# Let's talk about Gender Stereotypes...



## MorganaPendragon25 (Feb 25, 2021)

One thing that bugs the HELL out of me is Gender Stereotypes. 

I see this in a lot of stories. There is this need to present female characters as "feminine" and male characters as "masculine". What truly defines being feminine and being masculine? Why can't a female character exhibit traditionally masculine traits? Like being physically strong, aggressive and competitive? Why can't a male character exhibit traditionally feminine traits like nurturing, gentle, etc. I think a lot of this is bullshit. 

See, this is why I get a bit confused when you write a female characters vs. a male character. We all come from different walks of life. I know a handful of my female friends who are very physically strong, headstrong, tomboyish, etc. They don't really like wearing dresses and they hate pink. Does that not make them a female? Heck no. 

I think when people write characters and don't think of Gender Stereotypes, the writing is a lot better. Attack On Titan is an anime/manga that does a tremendous job at doing this. Men and women are serving in the military and both of their courage and sacrifice is equal. It's nice to see. 

Thoughts on Gender Stereotypes? Do you think writing should break away from them or keep them in play?


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## PiP (Feb 26, 2021)

MorganaPendragon25 said:


> Thoughts on Gender Stereotypes? Do you think writing should break away from them or keep them in play?



I have not noticed Gender Stereotypes in modern books, films or TV programmes. .. yes, if the writer wants to portray a weak or strong character as part of the story, but that's all. *shrugs*

Maybe we need a rewrite of Jane Austen's book 'Little Women' or Jayne Ayres book 'Wuthering Heights', but in truth I am not a fan of rewrites, history or otherwise just to fit the 'modern view'.


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## escorial (Feb 26, 2021)

Since becoming a snowflake I'm like an ex smoker except when I've had a bevy and watch a carry on film..I'm also a hypocrite


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## epimetheus (Feb 26, 2021)

Have you read The Mists of Avalon by Marion Bradley? It's a retelling of the Arthurian story strictly from the perspective of the female characters, particularly Morgana. None of the characters are 'powerful' in the martial sense of Arthur or Lancelot, instead they wield power through politics and magic, though the latter is subtle. We see women in traditional feminine roles who are also powerful.

It's good to see some female characters take on traditionally masculine traits, but i think it's ironic that this is often done in the name of feminism - because the implication is that women are only powerful in as far as they are masculine and ignores the power of traditional feminine traits. 

It would be nice to see some plurality in female roles - not women being objects in male orientated narratives, nor women just become men to satisfy a vocal political niche (or to capitalise on a wealthy demographic if you are cynical).


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## Kent_Jacobs (Feb 26, 2021)

Males and females have differences but a good 80% of their characteristics are the same. Do you know what a clique is? Every film that feels the need to depict their female characters as 'bad asses' or any film that feels the need to make males the 'baddies'. 

Selecting traits from the small but clear character traits that differentiate males from females are not cliques, they're short cuts for accepting those traits immediately rather than having to go through a whole lot of explaining. You could argue that's lazy, and in a lot of cases I'd agree, but you can't call it stereotyping.

This is not to say that you shouldn't attempt to break those stereotypes.  I do it ALL the time. But you try writing a female that does't actually feel like a victim after being raped or doesn't actually give a shit about it, and you will be pressured into turning her into a stereotype. If you write the scene as if you were that character and layer in that nonchalance, it's even worse. The problem is, if you then succumb to pressure and change her into a 'victim' sometimes the whole premise of the story falls apart. 

So, yeah, challenge those stereotypes but know them first.


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## bdcharles (Feb 26, 2021)

MorganaPendragon25 said:


> Thoughts on Gender Stereotypes? Do you think writing should break away from them or keep them in play?



I don't often think about this. My female characters have been pretty well-received by female readers so I guess I am doing something right. And I don't often see this in books I read either, so I dunno. It just seems like a concern I never really had.


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## druid12000 (Feb 26, 2021)

bdcharles said:


> I don't often think about this. My female characters have been pretty well-received by female readers so I guess I am doing something right. And I don't often see this in books I read either, so I dunno. It just seems like a concern I never really had.



I have to say, it's not something I've seen much in the books I've read, either. On television and in movies, absolutely. That's tougher though because it's mostly the dialogue that gives insight to the character, and that's usually pretty paint-by-numbers (probably why I don't watch much anymore).

I can't even imagine seriously writing a stereotypical character. There's so much to draw from in the spectrum of human experience and imagination, it's like having a palette of every conceivable color available, but choosing to paint only in gray.


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## Kent_Jacobs (Feb 26, 2021)

druid12000 said:


> I have to say, it's not something I've seen much in the books I've read, either. On television and in movies, absolutely. That's tougher though because it's mostly the dialogue that gives insight to the character, and that's usually pretty paint-by-numbers (probably why I don't watch much anymore).
> 
> I can't even imagine seriously writing a stereotypical character. There's so much to draw from in the spectrum of human experience and imagination, it's like having a palette of every conceivable color available, but choosing to paint only in gray.



I think the problem occurs in the boardrooms of hollywood and TV studios. They have quotas that need to be filled, which inevitably lead to stereotypes, although for some odd reason, they think they're bucking the trend. No, they're feeding a trend that's lead to new stereotypes. 

A stereotype isn't a character with specific traits, it's a character with ONLY those traits. There are choices you have to make based on 'norms', otherwise you lose 80% of your audience which are your average consumer.

Using my own story as an example, a pregnancy was necessary, so it HAD to be a woman. In order for our antagonist (although it's left to interpretation which is which), the woman (Josephine) had to care nothing for herself, nothing for anyone else and nothing for the child. That's the whole reason Joe exists in the first place. Everything lead from my first and inevitable needs for the character. I didn't decide on who Josephine was, the story and needs for the story dictated them.

And that's how you should write. If you find yourself thinking: should I make them male or female and arbitrarily pick one, you're doing it wrong. You have your story, you know the needs of your story, and that informs you of the character/s you'll need. A pantser will likely have a different approach, but even then, the story will evolve around the limits of the character they've created. 

If the pantser suddenly finds themselves in a situation where their female character is faced off against 2 male assailants, and it's not sci-fi (no enhancements) and not a fantasy (no spells/magic) and not a horror (no otherworldly abilities), then the outcome is likely to go badly for the woman. And that's fine for pantsers, and much of the fun. On the other hand, if they've made their character a male, there's a much higher chance the character could better those two male assailants. Not necessarily of course, but there's definitely a higher chance. In this case, having picked a male character, the pantser has more at their disposal. Even if the character loses, nobody is going to question it. If he wins, it's not going to be out of the question, so that won't pull people up either.

You have to be honest with yourself and honest with your readers. If you don't, they'll pick up on it and reject the premise. Hence high critical scores for dross from hollywood by 'critics' and low scores for that same dross from consumers. People are not stupid, as much as Hollywood and other companies like to pretend they are.


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## VRanger (Feb 26, 2021)

MorganaPendragon25 said:


> One thing that bugs the HELL out of me is Gender Stereotypes.
> 
> I see this in a lot of stories. There is this need to present female characters as "feminine" and male characters as "masculine". What truly defines being feminine and being masculine? Why can't a female character exhibit traditionally masculine traits? Like being physically strong, aggressive and competitive? Why can't a male character exhibit traditionally feminine traits like nurturing, gentle, etc. I think a lot of this is bullshit.
> 
> ...



Certainly characters can work in any role, just like real people do. However, there are physical differences between the sexes, traditional roles which have existed (ostensibly) since the dawn of mankind, and in many cases cultural expectations.

The strongest women will never have the muscle mass of the strongest man. Without a LOT of artificial help from science, a man will never bear a child. There is nothing wrong with adopting a traditional role for either sex just as certainly as there is nothing wrong with breaking it.

There are PLENTY of women in this world who enjoy traditional roles and embrace feminine motifs. Anyone who walks around a place with people, and has their eyes open, will see them all around. That also applies to traditional roles in the home. Now, my wife and I both had successful careers. Mine is still going, she retired a few years ago. Yet, she still did/does most of the cooking, because that was a fair tradeoff for me doing ALL of the yardwork. She doesn't want to cut the grass or rake the leaves or vacuum the pool, and will never have to. (She did enjoy dead-heading the roses, before we moved and left our rose garden behind).

You want to know who writes the most feminine characters I EVER read? Women authors.

So no, it's not bullshit, it's real life. I think we're allowed to let real life seep into our fiction from time to time.

I don't get the point of your outrage, because I see aggressive, competent, sturdy female characters ALL THE TIME. Maybe you need some tips on where to find them. ;-)


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## luckyscars (Feb 26, 2021)

MorganaPendragon25 said:


> I see this in a lot of stories. There is this need to present female characters as "feminine" and male characters as "masculine". What truly defines being feminine and being masculine? Why can't a female character exhibit traditionally masculine traits? Like being physically strong, aggressive and competitive? Why can't a male character exhibit traditionally feminine traits like nurturing, gentle, etc. I think a lot of this is bullshit.
> 
> See, this is why I get a bit confused when you write a female characters vs. a male character. We all come from different walks of life. I know a handful of my female friends who are very physically strong, headstrong, tomboyish, etc. They don't really like wearing dresses and they hate pink. Does that not make them a female? Heck no.



