why do men and women write each other so terribly?
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- Опубликовано: 2 июл 2024
- why is it that “written by a man” is perceived as an insult, while “written by a woman” is an ultimate compliment?
in this video we are going to take a look at men’s lackluster attempts at writing women, discuss real (e.g: Harry Styles, Timothée Chalamet, Hozier and members of BTS) and fictional (e.g: Anthony Bridgerton, Peeta Mellark, Fitzwilliam Darcy, Jamie Fraser) men “written by a woman” and find out which gender is doing a better job at writing the opposite one.
can women do a horrible job at crafting fictional men too?
are there any instances of fantastically written female characters in men’s books?
& how #writtenbyawoman and #writtenbyaman trends reflect the current state of society
let’s go!
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🍿 timestamps:
0:00 - men writing women, the ‘male gaze’
6:37 - real and fictional men “written by a woman”
8:51 - women can write terrible men too
16:33 - final thoughts & outro
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Reddit page- r/menwritingwomen: / menwritingwomen
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🗞️ articles/papers mentioned:
Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema by Laura Mulvey: www.asu.edu/courses/fms504/to...
BuzzFeed article: www.buzzfeed.com/pernellquilo...
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📚books mentioned:
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
Love Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood
Anna Karenina by Lev Tolstoy
The Cruel Prince by Holly Black
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🎥 Tik-Tok creators mentioned:
@drewmuxlow
@readers.archive
@tabeabussmann
@juliamusic.be
@zhannared
@themorganling
@hayden_reis
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find me on socials:
🕯️ instagram: / rayareadzzz
🕯️ tiktok: / rayardzzz
🕯️ goodreads: / 152132775
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thanks for watching and have a good one!
xoxo,
raya 
Развлечения
the true compliment is "written by fanfic author who knows english as second language"
so true hahahahh 😂😂
Both men and women are sooo guilty of this nonsense and I'm glad to see it called out.
Well there’s no point in calling anyone out… unless human biology is going to change anytime soon people will be attracted to what they are attracted to… and that’s okay. Men can have their curvy women and women can have their dreamy or toxic guys. It’s okay to cater to different audiences where ppl like to see and hear different things. We all don’t have to like the same things… we never will… just like any other ganre. In anime and manga they have shonen and seinin for men and shoujo and yaoi and yuri for women. It’s okay if it’s not the most perfect portrayal … it’s just fantasy and fiction. Just because there’s dragons coming from eggs we don’t think our chicken eggs will give dragon babies. The narrative where adult ppl are dumb, they can’t differentiate reality from fiction is lame in a society where we think 13 years olds can make life altering decisions.
Well there’s no point in calling anyone out… unless human biology is going to change anytime soon people will be attracted to what they are attracted to… and that’s okay. Men can have their curvy women and women can have their dreamy or toxic guys. It’s okay to cater to different audiences where ppl like to see and hear different things. We all don’t have to like the same things… we never will… just like any other ganre. In anime and manga they have shonen and seinin for men and shoujo and yaoi and yuri for women. It’s okay if it’s not the most perfect portrayal … it’s just fantasy and fiction. Just because there’s dragons coming from eggs we don’t think our chicken eggs will give dragon babies. The narrative where adult ppl are dumb, they can’t differentiate reality from fiction is lame in a society where we think 13 years olds can make life altering decisions.
The only thing worse than the male character being described as a hulking great 6'7 beast of a man is when the female one is described as a delicate little fairy who could get snapped in half - like surely someone being over a foot taller than you is a bit scary
😂👌🏻 and then we get reminded of it every 5 minutes cause god forbid we forget
I read bulkhead instead of hulking. I think it is because im into sci fi and military stuff but... Built like a bulkhead.
I almost dated a dude who was a foot taller than me (he was 6'5, I'm 5'5), and he definitely wasn't scary to me, but then again, he was a nice guy and I didn't see him get angry. I'm sure if I saw him get really pissed, or if he was like, super buff and not really friendly (like a lot of these male characters always are), he'd be much more intimidating rather than hot. I mean, hell, even if a guy is only a few inches taller than you but much stronger, that's intimidating as hell.
if tolstoy was the last male author to write a good woman then we have an issue 💀
😂😂
this is why I go to sites like ao3 or fanfic because i can just read about my fav 2 idiots falling in love for the billonth time without having to read weird descriptions of new characters as they bounce boobily down the stairs.
