
And about art... I'm pretty sure that, as writers, we're not supposed to aim for comforting people in their stereotypes, but that's only my approach.

 

I for one am more concerned of getting mugged if something goes bump behind me in a dark alley and there's some shady figure loitering about. That's because of where I live: rape happens usually indoors and by somebody you know, rarely outdoors, especially when most of the year it's so friggin ball-freezing around here I'm not surprised it doesn't appeal to assailants even if the rape was just about powerplay.

But I wouldn't leave the importance of gender out of the equation.

Hear, hear, know your audience.

On a sidenot: this romance writer I know freely admits she doesn't write her male characters realistically because that'd just make them less unappealing to women. She's conscious about the sex of the male characters, and the stereotypical male behavior that might be fitting but would upset the readers ("men are disgustoids in human form" and all that). Doesn't stop people (mostly women) from enjoying her works -- and her male characters.

 

That is correct. I could have said it more clearly.

It's imaginable someone could write "The Boys In the Band" many different ways and create a niche. You are also correct, though, in the real world it's unrealistic to exclude the female entirely. Being gay is not the only way to get the gals to open up to you. A man in touch with his feminine side may also have a similar edge. I've encountered the "God's gift super male" type that calls fellows who are so in touch as effeminized. I find that to be grossly errant, of course that dude vehemently insisted I was a sissy. I insisted he was a bigot.

 

Looks like we've been talking about different things since I agree with what you're saying here and it was never my intention to claim (nor do I think I did) that no man ever thinks "rapist" or that all women always do think that in the aforementioned scenario. I did try to discuss probability affected by the character's sex, i.e. convey the notion that if an individual was to think "rapist" in that situation, it was more likely for that individual to be female than male even though I don't know the percentages for that likelihood.

I copied this from Wikipedia, the bit within parentheses are my own comments:"Rape is a type of sexual assault usually (but not necessarily) involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or against a person who is incapable of valid consent, such as one who is unconscious, incapacitated, or below the legal age of consent."

Do you have data that goes against what I wrote in the part you quoted or why did you ask for the definition?

 

I wanted to see at least one definition of rape because it is a part of the subject. Webster's also includes "Violate" and "To seize and carry away forcibly." The violation of one's mind is likely the worst form of rape one can endure. It doesn't have to be directly sexual, although the violator or seizer may derive sexual pleasure or its equivalent like an opiate.

What I'm driving at, is so many forms of expression, horror especially, involve a non-sexually explicit form of rape. Where is the dividing line drawn? What does the general reading public want?