I see it quite differently, but it really depends on what you are reading and from which era. Up until a few decades ago sure, traditional stereotypes in gender were everywhere. These days? Shit, I can't move at the bookstore without finding the latest example of postmodern take on women, men, or both.

The spunky, take-no-crap tomboy is pretty well established at this point, I would say. Hell, I see it all the time and it's not even new. It's EVERY goddamn Disney movie, most Hollywood blockbusters. The whole 'not like most girls' thing. 

I often find it a more irritating iteration of gender stereotyping, because it enforces the idea that strength comes with 'male' behavior and/or appearance. To a lesser extent, the 'sensitive man' also exists and is a little newer...but is a little less appealing, for lots of reasons I suppose.. 

Either way, I think this is one area where the pendulum has actually swung the other way. I can't tell you how many times I hear authors justify women being sexually promiscuous on the basis of 'yes she's acting like a man and you gotta deal with it because that's feminism!'. 

No, it isn't feminism. It's a form of misogyny, if anything, because it's assuming women must ape male brutality, selfishness and heartlessness in order to be 'strong'. 

That doesn't mean women CAN'T be sexually promiscuous, mind, only that the entire subject is irrelevant, because strength of character does not manifest well through how many people you fuck and in what position.

Basically, I think gender is poorly studied in most literature. When I think of strong female (or male) characters, they almost never come from books or movies that are purposefully seeking to provide them. They tend to come from naturally well-formed characters that are 'whole people' with their own motives and agendas.


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## JJBuchholz (Feb 26, 2021)

MorganaPendragon25 said:


> There is this need to present female characters as "feminine" and male characters as
> "masculine". What truly defines being feminine and being masculine? Why can't a female character exhibit traditionally
> masculine traits?



One would think this comes down to the writer. Speaking from experience, as a male writer I feel more comfortable writing a strong 
male protagonist and can relate directly to the character. That being said, I have created strong female supporting characters, and
have even written two stories with a strong female protagonist to see if I could pull it off.

I have read many books with strong female characters, and that is where I primarily took inspiration from. Being a man, I find it
easier to write from a male perspective, as there are aspects of female life that I'll never understand, even with the amount of
research I do. I'm not a woman, I can't think like a woman. Therefore, I stick to what I know.



MorganaPendragon25 said:


> Why can't a male character exhibit traditionally feminine traits like nurturing, gentle, etc.
> I think a lot of this is bullshit.



They can, and sometimes do. Just because you don't agree with things doesn't automatically make them B.S. 

Again, people *write what they know.*



MorganaPendragon25 said:


> Do you think writing should break away from them or keep them in play?



I think if people calmed down and stopped being offended by just about everything, we wouldn't be having this problem in the
first place.

-JJB


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## JJBuchholz (Feb 26, 2021)

druid12000 said:


> I have to say, it's not something I've seen much in the books I've read, either. On television
> and in movies, absolutely.



It's all in the eye of the beholder. We live in a world now where people will find just about anything to crab about.

-JJB


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## JBF (Feb 26, 2021)

Are we talking about characters and their private lives?  I really haven't seen much in the way of rules that says you have to depict women one way or another.  Or are we talking a hundred-pound female character with the build of a fencepost beating half a dozen male goons a full head taller and double her weight?

I doubt anybody cares if a female character prefers to wear pants, or cuts her hair short, or works in a field that's predominantly male.  What bothers people in my neck of the bookstore is the sort who boldly goes into a traditionally non-feminine field and just happens to be the best at everything, ever, without having to work.  Usually there's some talk of magic or technology (which, to a lot of writers, are essentially the same thing) bridging the difference.  

Ain't nobody got time for Mary Sue.


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## luckyscars (Feb 26, 2021)

It's also really important to differentiate between 'gender stereotypes' and 'gender traits'.

STEREOTYPE = Women are more emotionally fragile than men
TRAIT = Women cry more often than men.

Stereotypes are things that are based on assumption not fact. Sexism comes into play when differences are assumed without merit.

 It is a fact that most women do cry more often than most men, around three to four times more often per month on average, and there are lots of reasons for that. So, having a female character cry where a male character may not is not itself an example of 'gender stereotyping' and it's certainly not sexist.

Women being more emotionally fragile than men, however, is a gender stereotype because crying in itself does not indicate more sensitivity. Moreover, the fact it is interpreted as such is actually an example of misogyny because it draws a direct line between a feminine trait (crying) and a negative human trait (emotional fragility).

When writing characters it is important for them to reflect the traits of their gender while avoiding, as much as possible, the stereotypes. Not all of the traits (there are some women who hardly ever cry and some men who cry very often) but enough that the character's gender feels authentic for who they are.


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## Kensa (Feb 27, 2021)

MorganaPendragon25 said:


> One thing that bugs the HELL out of me is Gender Stereotypes.
> 
> I see this in a lot of stories. There is this need to present female characters as "feminine" and male characters as "masculine". What truly defines being feminine and being masculine? Why can't a female character exhibit traditionally masculine traits? Like being physically strong, aggressive and competitive? Why can't a male character exhibit traditionally feminine traits like nurturing, gentle, etc. I think a lot of this is bullshit.
> 
> ...



IMO, the true stereotype is thinking a woman has to be 'masculine' to be strong and a man has to be 'feminine' to be kind. 

A good (old) anime where the female MC is very feminine AND strong AND wants to achieve more in her life than being married to her crush is _Saiunkoku Monogatari_. I don't like her in the first episode (she screams too much), but after that she's cool. It's based on novels, I don't think they have been translated.
In an episode, an older woman teach her to wear make-up, she calls it "woman's war armor" (or something like that) ;-)


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## MorganaPendragon25 (Feb 27, 2021)

vranger said:


> Certainly characters can work in any role, just like real people do. However, there are physical differences between the sexes, traditional roles which have existed (ostensibly) since the dawn of mankind, and in many cases cultural expectations.
> 
> The strongest women will never have the muscle mass of the strongest man. Without a LOT of artificial help from science, a man will never bear a child. There is nothing wrong with adopting a traditional role for either sex just as certainly as there is nothing wrong with breaking it.
> 
> ...



Not an outrage but I think people who write men and women to gender stereotypes have little imagination and a very narrow mindset. I LOVE reading female characters who are strong and independent, and a bit aggressive. I love women who are not afraid to challenge and stand up to their male adversaries. 

What are some feminine motifs you speak of?


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## MorganaPendragon25 (Feb 27, 2021)

Kensa said:


> IMO, the true stereotype is thinking a woman has to be 'masculine' to be strong and a man has to be 'feminine' to be kind.
> 
> A good (old) anime where the female MC is very feminine AND strong AND wants to achieve more in her life than being married to her crush is _Saiunkoku Monogatari_. I don't like her in the first episode (she screams too much), but after that she's cool. It's based on novels, I don't think they have been translated.
> In an episode, an older woman teach her to wear make-up, she calls it "woman's war armor" (or something like that) ;-)



There are plenty of women out there in real life who love lifting weights and building muscle. Is that a masculine thing, wanting to be big and strong? I definitely don't think so. Quinn McKay for example (on Instagram), I'm a dude who lifts weights and her shoulders are more sculpted than mine. I will praise a woman like Quinn with everything in my power. Is she "a man" because she has big strong arms? Heck no. A lot of women I know lift weights because when they get stronger, they feel way more confident. I think women who are afraid of "looking like a man" after lifting a lot of weights or getting bulky...those things need to be pushed to the side. I admire women who lift weights a lot.

Hmm...make-up as woman's war armor? Interesting. Humans are a very complex species. A man or a woman can be pretty much anything they want to be in today's world, I wish that was reflected more in today's stories. Especially men and women who don't want to be parents ever.


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## VRanger (Feb 27, 2021)

MorganaPendragon25 said:


> Not an outrage but I think people who write men and women to gender stereotypes have little imagination and a very narrow mindset. I LOVE reading female characters who are strong and independent, and a bit aggressive. I love women who are not afraid to challenge and stand up to their male adversaries.
> 
> What are some feminine motifs you speak of?



When you write that sort of a rant, it appears as outrage. ;-)

In real life, women (even strong and aggressive women) dress up in pretty clothes and alluring clothes, wear makeup, look for a man in their life ... or already have one. By their early 40s, 85% of women have borne at least one child. Two income households are much more common now than 50 years ago, but there are still many women who choose to stay home and take the role of homemaker. I know women who change their own oil, and competent career women who melt down and call for help if they have a dead battery. Of the women I know, if there is a man present, they expect him to do 'traditional male jobs'. Certainly that's not always the case, but I've rarely seen a woman turn down an offer from a man to do heavy lifting. Where I live, women are pleased to have a man open the door for them, even when the man is a stranger. Goodness knows I've been caught at the bank door often enough when I opened it for one lady, and wound up standing there for a stream of them going both in and out. LOL Any time I see a woman come out of a store with a heavy product, I offer to load it in their vehicle. I have NEVER been waved off.

If a woman doesn't want to choose a traditional role or motifs, that's great. But ... it's only wrong if she is FORCED to chose them against her will. If she wants them, she's entitled to them.