✨slay✨
My husband is over 2m tall & it is a PROBLEM. Fitting in cars, airplanes, hospital beds; shower nozzles usually spray him at nipple height; ceiling fans and hanging signs are lurking hazards.
On the plus side, if i want to hide something from him i just need to put it on the bottom shelf & he’ll never know it’s there
He'll never find your illegal collection of Kinder egg toys muhaha!
@@Phoenix.Sparkles real
As a 6'4 man, the bottom shelf trick absolutely works 🤣🤣🤣
As an ace writer, it's difficult for me to describe sxual attraction between characters. I'm like, "okay, he has a six-pack and he's tall ... so what?" Instead, my characters DO things I find attractive like reading, gardening, journaling, drawing, cooking, being emotionally supportive, etc.
im aro ace so i just ask my non aro ace friends to help me writing that kinda stuff
Thank you.
I constantly see complaints about male authors writing women terribly, most of which are true and warranted but whenever I comment about how women write men and that being terrible too most women don't want to hear it. I think most authors will struggle writing the opposite sex for a long time due to the obvious fact of them being their gender. I also think it will add to the issue because authors spend so many hours in a room on their own with a computer writing.
I think people are too harsh on authors for their writing of the opposite gender. Critique them on their first few books and hopefully they will get better at writing them.
As adult fantasy, I would cite Guns of the dawn by Adrian Tchaikovsky, I was really pleasantly surprised by his portrayal of the female main character in this military fantasy
You can always tell when an author doesn’t understand women. They always describe exactly what she looks like and nothing about who she is as a person, shallow characters kill the immersion for me.
🫱🏼🫲🏽hard agree
tbf they are likely introducing the character from the visual perspective of another character (most likely the mc), so it should be a visual description. The personality and their life story are something that gets revealed through time and plot....when you have a good author.
@@MrReset94 yeah i get what you're saying. as long as the characters have depth and actually change/develop throughout the story then i'm usually happy.
Yeah, "sad eyes" doesn't count lol.
@@MrReset94 you can use physical descriptions to describe the way they do things and give insight into their personality that way though. I don't think the way their boobs jiggle is going to say much, lol.
I honestly thought this was 90% a male problem, not only regarding sexualization, but also basic bodily-function stuff. Until I started to learn about romantasy books in which female authors write thing like guy remaining hard inside the protagonist all night long, while asleep, and things like that. 🤣 I don't know whether to laugh or cry, really
Of course it's not a ''male problem''. It is a writer's problem, regardless of gender, because these writers don't attempt to be truthful with reality and make the effort to flesh out the infinite nuances everything has.
The complaint from men saying that female authors don’t seem to know how much time at the gym it takes to have abs was hilarious to me. Like yes, there have been plenty of problematically written male characters, but THAT is what jumped out to you? Most of these male characters with washboard abs are either warriors or athletes. Xaden fourth wing is a third year at a literal war college. I think the better question is, fellas, do YOU know what it takes to have abs? And before anyone comes at me for not knowing enough about fitness, I was a professional ballerina and now I’m a fitness instructor. I myself am in possession of defined abs.
YES. YES. GET EM QUEEN
I think the complaint is directed at the CEO guys, not the fantasy warrior ones.
@@MrReset94 yeah but… you can still be in good shape even if your job is in an office. How many female love interests of male protagonists have been written to be slender and athletic even though they’re doctors or business women? It’s easy to assume that the time a male character spends off page and away from the female POV protagonist would be spent doing other things like sending emails, doing chores, and working out. My partner is a sales associate who spends his work week in desk, but he’s shredded because he goes to the gym 3 days a week. If I were to write a romance novel based on our relationship entirely from my perspective, the only evidence of going to the gym you’d see is the gym selfies he occasionally sends me because going to the gym isn’t something he and I do together. Doesn’t mean he doesn’t have time for it. And I think it’s safe to assume that they never question how the female love interests they’ve been reading are in good shape despite never seeing them work out on page. Like, do you think they lie awake at night wondering how Padme in Star Wars was able to improvise climbing a 40ft column and fend off a massive beast all on her own using nothing but a chain when she’s just a politician?
