McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

Classic Blunders and how to easily spot a female author writing a male charater

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the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:

--- Quote from: Shecky on February 10, 2013, 04:01:30 AM ---Very recently, a select group of fantasy authors anonymously submitted short pieces for a test: a bank of readers were supposed to decide based on the writing whether the author was male or female. Result? The guesses were only as accurate as a random choice between A or B. Random, people.

--- End quote ---

Indeed, IME of about a decade of gender-obscuring online, people going solely my prose style have come up pleasing near to 50/50 on their guesses.

LizW65:
And there's this:
http://www.hackerfactor.com/GenderGuesser.php
It's a load of crap (it guessed Jim as female and me as male and European the last time I tried it out) but it's kind of fun.

Shecky:
There is no longer a Touchy Topics subforum, so I can't advise to move it there, and simply moving it behind a spoiler tag doesn't change it from being in the Touchy Topics field. It might have been better to make the opening post broader, such as "Make sure the character's dialogue and internal monologue are consistent with his/her situation", without referring to broad stereotypes. But the moment for that is past, so all that's left is either 1) to drop the subject entirely or 2) be very, very careful with how it develops. You have to admit that stating openly that character X is poorly written because "I've never heard a man/woman talk that way" looks and quacks a lot like sexism. I can't think that it was your intent, but since gender roles are a hot-button issue for a number of forumgoers here (not to mention people in general), that button can get inadvertently pressed awfully easily.

... which is part of the reason Touchy Topics were defined and placed off-limits here in the first place: too often, those hot buttons got pressed and people had powerful emotional reactions that led to completely avoidable dust-ups. Deliberate or otherwise, it really doesn't matter in the end—we've placed maintaining the peace in here in everyone's hands. So, you can certainly proceed if you wish, but please do be careful in guiding this thread's direction.

For what it's worth, words fundamentally do still mean what they mean once you strip a lot of stereotyped "conventions" from them. I'm a straight male, happy and completely at ease with it, yet I can see a guy like Matt Bomer and feel perfectly accurate and appropriate in describing him as "beautiful". Because, dammit, the jerk is. Makes me bullfrog-green with jealousy that some other guy can be that damned gorgeous while I got not one gene in that direction. XD In fact, the lingo you're describing as "not done" may simply belong to the also-stereotyped group of self-proclaimed "man's men", which is a fairly sexist direction to take right out of the gate, anyway.

So, to repeat, if you want to continue with this thread, it's certainly okay; just be aware how close the subject matter and the direction of the conversation are to the borders with TT, and self-monitor accordingly. Sound good?

jeno:
For a counter example, doesn't Jim repeatedly have Harry call Thomas beautiful at points in the story?

Historically, it was very common for males to be described as beautiful (or the local language's equivalent thereof), particularly if the person in question was a youth or the setting was one in which the male form was accepted as the pinnacle of beauty.  (I'm looking at you, Greece).

Contemporary Renaissance era men (if they were lucky  8)) would be described with having a 'long, shapely leg, shown to great advantage in their hose.' By other men. In Europe, before and after that time period, men's fashion was much more involved and complicated - moreso than women's, in fact, since a woman's fashion choices were limited not only by her social class, but by her marital status. Men wore heels. In ancient Egypt and Rome, they wore eye liner.

Heck, I know guys who wear eye liner now, though obviously this depends on a lot - frex, I would not see a factory worker in eye liner. I might very well see a punk rock musician in it, though.

But that's all just background stuff. At the end of the day, the author (male or female) probably uses the word 'beautiful' to describe a man because that is precisely the word they need to convey an aspect of that character. What cultural connotations are attached to the word depend on the setting. *shrug*

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