Like I said, this is real life. You're dreaming of some fantasy where NO WOMEN want these things. That place does not exist. So while the women you fantasize about DO exist, and there is certainly a place for them in literature, it's silly to exclude the roles and attitudes of the rest of our population of women. These are not "stereotypes", they're real people.

I've now finished my seventh novel, and I have strong female characters in every one of them. But they are not the ONLY female characters. If I took your advice to heart, my female characters would be monotone Wonder Women with no surprises and no vulnerabilities. I have strong characters, traditional characters, and in between, because despite what you might think, I want a _variety _of characters in my stories. I'm not going to write the same female character for every role in the story, for every book, ad infinitum. And I'm certainly not going to write the same character as the lead female role every time. You write the same thing over and over again if you want to, I won't stop you.

But to slam other writers for not writing your fantasy every time they sit at a keyboard? Nope, I'm not having that.


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## Matchu (Feb 27, 2021)

Admit, at least, how a woman of fiction deserves some prison time, a facial tattoo?  Of course, muscles are optional.


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## EmmaSohan (Feb 27, 2021)

MorganaPendragon25 said:


> .... I LOVE reading female characters who are strong and independent, and a bit aggressive. I love women who are not afraid to challenge and stand up to their male adversaries.



Oddly enough, you are in a way treating women different from men -- you like when _female characters_ are strong.

Fiction creates characters that our readers can use as role models. If you take, say, James Bond, it might look like just entertainment. But Bond is a character I would not mind if males tried to be.

And surely there are girls/women who want a female heroine who is strong. So it's great that models exist.

In my writing, I almost invariably have female characters who are strong, but in a female way that I think can be practical and useful to females. If people want to call that sexist, I'm not going to argue, maybe it is.

In one book, the class is discussing this quote by Eleanor Roosevelt:



> A woman is like a tea bag - you can't tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.



Which is already treating women different from men. My character eventually responds:



> "I could give a shit about looking strong. I'm not strong. That's fine with me. But I want to be able to help – and do what I need to do – even when things get bad. That's what I want to be when I'm an adult."


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## Pamelyn Casto (Feb 27, 2021)

Here's a quote from Sol Stein that seems appropriate. (But I'd guess whether or not to use a stereotype or cliche depends on the type of writing being done-- audiences and their expectations enter into this too.) Here's the Stein quote: 

"Another error of inexperienced writers -- or journalists in a hurry -- is
to confine characterization to the obvious physical attributes. For females,
facial features, breasts, hips, buttocks, legs.  For males, broad shoulders,
strong arms, chiseled features, and so on.  That's top -of -the -head,
thoughtless writing.  Such clichés are common in speech.  We expect better
of our writers." (Sol Stein)


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## VRanger (Feb 27, 2021)

EmmaSohan said:


> A woman is like a tea bag - you can't tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.



Also true of men. It's a human trait, not a gender trait. Probably her quote was meant to indicate that men are expected to "be strong and bear up", but we know that isn't universally true. When an emergency strikes, there isn't much difference in psychology between the sexes. One evening when a friend set his face on fire with a badly aimed "flaming arrow" shot, he and his brother stood stunned, I looked for something to put it out, and by the time I'd decided on what to use, my wife had already grabbed a damp dish towel and done the job. But if the sink stops up, I'm immediately notified. 

The trope is about used up now, but when I first started seeing stories where a "mousey woman" was thrust into danger and had to see her own way clear, they were intriguing. I'll take a clever solution over a brute force solution every time.


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## JBF (Feb 27, 2021)

vranger said:


> Also true of men. It's a human trait, not a gender trait. Probably her quote was meant to indicate that men are expected to "be strong and bear up", but we know that isn't universally true. When an emergency strikes, there isn't much difference in psychology between the sexes.



One thing I've noticed relative to this - women seem to respond better to immediate, short-term catastrophe whereas men tend to hold up better under long-term difficulties. There's also the question of prior experience and training - if your world contains more small-scale emergencies you're more likely to handle day-to-day disaster better than, say, the collapse of the economy, or global war, or mutant cannibals from outer space.  

That lacks any kind of scientific examination though, so I wouldn't put too much weight on it. 



> One evening when a friend set his face on fire with a badly aimed "flaming arrow" shot, he and his brother stood stunned, I looked for something to put it out, and by the time I'd decided on what to use, my wife had already grabbed a damp dish towel and done the job. But if the sink stops up, I'm immediately notified.



That escalated quickly.  Reminds me of a friend's couch fire story.



> The trope is about used up now, but when I first started seeing stories where a "mousey woman" was thrust into danger and had to see her own way clear, they were intriguing. I'll take a clever solution over a brute force solution every time.



Same.  There's an old axiom about the two means of winning an argument being reason and force.  Most people have a preference - for writers who don't have to pay the medical bills, the latter is usually the more appealing option - and one of the more interesting means of forcing character development is giving someone an arsenal and denying them the use of force as an easy out.


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## Ralph Rotten (Feb 27, 2021)

I largely base my characters off people I have known, or the actors I would want to play them in a movie.
So when I wrote Gunny Jo, the femme brute in Calizona Season 2, she was based on an actual person I had worked with back in the day.
Yes, the real Gunny Jo could punch like a man, and I have seen her do so. She was the man of her house, and even in a male dominated place like the Sheriff's Office, she was just one of the boys.

I have found that this method works well for me. It is rare that I invent a character totally from thin air.
I have a motto about writing: *Fact is stranger than fiction, and people are stranger than fact.*


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## MorganaPendragon25 (Feb 28, 2021)

Ralph Rotten said:


> I largely base my characters off people I have known, or the actors I would want to play them in a movie.
> So when I wrote Gunny Jo, the femme brute in Calizona Season 2, she was based on an actual person I had worked with back in the day.
> Yes, the real Gunny Jo could punch like a man, and I have seen her do so. She was the man of her house, and even in a male dominated place like the Sheriff's Office, she was just one of the boys.
> 
> ...



Good to know, thanks for sharing. I have a few female friends on Instagram and they constantly post quotes and thinks that basically say "A woman can be strong, but she should still be vulnerable/fragile as a flower". I think that's very strange. Women should be raised to be big and strong like their male counterparts. I'm glad some women are being brought up that way. Women need to be taught to defend themselves, just like men are. A lot of women in my life are very strong physically and mentally and hell no, they are not fragile as a flower. May be vulnerable at times yes, but that's common in all humans. We all have times where we want to cry. It's human nature.


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## MorganaPendragon25 (Feb 28, 2021)

JJBuchholz said:


> One would think this comes down to the writer. Speaking from experience, as a male writer I feel more comfortable writing a strong
> male protagonist and can relate directly to the character. That being said, I have created strong female supporting characters, and
> have even written two stories with a strong female protagonist to see if I could pull it off.
> 
> ...



Yes I agree....people's feelings are that of a snowflake these days. People are offended by just about anything these days. What if my heroine had an abortion because it was her personal choice because she doesn't want kids ever? Of course, some of my readers would have a problem with it. But it makes sense for her, I know who she is. And there are women out there like her. 

But yes...I'm a male and I tend to find writing female lead characters more fascinating/exciting. Most of my closest friends are female and we share quite a lot in common. Lots of "tomboy"-ish stuff to them I guess...lot of stuff males are traditionally into...but they are also into makeup/beauty/fashion and stuff. We aren't astronomically different. Yes, I have absolutely no idea what a period feels like, but I'm not going to write about that. I don't have boobs either so I don't know what that whole experience is like. However, my heroine keeps hers covered up. I am very respectful to women in my writing. Try to make men and women as equals as much as I can. 

Writing what I know is HUGE, yes. I may not be a woman myself but I am damn motivated to write a very inspiring one (to both women and men).


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## MorganaPendragon25 (Feb 28, 2021)

vranger said:


> When you write that sort of a rant, it appears as outrage. ;-)
> 
> In real life, women (even strong and aggressive women) dress up in pretty clothes and alluring clothes, wear makeup, look for a man in their life ... or already have one. By their early 40s, 85% of women have borne at least one child. Two income households are much more common now than 50 years ago, but there are still many women who choose to stay home and take the role of homemaker. I know women who change their own oil, and competent career women who melt down and call for help if they have a dead battery. Of the women I know, if there is a man present, they expect him to do 'traditional male jobs'. Certainly that's not always the case, but I've rarely seen a woman turn down an offer from a man to do heavy lifting. Where I live, women are pleased to have a man open the door for them, even when the man is a stranger. Goodness knows I've been caught at the bank door often enough when I opened it for one lady, and wound up standing there for a stream of them going both in and out. LOL Any time I see a woman come out of a store with a heavy product, I offer to load it in their vehicle. I have NEVER been waved off.
> 
> ...



Yes I get that even the fiercest most badass women out there (especially in real life) wear dresses and have makeup and stuff. Yeah, most look for a male partner and most have kids. But not ALL women are like that and want all those things. I guess the type of woman I want to write...which is perhaps the most inspiring type of woman for me...is one who kind of ditches a lot of that traditional stuff. She doesn't want kids and I think it's best she remains single (I'm not a fan of writing romances for my main characters, I'm aromantic btw). Does that mean her life/story will be boring? Heck no. I follow a couple of super amazing women on Instagram who have no desire to have kids and are very happily single...those two women lead very amazing and inspiring lives. Just trying to picture them in a medieval story or something and they'd be damn cool! 