@@missanthropy6174 there's a difference between being in good shape, and having washboard abs all the time, as well as being 6'9, having a narrow waist, in big bulky alarms that go along with those washboard abs. A woman can be in good shape and also be a doctor, but you rarely see women being portrayed in any way close to men, mainly because the general public knows that a woman having a six-pack most of the time is very unhealthy. No one describes what the female love interest is doing, mainly because it's not really important to the story, what male authors do best, is write action stories, and those action stories are normally about the male protagonist, and his close friends, and the time we spend with them compared to the love interest are just not comparable. Sure there are some very well-written stories with more fleshed out female love interests, but other than that, a love interest is simply a love interest, when it comes to certain stories they are secondary to the plot, also I'm not sure that male love interests who are portrayed the way he is describing like the CEOs are ever talked about we don't know their gym routine is, we don't even know what they're doing, he is simply there to kidnap the female protagonist, and she just falls in love with him on the spot.
Now that ai’ve finally read Fourth Wing I can finally say that Xaden is not only a terribly written man, but also a bad character.
Seeing "her breasts looking peaky" is hilarious because here in the UK peaky means 'pale and sick'😂😂
As an enby I always write my characters with as few physical descriptions as possible for this exact reason.
You go 🔥
The examples for both sexes writing each other terribly seem to suffer from the same problem: they violate that great rule of 'show, don't tell.'
Another good example of a male author writing women: Grushenka and Katerina in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. Grushenka fits that old character trope of the temptress while at the same time being far more than that, and I was surprised by how likeable she was as a character. Katerina is a woman spurned who at the same time has a lot more to her character. Of course, Dostoevsky is just generally known for nailing his the psychology of his characters.
it all depends on how skilled the writer is. They're long, but the two books of the Stalingrad/Life and Fate duology by Vasily Grossman have quite a few really incredible male and female characters. One of my favorites is the older farmer who receives his draft notice. He uses his last full day before he goes off to war to quietly complete his wife's honey-do list because he knows the odds of him making it through the war are slim.
ayoo 😳 the way you pronounced “anna karenina” 👀 i was not prepared for such perfection haha
heheh thanks! 🫶🏻😀 i do speak the language, so that helps😂
Your comment about books from just five years ago feeling cringy is very accurate to me. Its amazing how much both the romance and the fantasy genres have changed so much and how each year seems to have a different flavor to the writing.
The funny thing is if you go back to the 90s-00s it's really not that bad.
Male authors that I think are great at writing female characters:
- George R.R. Martin (Fantasy&SciFi)
- Sorj Chalandon (Contemporary, French)
- James Corey (SciFi)
- Brandon Sanderson (Fantasy)
- Frank Schätzing (Thriller, German)
- Matt Haig (Literary)
- Ewald Arenz (Literary, German)
- Mark Sullivan (History)
- Graeme Simsion (Romance)
- David Safier (Comedy, German)
- Gavin Extence (Contemporary)
- Daniel Kehlmann (Literary, German)
- Klaus Kordon (History, German)
- Michael Gerard Bauer (Middle Grade)
- Markus Zusak (History)
- Kenneth Oppel (Middle Grade)
- Louis Sachar (Middle Grade)
- Paolo Giordano (Literary, Italian)
- Terry Pratchett (Fantasy)
- David Safier (Comedy & Romance, German)
Loved your video!! I agree with your points in the video. I have put down many a book after realising how weird/creepy/boring women are written. These are all authors I enjoy reading. Some of these are not originally written in English, I put the original language in parentheses. Maybe you find something you like there 🤗
wooww thank uuu!! ✨ and thanks for watching, glad u enjoyed☺️
Would also add Terry Pratchett! I love his female characters.
