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Men writing female characters

TheCatWoman

I read loads of fiction, mostly crime fiction and many with female lead characters, it always fascinates me how some male authors approach a female lead character. Mostly it's just a good character, but sometimes there's an overtly sexual portrayal or one that focusses on the violence suffered on the lead character by the male "baddie". I was wondering what's going on in the head of the author? I know it's all imaginary, but I do sometimes wonder if that's how the male author views women, or strong women. Then I started wondering if female authors do the same, do male readers of female authors feel a similar disconnect? Most of the time I don't really notice as I'm enjoying the story, but when I do notice it, it really stands out.

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  • TheCatWoman said:
    I started wondering if female authors do the same

    I do notice that a few female authors I read (Robin Hobb, Trudi Canavan and Ann McAffrey) tend to have male characters that I don't really connect with while male authors (Brandon Sanderson, Raymond Feist and George RR Martin) can pick up on some of the more base flaws of men - maybe female authors give us the benefit of the doubt. Who knows?

    In todays woke society I sometimes wonder if male characters will be stigmatised for writing female characters and only female co-writes will be allowed to do this. It seems a logical extension to only allowing gay actors to play gay roles or Asian characters to play asian roles.

  • in reply to Iain

    I loved McCaffereys, Pern novels, but dhe is such an inconsistent writer, the names changed from book to book, let alone peoples characters! I'm not familiar with the other writers mentioned.

    I don't think it's a woke thing at all, but then I don't see the problem with a lot of suposedly woke stuff.

    I don't see any stigmatisation for male authors writing female characters, there seem to be plenty of male authors who write female characters very well.

    Maybe it's just the type of fiction they write, but I do wonder at the effect on them of writing such grizely scenes of terrified women and such depraved men, is there a sense of displacement going on. There's a similar thing with way some female characters sex lives are written about, I wonder if I'm reading the authors fantaasies about his ideal partner?

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  • in reply to Iain

    I loved McCaffereys, Pern novels, but dhe is such an inconsistent writer, the names changed from book to book, let alone peoples characters! I'm not familiar with the other writers mentioned.

    I don't think it's a woke thing at all, but then I don't see the problem with a lot of suposedly woke stuff.

    I don't see any stigmatisation for male authors writing female characters, there seem to be plenty of male authors who write female characters very well.

    Maybe it's just the type of fiction they write, but I do wonder at the effect on them of writing such grizely scenes of terrified women and such depraved men, is there a sense of displacement going on. There's a similar thing with way some female characters sex lives are written about, I wonder if I'm reading the authors fantaasies about his ideal partner?

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