I realize that not all my women in my story need to be Wonder Woman or Superwoman/Supergirl, whatever. My heroine I'm currently writing is not an invincible fighter, she is more of an underdog. She's not going to destroy every man (or another woman) she meets in a fight, my heroine will get her ass kicked too. My heroine does change as a human over the course of her journey. I too want a variety of characters in my story. I want them to all feel very human to my readers. Some are romantic and some aren't.


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## luckyscars (Feb 28, 2021)

MorganaPendragon25 said:


> Yes I get that even the fiercest most badass women out there (especially in real life) wear dresses and have makeup and stuff. Yeah, most look for a male partner and most have kids. But not ALL women are like that and want all those things. I guess the type of woman I want to write...which is perhaps the most inspiring type of woman for me...is one who kind of ditches a lot of that traditional stuff. She doesn't want kids and I think it's best she remains single (I'm not a fan of writing romances for my main characters, I'm aromantic btw).




You're speaking as though this type of female character is some rarity in modern literature. It isn't. There are lots of examples of female characters (and real life women, for that matter) who are not traditional. As a matter of fact, it's kind of become the norm. I can't remember the last time I read a book where the protagonist was a happily married woman in a traditional marriage. Which is okay, of course, and it's great that you are discovering that female characters come in all shapes and sizes, just like male ones, but I'm not sure why you're acting like this is revelatory?

What troubles me with your comments is I think you make a lot of unhealthy presumptions about women. I do not think you mean this the way it comes off, only that I think this speaks to a certain lack of understanding and a kind of 'reverse sexism'. For example, here you are saying 'she doesn't want kids and I think it's best she remains single/I don't like romances'. This statement implies that you regard this female character's romantic life as being inextricably linked to whether she wants kids or not. This doesn't make sense in modern society. There are lots of child-free couples just as there are lots of single parents. What I am getting a sense of is that you consider women effectively divided into two categories: "Traditional Women" who get married and have babies...and "Inspiring Women" who do not. That may be a misread, but I find that sort of binary either/or unappealing.



MorganaPendragon25 said:


> But yes...I'm a male and *I tend to find writing female lead characters more fascinating/exciting*. Most of my closest friends are female and we share quite a lot in common. Lots of "tomboy"-ish stuff to them I guess...lot of stuff males are traditionally into...but they are also into makeup/beauty/fashion and stuff. We aren't astronomically different. *Yes, I have absolutely no idea what a period feels like, but I'm not going to write about that. I don't have boobs either so I don't know what that whole experience is like. However, my heroine keeps hers covered up. I am very respectful to women in my writing. Try to make men and women as equals as much as I can.
> *
> I have a few female friends on Instagram and they constantly post quotes and thinks that basically say "A woman can be strong, but she should still be vulnerable/fragile as a flower". I think that's very strange. *Women should be raised to be big and strong like their male counterparts. I'm glad some women are being brought up that way. Women need to be taught to defend themselves, just like men are. A lot of women in my life are very strong physically and mentally and hell no, they are not fragile as a flower. May be vulnerable at times yes, but that's common in all humans. We all have times where we want to cry. It's human nature*.



You talk about how fascinating/exciting it is writing about female lead characters, but then say you try to make them 'equal to men' and deliberately ignore/stay away from aspects of their body/sexuality (parts that actually make them female) so what exactly do you find so fascinating/exciting?


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## VRanger (Feb 28, 2021)

MorganaPendragon25 said:


> I too want a variety of characters in my story. I want them to all feel very human to my readers. Some are romantic and some aren't.



Well, _this _is a complete reversal of everything you've written previously in the thread. Congratulations. But be careful. Heaven forbid you should write a female character in a traditional role and subsequently be shunned for having "little imagination and a very narrow mindset". I'd grieve for you.




MorganaPendragon25 said:


> I have a few female friends on Instagram and they constantly post quotes and thinks that basically say "A woman can be strong, but she should still be vulnerable/fragile as a flower". I think that's very strange. Women should be raised to be big and strong like their male counterparts.



By all means ... Anytime women tell a man what their preferences are for living their life, he should IMMEDIATELY reject that in preference for his own fantasy. Nailed it. :-/


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## Matchu (Feb 28, 2021)

Yes, I was sensing the 'trope,' if that is the word, is ripe for subversion:  the battle-armour ladies *v* the 'oh my god if I see another badass woman I'll puke.'  I was thinking to write some 'badass badass women with a treble treble of treacle goodness messaging.'  It was only fleeting.

If I was being more serious I might urge a writer to consider the reader, and the pleasure the writer could provide a reader, and the pleasure they would receive from that achievement..rather than the school o navel which of course has its place.  Did I spell navel properly.


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## indianroads (Feb 28, 2021)

I treat all my characters as people - based on folks I know (though not direct copies, just a piece from this one and another from that one). Each have specific strengths and weaknesses, and I do my best to avoid stereotypes.

I dislike the 'little-miss-homemaker' and 'shrinking-violet' female stereotypes *more* than the 'macho-man' male stereotypes because they raise unrealistic expectations (and also because they're annoying). Men and women are different - who could have predicted that such a statement would become controversial and to some inflammatory? We live in a world gone mad.

I've been a martial artist for over 60 years. In that time I've had the privilege to train with some VERY tough women, several of them being world and national fighting champions. Even they freely admit that in a physical altercation with a male they are at a disadvantage; they can't match the size, weight, and upper body strength of a male, and their best chance at survival is to strike first, strike hard, and be utterly ruthless, then quickly get away before their attacker recovers. 

And yet - in movies at least - the script has flipped from mindless female homemakers to hundred pound women trouncing a crowd of fit and apparently strong men. That's a new-age stereotype I object to, because it's not only unrealistic, but also dangerous.


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## JJBuchholz (Feb 28, 2021)

indianroads said:


> I treat all my characters as people - based on folks I know (though not direct copies, just a
> piece from this one and another from that one). Each have specific strengths and weaknesses, and I do my best to avoid
> stereotypes.



This is almost the same to how I write my characters. That being said, I do have characters both male and female that are 
somewhat stereotypical, but done on purpose. Examples:

1) The 'Darius Darksword' character from my Darksword series is a man's man that is a master swordsman and commands
elemental powers, BUT he does not exactly have the 'chiseled' body that some might use, and as strong as he is, has a
weakness for his beloved. Darius also doesn't like to see people get hurt or suffer in any way. It strains his emotional state,
and is one of the few things that can.

2) Arielle from the same series is a beautiful woman that is very feminine, but has been known to go off and fight on her
own when motivated, and can be fiercely loyal and strong in her own right. Even though she has Darius to save her and
fight for her, she has saved him a couple times as well.

3) I wrote two stories focused on a female protagonist surrounded by a predominantly female cast as an experiment. It
turned out quite well, and I was surprised that I could actually write a female protagonist (being a man and all) , and
trying to help myself understand the female mindset and such.

I'm of the opinion that being is writer is not just about putting words on the page, but also challenging ourselves and
occasionally stepping out of our comfort zone to do so. For me, writing a story with a female protagonist was a HUGE step
into the unknown, not to mention the fact that I also went into an entirely foreign (at that time) genre when I started to
write romance.

There is no right or wrong for us, and if all the people who start screaming 'stereotype' and other things would just take
a step back and either appreciate the piece, or move on to something else and at least enjoy something (in terms of
writing), we'd all be happier and better off. It's too easy nowadays for people to start crying about how they are offended
by something rather than ask questions about what it is they are offended by, and why they feel that way. Instead of
analyzing their own reactions and thoughts, they scream bloody murder and want it changed.

Personally, this will never affect my own writing. You either like what I write, or you don't. It's as simple as that.

-JJB


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## indianroads (Feb 28, 2021)

JJBuchholz said:


> This is almost the same to how I write my characters. That being said, I do have characters both male and female that are
> somewhat stereotypical, but done on purpose. Examples:
> 
> 1) The 'Darius Darksword' character from my Darksword series is a man's man that is a master swordsman and commands
> ...



Your 'Darius Darksword' character made me think of one of the toughest guys I've ever run into. He was a bit under 6' tall and built like a tank - we called him 'Wideglide' (which is a motorcycle made by Harley-Davidson) because he seemed almost as wide as he was tall. Loud personality with a booming laugh. No body builder type muscle tone - more like the power lifters in the Olympics. Long hair and beard, with a LOT of body hair. Definitely a man's man. 

I've not thought of Wideglide in a long time... maybe I'll use him in a novel one day.

In my last couple books I had the chance to write from the POV of a female MC. I was nervous at first, but had my wife and daughters give it a look, which gave me some confidence. I use a female editor, and she didn't have a problem with that character either. In my current project, half the book is written from a female POV, it's a challenge but I'm having fun.


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## VRanger (Feb 28, 2021)

indianroads said:


> I do my best to avoid stereotypes.