@@Craspcrisper had him on my tbr for ages!
Timothy Zahn did an excellent job with his earlier work. I specify that because I haven't read anything newer then the mid 90s from him. But his creation and portrayal of Mara Jade for Starwars in particular was excellent as I recall.
Shoutout to Nathaniel Hawthorne
This is such a good video essay! I love that you explore the "men written by women" thing as well. Thank you for this
thank u for watching!! 🫶🏻✨
"In the dim light from the coffee table lamp, her auburn eyes were hard to make out from his perspective, as they were fixated intently upon the pages before her.
Her long, raven black hair, now tied back in a tight bun, blended so seamlessly with the dark wall behind her that her olive skin glowed all the clearer in contrast.
He could see her rich, full lips, unmarked with lipstick, continuously purse and relax as she studied the words. She was wilfully oblivious to the world around her, lost in another time and place and happier for it. Suddenly she formed a slight smile and her eyes widened with surprise, clearly the story was getting better!
Her simple grey tank top hung loosely over her stout, shapely figure. Her short but deceptively strong legs, clad in her favourite purple PJ bottoms, were tucked neatly under the blanket so she could rest the book upon them.
He smiled warmly, not wanting to disturb such a mundane, yet very pleasant scene. But then as she looked up for a moment to take a sip from her glass of wine, she noticed him in the doorway and beamed with delight."
It's not that hard fellas 🤣
Men should really know better. The examples you gave are sloppy writing with overwrought descriptions. You should seed your descriptions throughout the book. Some show, some tell. Don't spend a paragraph on how a woman looks. And, please don't use metaphors and similes to "enhance" the description. For Pete's sake, don't compare any part of a woman's anatomy to ballistic missiles or any other weapon. That is just amateur writing.
🫱🏼🫲🏽🫱🏼🫲🏽
*Watched your video*
*Checks my manuscript furiously to make sure my characters are okay* 😅
In all seriousness, as a woman who writes male characters, I mostly just try to base them on either men I know in real life (many of which are wholesome and complex people) or my favourite male characters from good TV shows or books. Just people generally, it helps so much if you portray them as people. It doesn’t matter what gender they are.
Great video 💞
thank you for watching! ☺️☺️ what are you writing, if you don’t mind sharing?
@@rayareadzzzz I’m writing a fantasy novel series with a lot of LGBTQ+ characters where their individual stories are shown and eventually intertwine. I’ve just finished the first draft of part 1 and I’m really excited! 😄 But also nervous and hoping it will be good.
Thanks again for the video. It’s really well done and well edited - I’ve been looking for something as in depth as this. Keep up the great work! 🫶
I feel like it is very difficult for many people to even understand themself, let alone another person... or a different gender. Anyone who can describe themself accurately is already impressive, to me. If they can 'also' describe other people (of the same gender) and understand how they feel and what they would say in many different situations, that is amazing. If they can 'ALSO' understand a person of a different gender in that same level of detail... mind-blowing. If I ever tried to write a story... I would try my best to write every character as... a person. If a person is mistreated or favoured by others for a physical aspect of who they are, that would logically affect their personality in some way. If that physical aspect just so happens to be part of what defines their gender, then so be it. I would just want to write cool and interesting characters to tell a fun and thoughtful story... to feel better about life. I have zero understanding of what any other person 'truly' experiences in life, but I can compare my own experiences with theirs, and remember how I felt during those times. I can try to imagine how those events would have felt different, if my situation was more like theirs. How my situation would have actually been completely different, if I were them. Trying your best to understand another person is one of the most rewarding and valuable aspects of being human, I feel.
Well I think it’s problem of overall today’s writers and the mass reader community. Look at Russians, look at Germans, look at French people 100 years ago and further and you see the real artists, who wrote while challenging deep problems. And there you can also find “the right description of woman and man”. Somebody gotta save literature, it dies out of its shallowness and artistic void🙁
I haven’t read a lot of male authors in the last couple years either but the two I have were pretty good in terms of the female characters not being ridiculous and I think a lot of that had to do with the books being middle grade and ya.
