Can male writers properly express female characters and their emotions?

[Odin's Lapdog]

It's recently come to my attention that women may read and watch programmes from this genre and probably feel that they are being misrepresented.

This might come down to the fact that a lot of the writers perhaps are males and may not know what's what when it comes to putting across female emotions and their motivations to do certain things.


As i've tried to discover in another thread recently, there seem to be no or very few stories of mothers becoming superheroes and how they have had to adapt their roles as being a parent and also crimefighting and so forth. Perhaps the reasons this is so is due to the fact that the male writers feel that they can't properly capture what it is to be a mother. Even another older thread of mine seems to give the impression that being a stay at home parent may not be as stressful as what a 9-5 job may be by some members.


Certainly in the films a very large proportion of the females shown on screen tend to be one sided and very flat and less dynamic than their male counterparts. victims, vixens, weak, sex figures, silent assassins, revenge driven, lead by men, anti men.


i know it's strange to want to look at things the way they are from a woman's perspective but it would be nice to know if this demographic thinks of what they are getting.

It's one of the reasons i really wish Dew and other ladies break it into the industry but i hope she doesn't get typecast as a female realist writer but then that would inevitably bring the future follow up to this thread asking whether woman can really portray males and their emotions well but i feel this thread is a long way off.

so in the mean time i will just try and deal with this.

 

[Matt]

Most realistic female character ever written by a male: Seinfeld's Elaine.

 

[Odin's Lapdog]

i've never watched seinfeld. what makes you say this about her character?

 

[Backdrifter]

Simple answer. Yes.

The majority of great writers in history were male. The majority of screenwriters are male.

 

[PLAS]

although a man will never totally understand a woman and vice versa, I've seen some pretty well written female characters in different media

 

[Kritish]

 

[Strange]

I agree that men may get it wrong. How many females are going to fight crime in a skin tight outfit that shows off her great curves and lots of cleavage.

 

[Odin's Lapdog]

Simple answer. Yes.

The majority of great writers in history were male. The majority of screenwriters are male.

but how can you really judge yourself as a man, unless you've surrounded yourself with a large number of females either as friends or even had plenty around you growing up in the form of cousins and sisters.

 

[Daisy]

I find it funny that it's all men saying this.

What about the other way around? Can female writers properly express male characters and their emotions? It strikes me that's the question men are better suited to answer.

 

[Odin's Lapdog]

wearing female undies does things to your psyche, you should try it.

 

[Odin's Lapdog]

I find it funny that it's all men saying this.

What about the other way around? Can female writers properly express male characters and their emotions? It strikes me that's the question men are better suited to answer.

i covered this in the first post.

the question you give is not one i cared about since men are generally less likely to be constantly misrepresented since there are SOOO many male writers outthere, while female misrepresentation is more likely to happen quite a lot.

 

[Carter]

Well we know George Lucas can't

 

[PLAS]

I find it funny that it's all men saying this.

What about the other way around? Can female writers properly express male characters and their emotions? It strikes me that's the question men are better suited to answer.

yes

 

[Daisy]

i covered this in the first post.

I'm saying you're doing it backwards.

What we can tell from the answers so far is that male authors do a good job of portraying women at least as far as other men see them.

 

[Strange]

I have read a few novels written by women that had good character dynamics for men and women, but it was usually with an established character(s) like Superman or the X-men. With an alreay established character I think you already have a feel how the character would act or think. I think it would be interesting to have a good male and female writer, both given a general plot, write a Wolverine story. It would be interesting to see the gerneral plot unfold but to look at how a man and women would write it different.

 

[Daisy]

yes

Got any examples? Of either case.

 

[Wilhelm-Scream]

As with most of these question threads, the truth is not black and white, which isn't as much fun. The answer is, some can, some can't.

 

[PLAS]

I'm saying you're doing it backwards.

What we can tell from the answers so far is that male authors do a good job of portraying women at least as far as other men see them.

okay, what do you think then?

 

[jaguarr]

I find it funny that it's all men saying this.

What about the other way around? Can female writers properly express male characters and their emotions? It strikes me that's the question men are better suited to answer.

I've read quite a bit of fiction from authors of both genders who've made wonderful efforts at trying to capture the complexities and complimentary/contrasting attributes of the genders without coming off as stereotypical or one-dimensional. I've also read quite a bit that was not done so well. I do think that the book/novel medium lends itself better to doing this. Television and movies seems to produce more one-dimensional characters in general on both sides of the chromosome fence.

jag

 

[Kritish]

Everyone is a little bit sexist. It should also be asked if a woman can truly portray a man.

 

[SapphirePrima]

The only guy I can think of is RL Stein and he really doesn't count

 

[Odin's Lapdog]

I'm saying you're doing it backwards.

What we can tell from the answers so far is that male authors do a good job of portraying women at least as far as other men see them.

it's really the female point of view i'm asking for but i'll get what i'm given...

besides i'm not aware of that many female writers myself so taking myself as a norm, i assume that many other hypers couldn't go on to name more than five either which limits the disccusion considerably.

 

[PLAS]

Got any examples? Of either case.

Rose Walker from Sandman
God's Warpped Lines (in spanish is called Los Renglones Torcidos De Dios, dunno what's it called in english) main character

 

[Calvin]

Most realistic female character ever written by a male: Seinfeld's Elaine.

Damn straight. So many of my chick friends are a lot like her.

 

[Calvin]

As with most of these question threads, the truth is not black and white, which isn't as much fun. The answer is, some can, some can't.

Something needs to be done about this fad.