JJBuchholz said:


> I do have characters both male and female that are
> somewhat stereotypical



Let's clear up some confusion. I picked out these two quotes because they were the last two, but there is a lot of discussion here about "stereotypes" when what we're really discussing are "archetypes", which are not the same thing at all.

An archetype is the "black knight" or the "white knight" or the "scientist" or the "student" or the "ghost" or the "homemaker", etc. There are dozens (possibly hundreds depending on whose list you use) of archetypes, and no matter how hard you try or what you think you are doing, you cannot write a story without archetypes, including the protagonists. That's because all archetypes represent a category of people, fictional or real. Every character is an archetype we pick out and then customize. We give them a personality, vulnerabilities, special skills, appearance, fears, goals. Plus, a character may encompass more than one archetype, which is where they really start to get interesting. Throw darts at a list of archetypes, come up with a "white knight-ghost-homemaker" and you can get juicy story ideas. (I think I'm going to have to write that one.  )

Readers are going to have some expectations of an archetype. We want to shake those up enough to take a stab at originality.

A stereotype is an oversimplified archetype, possibly taking just one or two commonly held public perceptions and then likely emphasizing them. Stereotypes are also often based on misconceptions.

So if the subject is the "female stereotype", it's a meaningless term. It would only have meaning if someone wrote a character that went _no further _than "not as strong as a man" (or one other quality). So if the lesson is "don't do that", then "don't do that". But having a character who is "not as strong as a man" is not reason alone to label the character a stereotype. It's often reality. As I wrote in an earlier post, we're allowed to add reality to our writing.

A "homemaker" is an archetype. So what is a homemaker, really? Possibilities include housekeeping, chef, accountant, chauffer, tutor, nanny, event planner, psychologist, efficiency expert, gardener, purchasing agent, and so forth, _all in one_. So if we say a character is a homemaker, we've named an archetype that BEGINS with all these responsibilities, and then we add the customization. This is not a stereotype.

You can make archetype into stereotype only by forcing the archetype down to one activity and limited personality. When we see that, it's typically only for a minor character, and that's okay. You may need a secretary that only answers the phone and announces visitors.

But these are not our main characters. Our main characters start as archetypes, not stereotypes.

Then if you add some personality ... the secretary comes up with good ideas the manager missed, and stands at the door to deny a belligerent visitor entry, and insists the boss stay on schedule ... now we're building the secretary back up to the archetype, which has all these responsibilities. Just add some personality and a bit of non-standard behavior, and any question of stereotype is dismissed.

What the OP failed to understand is he only wants to use one set of narrow customizations, and expects that of every story. That would get rapidly redundant, and some comments have indicated it already has for those members. Just because decades ago most secretaries were female doesn't mean that any female secretary in a story is a stereotype, just as having a male warrior isn't a stereotype. They're both valid customizations for an archetype (and vice versa).


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## Kent_Jacobs (Feb 28, 2021)

Thank God I just write. lol


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## JBF (Feb 28, 2021)

MorganaPendragon25 said:


> I love women who are not afraid to challenge and stand up to their male adversaries.



Two questions, for the benefit of the idly curious: 

1) How do they deal with men who aren't adversaries, and 
2) Do they also have female adversaries?


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## bdcharles (Feb 28, 2021)

TheMightyAz said:


> Thank God I just write. lol



You mean to say you don't analyse, re-analyse, and over-analyse every single word? Man, that really chumps my cheesewagon.


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## Kent_Jacobs (Feb 28, 2021)

bdcharles said:


> You mean to say you don't analyse, re-analyse, and over-analyse every single word? Man, that really chumps my cheesewagon.



Fair point. lol. 

I honestly don't understand these sorts of discussions. I can pick any number of women I've met in my life and add them to my story. I don't question their traits, I just represent them as accurately as possible ... with a few traits jigged here and there to stop anyone getting too unhappy. The answer is: Just write the truth. If some people don't like the truth, stuff 'em.


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## indianroads (Feb 28, 2021)

For clarity:

Stereotype:
1. a set form; convention.
2. Sociology. a simplified and standardized conception or image invested with special meaning and held in common by members of a group.

Archetype:
1. the  original pattern or model from which all things of the same kind are  copied or on which they are based; a model or first form; prototype.
2. (in  Jungian psychology) a collectively inherited unconscious idea, pattern  of thought, image, etc., universally present in individual psyches.


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## ArrowInTheBowOfTheLord (Feb 28, 2021)

TheMightyAz said:


> I honestly don't understand these sorts of discussions.



To an extent, same. It's only when threads like this appear that I stop to consider whether my characters fit or don't fit into various boxes. At the same time, I understand why there's this grappling going on -- there's a lot of images floating around about what it means to be a woman, and of course authors want to engage with that. 

The dichotomy which I disagree with is the "some women are aggressive and bad**** and some are nurturing and traditional" thing. EVERYONE is, to an extent, both aggressive and nurturing. Those are biological and spiritual instincts which must be ordered under our "whole person." How much we express these may depend on personality or identity, but tbh it often just depends on situation. I'm aggressive in a mosh pit. I'm nurturing in my church preschool. I'm simultaneously aggressive and nurturing when a young sibling is about to fall in a river! Because those situations call for the expression of those instincts. 

But we are talking about fiction here. About fantasy. So maybe what people are wrestling with is: what is the IDEAL of womanhood -- not ideal in the sense of perfect, but in the sense of, like, a Platonic ideal: what, divorced from mere societal construct, is WOMANNESS? I don't have the answer, yet. But consider: things which fall short of ideals are often all too similar; badness is hopelessly uninventive. But goodness is like a flower, or a branching tree, or a budding staff: it is simultaneously united and various. Good exists in differentiated forms. Though womanness is "one thing" in the sense that all women are Woman, each woman's individual ideal form is unique. So, I suppose what I am saying is, in our fiction, there is room for all the branches of the womanness tree. And it's not, like, two or three boxes, either. There are as many branches as there are women.


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## Kent_Jacobs (Feb 28, 2021)

ArrowInTheBowOfTheLord said:


> To an extent, same. It's only when threads like this appear that I stop to consider whether my characters fit or don't fit into various boxes. At the same time, I understand why there's this grappling going on -- there's a lot of images floating around about what it means to be a woman, and of course authors want to engage with that.
> 
> The dichotomy which I disagree with is the "some women are aggressive and bad**** and some are nurturing and traditional" thing. EVERYONE is, to an extent, both aggressive and nurturing. Those are biological and spiritual instincts which must be ordered under our "whole person." How much we express these may depend on personality or identity, but tbh it often just depends on situation. I'm aggressive in a mosh pit. I'm nurturing in my church preschool. I'm simultaneously aggressive and nurturing when a young sibling is about to fall in a river! Because those situations call for the expression of those instincts.
> 
> But we are talking about fiction here. About fantasy. So maybe what people are wrestling with is: what is the IDEAL of womanhood -- not ideal in the sense of perfect, but in the sense of, like, a Platonic ideal: what, divorced from mere societal construct, is WOMANNESS? I don't have the answer, yet. But consider: things which fall short of ideals are often all too similar; badness is hopelessly uninventive. But goodness is like a flower, or a branching tree, or a budding staff: it is simultaneously united and various. Good exists in differentiated forms. Though womanness is "one thing" in the sense that all women are Woman, each woman's individual ideal form is unique. So, I suppose what I am saying is, in our fiction, there is room for all the branches of the womanness tree. And it's not, like, two or three boxes, either. There are as many branches as there are women.



The problem is stereotypes change as the norm changes. It's now a stereotype to have a 'badass' woman in your story, and unique to have a 'housewife'. Rather than worry about such things, just take a 'real' person and use them honestly. If they fall into either category, it doesn't matter. What matters is that you portray them honestly.


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## ArrowInTheBowOfTheLord (Feb 28, 2021)

TheMightyAz said:


> The problem is stereotypes change as the norm changes. It's now a stereotype to have a 'badass' woman in your story, and unique to have a 'housewife'. Rather than worry about such things, just take a 'real' person and use them honestly. If they fall into either category, it doesn't matter. What matters is that you portray them honestly.



I agree that the categories don't matter. But they exist because people are trying to explain the inexplicable. Because that's a natural author's tendency -- trying to put word-boxes around wild and irrepressible things like the human soul. Already, when you sit down to "portray" somebody, even if they come from real life, you are putting them in a box: the box of your story. 

 We may be writing different types of fiction, though ... I don't base my characters on real people, usually, and when I do they're massively altered. But I don't start with a category, either. I'm not exactly sure where my characters even come from; they just seem to walk into my head. Just the other day I heard the word "peroxide" -- suddenly a girl appeared in my mind. She had peroxide-blonde hair and she was nocturnal, a little crazy, preached fire-and-brimstone at random frat parties. I did not even stop to consider whether she was "bad***" or "traditional" or what-have-you. Not until now ...