But my favorite fictional men written by women are Adrian Ivashkov from Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy and Bloodlines series (realistic, not really but literally so perfect imo) and Jest from Heartless by Marissa Meyer.
omg I thought I was the only one who read vampire academy
@@mothyclothy849 I reread it last year and it was so good 😩 and like 10 years ago I was given the first Bloodlines book having never heard of VA and now I finally have those which are also really good and definitely isn’t influenced by my love for Adrian 👀 lol
I read a famous male author's (who has improved a lot in this regard since) first novel from the 80s and the main character is an obvious self-insert who has this young model with "full lips" (instant laughable red flag phrase for me) fall in love with him because he's "real."
who? what? when? where? Spill the tea my dude
again it’s the same as men when describe women. Most men can’t help their height, color of their eyes, hair or skin. And most of the fictional men who fall for some waitress are princes, nobles, super athletes, business owners… it’s about the unrealistic standard pf expectation it sets in women’s imagination when it comes to men. That some guy who literally looks like a god and is an actual prince would fall for an average looking, clumsy girl… for what…. Cz she’s ‘special’. That’s why men are complaining about … and I see comments like men should aspire to be better… then y don’t women look at women in men’s books and just aspire lol
I love this video! Your topics are so entertaining and relevant. I don't normally read romance novels written by men. I just don't trust they'll be relatable! Maybe there are some good ones out there, but unless I'm given a recommendation from someone I trust, I won't pick it up. Same with romcom movies. I've seen too many written by men, and the women in them don't even feel real. It gets a bit tiring 😴
thank u for watching!! 🫶🏻✨✨
The problem with this issue is that women assume this is all literature, but I can assure you that these things happen mostly (if not only) in novels aimed at women, and their authors do it because they know women like it.
It's like when men complain about fanservice in anime (a visual media). We're more primitive that we think we are and we often don't know what we want.
I’m reading Anna Karenina right now and it’s such a beautiful example of a man understanding that women are complex and have minds and souls and are capable of thinking for themselves. It’s truly wonderful and heartbreaking to read
When we talk about this we are usually referring to the love interest or the protagonist, usually the side characters are underwritten or described negatively to contrast with the main male or female. I think genre and target audience have a lot to do with it. Many romance books are 'reader' insert wish fulfillment. It makes sense the male love interests would be exemplars of the current idea of male attractiveness. You won't get many readers if your love interest is a short, pudgy individual whose skin has not seen the sun for years. While the problems with female characters written by men is largely due to them being an after thought to make the book 'adult' when all the author really wanted to do was write about the protagonist who is often an 'author' self insert wish fulfillment weilding his big sword and slaying monsters.
I generally like Joe Abercrombie's female characters, eg Monza in "Best Served Cold" or Ferro and Ardee in the First Law trilogy.
Love the hair omg
❤️❤️❤️
5:25 half of this just sounds like a hot lesbian who joined the army lmao (speaking from experience, there’s a lot of them like this). These authors’ ideal women are swinging for the other team
Just like how men written for women sound very zesty
Girls wake up the queen herself just posted a video
But seriously that thumbnail was perfect I already know this is gonna eat
stop iiiit 😭💕ty, hope you enjoy! 🫶🏻
Dostoyevsky writes good women. And Haruki Murak... lol jk but dostoyevsky writes characters well in general. I think both genders write their experience of the opposite gender, as a man being attracted to a woman can often overwhelm us in a way that we forget ourselves. Writing these bizarre almost dream logic descriptions of women may be goofy when viewed from an outside observer but is pretty representative of how men are experiencing attraction. Sure that's got alot to do with how men are patriarchally socialized but I think it's definitely deeper than just men are gross and weird. There's a reason we see most of the "well written" women be from older works written during more sexually repressive times, those guys weren't allowed to put their horned up mental images to the page so that had to be artistically depicted via the behavior of male characters who were interested in those women and by the behavior of the women themselves. Those writers were often no less misogynistic than writers today they just didn't have as much room to explore their own mental landscape.
15:13 Has everyone forgotten Game of Thrones? Or how about Lord of the Ring? Mundo Umbrio literally has the protagonist being female and its written by a man. Is it my good luck that most authors I read know how to do character descriptions?