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## Kent_Jacobs (Feb 28, 2021)

ArrowInTheBowOfTheLord said:


> I agree that the categories don't matter. We may be writing different types of fiction, though ... I don't base my characters on real people, usually, and when I do they're massively altered. But I don't start with a box, either. I'm not exactly sure where my characters even come from; they just seem to walk into my head. Just the other day I heard the word "peroxide" -- suddenly a girl appeared in my mind. She had peroxide-blonde hair and she was nocturnal, a little crazy, preached fire-and-brimstone at random frat parties. *I did not even stop to consider whether she was "bad***" or "traditional" or what-have-you. Not until now ...*



Exactly. That's why I can't understand conversations like this. They can only be detrimental in the end. You've just got to write what you want and stuff other people. That's my approach anyway


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## VRanger (Feb 28, 2021)

ArrowInTheBowOfTheLord said:


> So maybe what people are wrestling with is: what is the IDEAL of womanhood -- not ideal in the sense of perfect, but in the sense of, like, a Platonic ideal: what, divorced from mere societal construct, is WOMANNESS? I don't have the answer, yet.



That's because there is no one answer. Women, and men, are all unique individuals with their own mix of attitudes, goals, emotions, abilities, roles in family and society, and personalities.


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## bdcharles (Feb 28, 2021)

vranger said:


> That's because there is no one answer. Women, and men, are all unique individuals with their own mix of attitudes, goals, emotions, abilities, roles in family and society, and personalities.



Indeed. The notion of there being an 'ideal' is flawed, for the same reason that complex problems can never be summarised (much less solved) with simple soundbites. 

Embrace the chaos, I say!


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## ArrowInTheBowOfTheLord (Feb 28, 2021)

vranger said:


> That's because there is no one answer. Women, and men, are all unique individuals with their own mix of* attitudes, goals, emotions, abilities, roles in family and society, and personalities.*



Ah yes. Perhaps that's what I was getting at with the branching tree/differentiated forms discussion...

I suppose my question is, beyond personality and every various thing, what is it that ties all women together? Because I think we'd agree that women and men are different. Each woman is wonderfully different from every other woman; at the same time, women as a whole differ from men as a whole, in a biological sense. I would argue that because we are both spiritual and physical beings, biological difference carries some weight of spiritual difference. But I've noticed that trying to put a definition to it has a tendency to create boxes where there are none. Whatever womanness exactly is, it's most certainly not a box. Trees need room to grow.


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## MorganaPendragon25 (Feb 28, 2021)

indianroads said:


> I treat all my characters as people - based on folks I know (though not direct copies, just a piece from this one and another from that one). Each have specific strengths and weaknesses, and I do my best to avoid stereotypes.
> 
> I dislike the 'little-miss-homemaker' and 'shrinking-violet' female stereotypes *more* than the 'macho-man' male stereotypes because they raise unrealistic expectations (and also because they're annoying). Men and women are different - who could have predicted that such a statement would become controversial and to some inflammatory? We live in a world gone mad.
> 
> ...



Nice for you to bring up you being a marital artist for over 60 years! That's tremendously amazing! Kudos to you! Extra props for you training some super tough women! Yes, in general women may be at a disadvantage to males in upper body strength and things like that. No way in hell a 100 pound woman is going to defeat a 200 pound man who is a foot taller than her...unless they're fighting with weapons maybe. I'm about a 150 lb. guy and if I had to box/fight a 150 lb. girl about my height, she would stand a good chance against me. I truly admire women who aren't scared of fighting guys. I'd give her my all, as long as she gave her all. I actually have a female friend who is about the same weight and heigh as me and she is definitely way more ripped/shredded than I am. Her arms are bigger than mine. Just knowing that she's a bit intimidating to me.


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## BornForBurning (Feb 28, 2021)

> Either way, I think this is one area where the pendulum has actually swung the other way. I can't tell you how many times I hear authors justify women being sexually promiscuous on the basis of 'yes she's acting like a man and you gotta deal with it because that's feminism!'.


What's especially hilarious is that the majority of men are hardly promiscuous enough to justify this non-argument. 



> I see this in a lot of stories. There is this need to present female characters as "feminine" and male characters as "masculine". What truly defines being feminine and being masculine? Why can't a female character exhibit traditionally masculine traits? Like being physically strong, aggressive and competitive? Why can't a male character exhibit traditionally feminine traits like nurturing, gentle, etc. I think a lot of this is bullshit.


Can I just say that I think this is the completely wrong way of even conceptualizing this argument. The very _idea _that there are 'masculine' and 'feminine' traits that can be arbitrarily assigned with no fundamental change pertaining to the sex in question is just wrong. Everyone instinctively knows that a warrior and a _woman_-warrior are two completely different things, whether they want to consciously acknowledge it or not. They are artistically distinct constructs. If you want a woman warrior who is 'just a warrior,' she is by definition no longer a woman. The sexes embody their various roles asymmetrically. If you are a male secretary, that's a fundamentally different thing from a female secretary. In fact, I'd argue that conceptualizing gender expression on any kind of universal continuum is just the completely wrong way of conceiving it. There are no truly 'feminine' men or 'masculine' women because there is _no continuum_. There is _no gender_. Gender is a spook. Until we evolve into some kind of multi-sexed tentacle-species, there is only male and female.



> And yet - in movies at least - the script has flipped from mindless female homemakers to hundred pound women trouncing a crowd of fit and apparently strong men. That's a new-age stereotype I object to, because it's not only unrealistic, but also dangerous.


A society increasingly disembodied from its own physical reality...living in vaporous fantasies, constructs of pure psychology and imagination. For example, see


> I actually have a female friend who is about the same weight and heigh as me and she is definitely way more ripped/shredded than I am. Her arms are bigger than mine. Just knowing that she's a bit intimidating to me.


because unless either you or your friend has some kind of extremely rare hormonal disorder, just understand that she worked _way _harder for those guns than you would have to. That doesn't make it any less impressive, for her. But what I'm trying to get at is that you, despite being an ostensibly average-sized male, were _made _to fight in a way she just wasn't. Our bones are thicker. We've got less pain receptors. Under the right circumstances, we quickly bulk up to a size and strength largely unattainable by even the most dedicated woman. 

The 'new woman' only emerges as a predominant societal force in circumstances where physical power and force have become largely irrelevant (The aristocracy of Late Rome, Crete, contemporary Western society). Think on that. 'Strong,' 'independent' women _only emerge in societies wherewhich bodily existence has ceased to be a primary determinant of existence. _In other words, _only __when we can reasonably entertain fantasies of being distinct from our own bodies_.

But we aren't. We _aren't_. And we entertain such ideas at our deep peril. I'm not saying we can't have woman warriors, because that's a trope as old as time. The vikings told stories about woman warriors. They probably had major crushes on them (like men today). But let's not pretend for five seconds that maleness and femaleness is in _any _way distinct from the physical body, because it isn't.


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## JJBuchholz (Feb 28, 2021)

indianroads said:


> Your 'Darius Darksword' character made me think of one of the toughest guys I've ever run into.
> He was a bit under 6' tall and built like a tank - we called him 'Wideglide' (which is a motorcycle made by Harley-Davidson)
> because he seemed almost as wide as he was tall. Loud personality with a booming laugh. No body builder type muscle tone -
> more like the power lifters in the Olympics. Long hair and beard, with a LOT of body hair. Definitely a man's man.



I never try to make my protagonists out to be chiseled men with perfect attributes that can't ever be faulted. Most of the
characters I create have average to slightly above average body types, and may or may not have facial features modelled
after my own or people I know (friends/family), or sketches I have done.

As you mentioned above, a person doesn't have to have a chiseled body to be tough or badass, nor do they need to be
arrogant sorts to achieve this, either.



indianroads said:


> In my last couple books I had the chance to write from the POV of a female MC. I was nervous
> at first, but had my wife and daughters give it a look, which gave me some confidence. I use a female editor, and she didn't
> have a problem with that character either. In my current project, half the book is written from a female POV, it's a challenge
> but I'm having fun.



A while before I wrote two stories with a female protagonist and mostly female cast, I had written a story in which the female
supporting character was highlighted significantly. I gave a copy to a co-worker (at that time) who read it to her daughter,
who took it to her school and read it to her class. Needless to say, this meant a lot to me, as it told me that it was a very good
effort and direction on my part. Writing from a female POV took me very far out of my comfort zone at the time.

This is how we grow as writers.

-JJB


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## JJBuchholz (Feb 28, 2021)

BornForBurning said:


> Can I just say that I think this is the completely wrong way of even conceptualizing this argument.
> The very _idea _that there are 'masculine' and 'feminine' traits that can be arbitrarily assigned with no fundamental change pertaining to
> the sex in question is just wrong. Everyone instinctively knows that a warrior and a _woman_-warrior are two completely different things,
> whether they want to consciously acknowledge it or not. They are artistically distinct constructs. If you want a woman warrior who is
> ...






BornForBurning said:


> A society increasingly disembodied from its own physical reality...living in vaporous fantasies,
> constructs of pure psychology and imagination.



*slow clap*

That whole post was sublime.

-JJB


----------



## Llyralen (Feb 28, 2021)

MorganaPendragon25 said:


> Good to know, thanks for sharing. I have a few female friends on Instagram and they constantly post quotes and thinks that basically say "A woman can be strong, but she should still be vulnerable/fragile as a flower". I think that's very strange. Women should be raised to be big and strong like their male counterparts. I'm glad some women are being brought up that way. Women need to be taught to defend themselves, just like men are. A lot of women in my life are very strong physically and mentally and hell no, they are not fragile as a flower. May be vulnerable at times yes, but that's common in all humans. We all have times where we want to cry. It's human nature.



This is going too far, imo.  EVERYONE should be raised to handle what comes at them and in different ways.   Some people (men and women) do not handle things with muscle.  Sometimes things are handled with collaboration and with mental cleverness.  It's about just being able to adapt to what is needed for EVERYONE.


----------



## Llyralen (Feb 28, 2021)

BornForBurning said:


> Can I just say that I think this is the completely wrong way of even conceptualizing this argument. The very _idea _that there are 'masculine' and 'feminine' traits that can be arbitrarily assigned with no fundamental change pertaining to the sex in question is just wrong. Everyone instinctively knows that a warrior and a _woman_-warrior are two completely different things, whether they want to consciously acknowledge it or not. They are artistically distinct constructs. If you want a woman warrior who is 'just a warrior,' she is by definition no longer a woman. The sexes embody their various roles asymmetrically. If you are a male secretary, that's a fundamentally different thing from a female secretary. In fact, I'd argue that conceptualizing gender expression on any kind of universal continuum is just the completely wrong way of conceiving it. There are no truly 'feminine' men or 'masculine' women because there is _no continuum_. There is _no gender_. Gender is a spook. Until we evolve into some kind of multi-sexed tentacle-species, there is only male and female.



Let me get this right.  When you say a female warrior has stopped being female, would you then say that a male nurse has stopped being a male?   Or you use the idea of a male secretary... that he has stopped being male?

I hope you're saying the opposite, because as stewards become as common as stewardesses and as nurses who happen to be male become more common these designations slip away.   

By the way, Vikings are something I study.   There were for sure women warriors, the Vikings called them "Shield Maidens" and some of the graves that we have long upheld as the epitome and standard of a warrior grave we have now found out by DNA were female. 
https://www.history.com/news/viking-warrior-female-gender-identity
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smar...ng-warrior-was-biologically-female-180971541/

   Even now many men refuse to believe both what the Vikings said themselves and this DNA evidence-- and it's not just this grave.  I've seen it all rejected in archeology so often through the years.  Things like "We don't quite understand all the gender ideas and burial practices, it is thought that this was a female being buried with sewing and cooking gear but DNA says this grave is male...it could be that male and female bones were mixed up..." is a common quote.   I mean... it's kind of pathetic to see everyone scrambling even in the past 2-3 years..    I read very famous Viking scholars from the 1930's, Dr. Turville-Petre especially, and most thought shield maidens all just literary mythical stuff.  Turville-Petre couldn't image women on the battle field and he rejected outright a ancient poem about female sexuality saying that the men must have told this as a joke.  He also rejected what the romans said about northern Sweden having women rulers as being beyond what any man could believe, so the Romans must have had it wrong.  It must have been a mis-translation.  Otherwise, he was a useful historian, but his views on women and our possibilities was extremely small.   But I don't think women can be defined by the lack of imagination of men and there are obviously cultures that were less surpressive of women through the ages and some that are matriarchal now.   Women commonly fought in Celtic cultures as well... Bodicca being one, but I think it was much more common than even many men now will admit for women to fight or rule, and modern constructs so strong that people are judging the past by what they think is usual now. 

Anyway.... what ARE you saying?


----------



## JBF (Feb 28, 2021)

MorganaPendragon25 said:


> Yes, in general women may be at a disadvantage to males in upper body strength and things like that.



Given an equal height/weight bracket, women _are _at a disadvantage.  There's a physical limit at play here that has no regard for belief.  The reason professional sports are divided by sex has nothing to do with propriety and everything to do with the fact that the top end of male athletic prowess will utterly slaughter the top end of female prowess; literally, if we're talking contact sports.


----------



## Llyralen (Feb 28, 2021)

JBF said:


> Given an equal height/weight bracket, women _are _at a disadvantage.  There's a physical limit at play here that has no regard for belief.  The reason professional sports are divided by sex has nothing to do with propriety and everything to do with the fact that the top end of male athletic prowess will utterly slaughter the top end of female prowess; literally, if we're talking contact sports.



And lower body is equal and since women typically are considered more reliable with aim.... we can see how not limiting us based on pre-determined limits would be beneficial to all.

Lets not limit anyone according to pre-determined limits, how about?   There was that idea that bees shouldn't be able to fly for a while.   
Anyway, I am not meaning to single you out, JBF.   There's a lot of stuff here to comment on.   It looks like this has been a male-dominated discussion for the most part.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9GqWoy6__s


----------



## Llyralen (Feb 28, 2021)

.


----------



## JBF (Feb 28, 2021)

Llyralen said:


> And lower body is equal and since women typically are considered more reliable with aim.... we can see how not limiting us based on pre-determined limits would be beneficial to all.
> 
> Lets not limit anyone according to pre-determined limits, how about?



The argument could fairly be made that women have the advantage in lower-body strength.  They also have a lower center of a gravity, better balance, and a generally slower heart rate than men.  You see this play out to their benefit in archery and the shooting sports.  People work with the limits and breaks they're given.  Some are negotiable, some aren't.  

Men and women are different.  I don't see a percentage in losing sleep over it.


----------



## Llyralen (Mar 1, 2021)

JBF said:


> The argument could fairly be made that women have the advantage in lower-body strength.  They also have a lower center of a gravity, better balance, and a generally lower heart rate than men.  You see this play out to their advantage in archery and the shooting sports.  People work with the limits and breaks they're given.  Some are negotiable, some aren't.
> 
> Men and women are different.  I don't see a percentage in losing sleep over it.



Yeah.. by the way... I was editing )above).   I don't think your post should be singled out.   It was a statement that made me want to open up the idea of these pre-conceived limitations. 

  For so long women were limited on the basis of arguments about our brain weight or pre-conceived "facts" about what we could emotionally handle (mostly just to protect men's interests).   Whatever pre-conceived reason there was that justified suppressing us and not giving us equal rights.   Even now... things haven't changed THAT much.  Women are still not promoted as much and just look at women's soccer (the link I put, above).  Just... pre-conceived "facts" about our limitations have historically not been good things for us and they are still not good for us.  

Men and women are different.  But more alike than different, for sure. 

Beyond equality, if our differences were really acknowledged and children really thought of, I'd be working out of my home and so would any man who needed to take care of kids too.    Some breast-feeding laws and maternity laws have been passed that have helped, but in general not enough.   I advocate for a true embrace of the real differences and the real equality and the real accommodations that would allow us all to put family first and be treated equally.  Family first means making money for the family and being able to take care of kids, both, and more flexibility in working hours has been looked at in other countries.    Okay, now I'm talking about work, but women have always been a very important member of the workforce, whether it meant meeting taxes with yarn and cloth made (economically one of the most important things through European history) or making food or tending crops or farming whatever.  It was a very recent ridiculous notion about the home and women just being in the house not contributing economically.  That really is pretty ridiculous.   As if 1/2 the country had no need to contribute economically.   And all you have to do is think of single parents to realize that things need to change.


----------



## indianroads (Mar 1, 2021)

JBF said:


> The argument could fairly be made that women have the advantage in lower-body strength.  They also have a lower center of a gravity, better balance, and a generally lower heart rate than men.  You see this play out to their advantage in archery and the shooting sports.  People work with the limits and breaks they're given.  Some are negotiable, some aren't.
> 
> Men and women are different.  I don't see a percentage in losing sleep over it.



I often teach self defense for women, and you’re correct. I teach women to kick their attackers, and their shorter stature provides very effective angles for joint locks and strikes.

Had to take a break there - my cat was eating my Thin Mint Girl Scout Cookies... so it was an emergency.

My point was that difference don't equate to less than or greater than, instead, advantages can be found within each.


----------



## JBF (Mar 1, 2021)

Llyralen said:


> Yeah.. by the way... I was editing )above).   I don't think your post should be singled out.   It was a statement that made me want to open up the idea of these pre-conceived limitations.



We're good.  8)


----------



## Llyralen (Mar 1, 2021)

JBF said:


> We're good.  8)



Good.   I hoped so.  =)


----------



## ritudimrinautiyal (Mar 1, 2021)

MorganaPendragon25 said:


> One thing that bugs the HELL out of me is Gender Stereotypes.
> 
> I see this in a lot of stories. There is this need to present female characters as "feminine" and male characters as "masculine". What truly defines being feminine and being masculine? Why can't a female character exhibit traditionally masculine traits? Like being physically strong, aggressive and competitive? Why can't a male character exhibit traditionally feminine traits like nurturing, gentle, etc. I think a lot of this is bullshit.
> 
> ...



As long as they exist in the entire world, they would exist in the play. Gender equality scenario is not homogenous throughout the world, I mean the conditioning in the upbringing, it is still stereotypical. Of course, the tendency to move away from that is getting better, but yet it has not been completely eradicated. One can argue, that writing is a kind of thing, where the reflection is of a progressive future in the present. But one can't suddenly come in the middle of the river, that's why glimpses still exist, as the confusion exists. 