I liked this video!! yay
thanks for watching ✨
I write for my own short films.
its a basic rule to write only what is physically seen in screen and what is heard, including feelings in writings sound good in script but akways fail when depict it in a film.
whereas men written physical visual scripts usually turn out much better than the script because what's seen in the screen evokes stron😊ger emotion than what feelings is written in script.
action of character, choices they make and how they respond to all the situation they are in potrays someone much better.
even when reading
"she is sad, lonely and drowning in thoughts" doesn't evoke much emotion.
"she is sitting there with a blank expression, staring at the dark horizon clenching her teeth, her nose and mouth twitching almost like holding herself from weeping"
now this instantly creates a visual in your head IDK what goes through the female reader's head but as a male reader this is a much better form of writing according to my experience.
My God ! This video was so interesting, I just noticed that I was not reading much male authors but I will be way more careful next time I do.
I watch you video from France, your channel is just amazing ! 😍
ty for watchiiing and your kind words ☺️🫶🏻
I look up these videos to improve my own writing. When you listed the typical "women writing men" at 7:20 I noticed how stereotypical my character fits into that 😅Idk, I really want him to have the "protector" personality but I struggle with making it realistic. And then again it is fiction so I am allowed to make him a little too good to be true haha. If anyone has tips feel free to let me know.
You should give him a reason to want to be a protector. Kaladin from Stormlight Archives by Brandon Sanderson is this type of character, I think (I'm still reading the first book so I could be wrong, but he seems headed this way). In Kaladin's case, he's lost pretty much everyone he cared about, so he's really determined to protect others. I think that's a great reason. Just make sure to give your character as much development as possible so that it feels organic and real.
¡¡¡Magnus Burnsides!!!
The Dandelion Dynasty by Ken Liu has fantasic female characters.
Well, if the woman is described from a male pov in the book then it would be not weird at all to describe her through a "male gaze" or whatever you want to call it. And vice versa, if it is a female character describing a man it does not bother me at all if it seems weird and cringy to me as a male. It's rather when a male author writes a female pov or the other way around when things can understandably get a bit though. But there are good writers who have actually learned how to think (apparently at least) and write from completely different perspectives of their own. Still, I'm sure there are always some telling signs from both ends even if the writer is excellent at his or her craft.
Honestly, bad writing is fun to poke fun at, but on a serious note... where are the editors... who said okay to these things?
Terry Pratchett
It's crazy that women being written by men as liking cars, guns or sports is dismissed as a fantasy and ridiculous, while these authors are obviously describing women that share their hobbies. Sure, it's a bit shallow, but is it ridiculous to want a S.O with similar interests as yours ? Also, in my opinion, as a guy who frequently is in male dominated spaces, it sounds great to meet someone like that, it makes them feel more approachable, as opposed to having to speak to random women. I think that men having to take the first step in most relationships is not really aknowledged.
The overly sexual stuff is weird tho, I agree, but recent romantasy novels has shown that women can easily do the same thing.
12:11 A male Medusa of a very... _special_ sort.
the greatest female character I have ever read, Savine Dan Glockta, was written by a man. To be fair, that man has a daughter, or daughters, I think, so that likely helps. I find it funny, though, because Joe Abercrombie was criticized early in his career for having a lack of female characters, only for him to turn around and write what is the most relatable and interesting female character I have ever seen.
Personally, I genuinely prefer writing female characters, especially in patriarchal fantasy type stories, because it lends me an initial layer of inherent conflict of character vs society, plus potentially some character vs self aspects, because of the event of herself being born a woman in a society that does not exist for her to thrive, and her therefore belittling herself because of this toxic influence of society on her. I think women characters are more interesting, perhaps because I enjoy writing characters I can learn from, and the female experience is obviously foreign to me, a man, and the male character has been overdone to the point of monotony. I do think, though, especially early in a draft, while I'm learning the female I'm writing, I do tend to default to those descriptions of feminine beauty when it is inappropriate, and that's something I have to learn to be conscious of. Also, my solution for the, I'm a woman in a society of men, conundrum tends to be motherhood, and I don't think that is entirely appropriate. Three of my characters have went through this journey, and though I think motherhood is an integral part of being a woman, it can't always be my default. I need to mix it up, which I think I did do with one of my three main female characters, as she actually lost her baby in childbirth, and so her story is more of an exploration of parental grief and trauma, especially given that her mother had a history of miscarriage.
Genuine question, because I feel I have a disconnect as a man in certain ways, but what alternatives to motherhood do you think make a compelling step in a female character's arch? Obviously I can't do women who just up and become world renowned soldiers, because my approach to writing women tends to deal more in the empowering of women via other avenues, so while the men fight like stupid animals, the women sit back and fiddle with the board a bit. What is an interesting aspect of your experience as women that in no way involve men. So no marriage, no divorce, no parenting. Things that as a male I might not think of including. If your thoughts can improve my writing of female characters, I would be happy to listen and discuss.
Men: writing women horribly
Women: writing men horribly
Me, an autist: writing eyes despite me never looking at them
to be fair you do have peripheral vision
I'm sorry, did I hear the term, "gummy walls"? 😂😂😂😂
15 pk abs, is he part centipede??🐛
That's not even (for lack of a better word) an EVEN number! 😂
as we established men love to exaggerate 😂👌🏻
@@rayareadzzzz Your video was very funny. I appreciate you talking about the men woman write too. I've dated a 6'6" guy, and it factors into everything. lol it can be inconvenient.
I saw a comment under a similar video once stating that we need a romance novel where the female character is written by a man and the male character is written by a woman. Honestly i agre
Betting this is gonna be calling me out
I am about to start working on my first novel and I've always been a bit worried about writing women in an accurate manner. I believe I can write descriptions without being overly sexualizing, however writing the "mindset", perspective or even the dialogue has me worried. Let's face it, men and women do not think the same way and we are generally clueless about each other's psychology. My worrying is compounded by the fact that my protagonist is a female. I was thinking I could look for a female author for a collaboration effort or perhaps choosing a female editor might work. My favorite novel series is the "Wheel of Time" by Robert Jordan, and I thought he did an excellent job at portraying the female mindset. I guess it is a boon when your wife is your editor.
I am doing the same thing! And yes, writing my female protagonist’s mindset has been the most difficult part of character writing, but I have had some decent success. I think collaborating is a great idea. I currently share all my chapters with a friend of mine who is both a woman and a writer, and she has been absolutely invaluable.
One good piece of advice she gave me, in most situations, the fact that a character is a woman isn’t terribly relevant to her thinking. It mostly only affects motivations and social situations. In other words, don’t worry too much!
Also great taste with the wheel of time, that’s a personal favorite series for me as well.
Hope that helps, good luck on your book!
I mean he’s had his misteps for sure but Stephen King does write women really well. I think it’s indicative of his wife being an author and his career long beta reader.
In an inverted way, Christopher Moore does a pretty good job of writing women the same way he writes men, but he writes everyone in a very odd way. So it’s egalitarian.
The way women write men sometimes, just comes off as pathetic, like I'm all for expressing your emotions, but there's a difference between expressing your emotions, and being unable to control them, what's really funny is that those men don't really have any agency to the story or to themselves either, practically all their decisions boil down to it being for her, "he drives to work everyday because of her, he sips coffee because of her, she does normal everyday tasks because of her, he got out of bed this morning because of her" and what's even more funny is that none of those men question or challenge the women there with in any way, not even a simple argument or disagreement, they're just expected to do things for her, and fall in line without any complaint. He's not that type of man, he is the man that specifically takes pleasure in hurting her, and she for some reason still chooses him at the end, instead of the genuinely good guy, because the good guy doesn't agree or support her every decision....I'm starting to notice a theme here.
I feel like a male author that consistently writes great female characters is Brandon Sanderson.
Two things:
1. I think there is selection bias in your opinion (not meaning it is necessarily wrong) but reading mostly female authors obviously moves your dataset into one direction.
2. I don't know if you compared the right things here. Yes there are horribly written characters of opposite and same gender by both genders of authors. (both meaning simplified not excluding everything in between). But I would recon that on average women find different things attractive than men, leading to different exagerations. Like men often discribing women in both weird detail and comparisons, false expectations might be curated by describing emotional responses or forsight of male leads in books written by women. The things I mean are apologizing for almost anything even if they are in the right, predicting needs unlike any other person ever (that they couldn't possibly know) instead of adapting to needs after they are voiced and how easily everything is given up most of the time but in real life this would bring huge contention.
Just some thoughts, I liked the video
Edit: probably point to expands to more topics than beauty in the male written realm as well. Characters with no personalities and such.
2. yes, this is such a great point, i think i had this somewhere in the back of my mind as well, especially predicting and satisfying women’s needs w/o any communication happening in between and now i wish i elaborated on it a bit more 😀
anyways, thank you for your comment, discussions like this are my favourites!
So ... women writers fantasize about men who can express themselves emotionally and have good communication skills.
And men writers fantasize about subservient women with big boobs who think the male lead is the best and most special man she's ever met.
Ok
It's ironic you use Megan Fox in the car fixing scene in Transformers. She's saying, in that very scene, how much she hates how guys just want to objectify her and don't care about what she's able to actually do, like fixing cars, which she got into because it was the only way she could spend time with her father. Meanwhile the camera is going, "Check out this babe! Look at them curves!" It's almost funny how disconnected what she's saying and what the camera is doing are. And Shia, of course, is just like, 'uuuuuhhhhhhhh'.
I'm guessing these examples are dominantly from romance type novels. In science fiction, I don't remember seeing such detail in describing a man or woman. I myself don't go into such detail or describe someone as though I'm in heat.
That said, women have to realize that being regarded as sex objects is biological. Look at birds. The male is colorful and struts around females during mating season, while the drab colored female selects her mate based on his beauty and strength. Don't even try to tell me she is only considering his intelligence and personality.
yeah good thing we are not birds 🙄
Actually, birds do consider intelligence in their partner. In a study they had two male birds solve a problem (find a way to get to food that was in a box) while the female bird watched, and one of them figured out the solution and the other one failed. She picked the smart one. =) Intelligence is just as necessary biologically to ensure the survival of the offspring just as the physical apperance of health.
No, women being regarded as desirable is biological. Women being regarded as objects lacking personhood is the result of socialized, learned behavior by men, and can be addressed if the men who do it are willing to listen, think, and grow.
@e8280 And how many times did they repeat the test, in which she had a 50% chance of picking the smarter bird, and what test does a female bird perform in the wild? Who does a test with a 50% chance of success? There should have been a dozen or more birds. How did she even know he figured out the solution? Sounds like a suspect test to me. Give a scientist money and he/she will perform any test you want.
@8376 Who said men regard women only as objects lacking personhood? Answer: probably a woman. Let me educate you, if you are willing to listen, think and grow. When a man walks into a room filled with women, his eyes will instinctively focus on the ones he considers the most desirable pure based on visual indicators. Does he even know why she is the most desirable? No. Few men understand the concept of symmetry, good genes and their effect on attraction. He just knows that at that moment she is the OBJECT of his desire, a natural trait brought about by millions of years of evolution, and he will ignore everyone else. Once he gets to know her, if he has that opportunity, then he decides if she is worth further pursuit. And again, many men, once they talk a bit with an attractive girl, will for whatever reason they probably don't understand themselves, lose the desire to pursue her. It's the old saying, "Looks attract, personality keeps." When I met the woman who eventually became my life companion, I couldn't take my eyes off her. She was a princess to me. I didn't marry her because she was an object of my desire, although she certainly fit that description, but because she was a wonderful person, who 22 years later I still love and live with.
What's wrong with objectification to begin with? If the protagonist notices sexual features on another character first, doesn't that just describe their personality?
In theory you're absolutely not wrong, the problem is when passages like that get frequent and inexplicable enough they start to describe the authors personality instead...
Imo its the male gaze vs the female gaze. Both are equally sexist.