Ritu


----------



## Llyralen (Mar 1, 2021)

MorganaPendragon25 said:


> One thing that bugs the HELL out of me is Gender Stereotypes.
> 
> I see this in a lot of stories. There is this need to present female characters as "feminine" and male characters as "masculine". What truly defines being feminine and being masculine? Why can't a female character exhibit traditionally masculine traits? Like being physically strong, aggressive and competitive? Why can't a male character exhibit traditionally feminine traits like nurturing, gentle, etc. I think a lot of this is bullshit.
> 
> ...



About 20 years ago I think white people felt they were doing good by pretending to not see race, and I think that's kind of what you're saying here too.  I don't think gender should be stereotyped, but I think it needs to be acknowledged as part of a person's identity and also a part of how they are treated.   If women are treated badly in a society or as lesser, then this really needs to be acknowledged or else we are not solving problems and the problems continue.


----------



## MistWolf (Mar 1, 2021)

Llyralen said:


> About 20 years ago I think white people felt they were doing good by pretending to not see race...


To turn a long story into a bumper sticker, I stopped "seeing race" because I couldn't always tell who considered themselves what, unless they told me. I quit worrying about it and assume we're all humans.


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## Llyralen (Mar 1, 2021)

MistWolf said:


> To turn a long story into a bumper sticker, I stopped "seeing race" because I couldn't always tell who considered themselves what, unless they told me. I quit worrying about it and assume we're all humans.



I took some classes and realized the problems with it.  

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/...ing/201112/colorblind-ideology-is-form-racism
https://www.oprahmag.com/life/relationships-love/a32824297/color-blind-myth-racism/


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## VRanger (Mar 1, 2021)

Llyralen said:


> About 20 years ago I think white people felt they were doing good by pretending to not see race, and I think that's kind of what you're saying here too.  I don't think gender should be stereotyped, but I think it needs to be acknowledged as part of a person's identity and also a part of how they are treated.   If women are treated badly in a society or as lesser, then this really needs to be acknowledged or else we are not solving problems and the problems continue.



You're confusing not reacting to race with not understanding the experience of racism, and I think the misguided girl who wrote that article makes the same mistake. She looks too young to have witnessed much of ingrained racism in community.

I was raised by two generations in my family ... parents and grandparents. Both emphasized to us as kids that we evaluate a person based on how they act, not on what they look like. Valuable upbringing. The first integrated school I attended was Junior High School in a small town. A couple of my close friends were black, which I had no second-thoughts about. This was 1969, and a few rednecks in the school decided they had an issue with it. I was confronted, and I told them where to stick it. Later, I caught them harassing one of my friends. I got in between and told them where to stick it again. I wasn't a big guy, but I wasn't letting that go. So the young woman who wrote that article doesn't get to tell me that the reason I don't care what someone looks like is because I don't want to deal with someone's negative experience. I've dealt with it, successfully.


----------



## Llyralen (Mar 1, 2021)

vranger said:


> You're confusing not reacting to race with not understanding the experience of racism, and I think the misguided girl who wrote that article makes the same mistake. She looks too young to have witnessed much of ingrained racism in community.
> 
> I was raised by two generations in my family ... parents and grandparents. Both emphasized to us as kids that we evaluate a person based on how they act, not on what they look like. Valuable upbringing. The first integrated school I attended was Junior High School in a small town. A couple of my close friends were black, which I had no second-thoughts about. This was 1969, and a few rednecks in the school decided they had an issue with it. I was confronted, and I told them where to stick it. Later, I caught them harassing one of my friends. I got in between and told them where to stick it again. I wasn't a big guy, but I wasn't letting that go. So the young woman who wrote that article doesn't get to tell me that the reason I don't care what someone looks like is because I don't want to deal with what someone looks like. I've dealt with it, successfully.



If you are anti-racist then you should be anti-color-blind.  Are you sure you disagree with the article?   I think this conversation needs to end, but please look it all up. It's not just one article. "Colorblindness" it is a well known "ignoring" approach. 


Okay, let me give a "well-meaning" example from a co-worker.  She told a beautiful young Latina woman.  "Oh!  I would have never guessed you were Mexican.  You're such a pretty girl, I bet most people don't even think about it when they see you."   Do you see what that did?    I am still outraged when I think about it, but anyway.... yeah.. it's a problem.   I had to be told it wasn't the proper approach, like I said.  I had also thought it was the right approach.  I was wrong.  We need to celebrate our beautiful differences and we need to acknowledge disparities.


----------



## VRanger (Mar 1, 2021)

Llyralen said:


> If you are anti-racist then you should be anti-color-blind.  Are you sure you disagree with the article?   I think this conversation needs to end, but please look it all up. It's not just one article. "Colorblindness" it is a well known "ignoring" approach.  Let's see, I took those classes back in 2003.   I can give so many examples of why it is a problem and if you get educated I think you'll actually agree because if you care about minorities it just takes a bit of education to understand why it's wrong.    I left a 2nd link up above, but just look it up.  It's not a good approach.  It almost got "taught" to me as if it were, and I had to get educated that it does not help.



Color-blindness is not "ignoring". That's nonsense. It's a prime example of ignorant people teaching something they never lived through. When I lived through something, I don't have patience with people who tell me my experience is imagination, or even more stupid, that my motivation wasn't my motivation.

Do I agree that white kids today have no concept of what racism really means? Absolutely.

But:

_Unfortunately, however, I can say firsthand that some people still really don't want to talk about it. At all. They'll be the first to tell you they don't have a racist bone in their body, and they don't care if you're white, black, purple, or blue, etc. In fact, they say, they're "color blind"—meaning, they don't even see race. And that refusal to see it often goes hand-in-hand with an urgent desire to stop discussing racial disparities as soon as possible.

_Absolute *nonsense*. It's part of the late attempt to make everyone guilty, whether they are guilty or not. You owe Mistwolf an apology.


----------



## Llyralen (Mar 1, 2021)

vranger said:


> Color-blindness is not "ignoring". That's nonsense. It's a prime example of ignorant people teaching something they never lived through. When I lived through something, I don't have patience with people who tell me my experience is imagination, or even more stupid, that my motivation wasn't my motivation.
> 
> Do I agree that white kids today have no concept of what racism really means? Absolutely.
> 
> ...



Do I?   Was I rude?  I wasn't.  Go back and look it over.   Also, check yourself.


----------



## VRanger (Mar 1, 2021)

Llyralen said:


> Do I?   Was I rude?  I wasn't   Go back and look it over.   Also, check yourself.



Mistwolf expressed the desire to treat everyone equally, and you criticized him. Yes, you own him an apology. And no, I don't owe you an apology for living my life the same way.


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## MistWolf (Mar 1, 2021)

Llyralen said:


> I took some classes and realized the problems with it.
> 
> https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/...ing/201112/colorblind-ideology-is-form-racism
> https://www.oprahmag.com/life/relationships-love/a32824297/color-blind-myth-racism/



I said I don't see "race". I didn't say I do not or cannot acknowledge people for who they are. I upset a new friend because it came out in a conversation I thought she was a race other than black. She didn't look black. I had no idea.

I worked with another guy who was so dark, his skin was black. When I said something about him being black he said "I am _not_ black! I am a Haitian Neegaro!" That's how he said negro. "Neegaro".

Another friend hates it when he's mistaken as Mexican. He'll let you know in no uncertain terms, his family is from Nicaragua.

So, I treat folks as folks and instead of trying to fit them into racial or ethic boxes, I let them reveal to me who they are as we go along.

When I first met my wife, I didn't know what her ethnicity was. I just knew I found her brown skin, black hair and soft brown eyes attractive. Her ancestors come from around the world- 50% from Africa, the rest from various European nations and the U.S. Mine come from Finland & Scotland. We don't think of ourselves as a mixed race couple. We think of ourselves as husband and wife.

"Race" (as society thinks of it) is just a part of who we are. An important part, but not the whole. I think of myself as a husband, father, son, brother, uncle, nephew before I think of what "race" I am. When I first meet someone, I don't know how they think of themselves. I'm not a mind reader. That doesn't mean I'm not curious. I like to hear the stories people have to tell. Maybe there are folks who hang their whole identity on race. I haven't met any.

This reflects in my storytelling. My characters are people first. That doesn't mean they don't have different backgrounds. That doesn't mean they're homogenous. It means they are who they are. One criticism I see going around is that Orcs are a code for "Blacks". Not in our world. Orcs are orcs. Trolls are Trolls. Elves are Elves. When we created the different kind, we turned a few things around and sent them sideways. Each has their heroes & villains and everything in between.

Right now, I'm working on a story where the two main characters are Elves. It's important the story be told from an Elvish point of view, but there are so many other aspects added to it. One thing I discovered- no two Elves will tell the same story the same way.


----------



## MistWolf (Mar 1, 2021)

Llyralen said:


> Do I?   Was I rude?  I wasn't.  Go back and look it over.   Also, check yourself.


No, you weren't rude. We're having a discussion about something we see differently. We're striving to understand each other and if it involves some vigorous thumb wrestling, so be it!:cool2:


----------



## MistWolf (Mar 1, 2021)

vranger said:


> Do I agree that white kids today have no concept of what racism really means? Absolutely.


I cannot agree with this. There are white kids who are in the minority where they live. There are white kids who experience racism because of the friends they keep. Are there clueless white kids? Sure. A lot of kids are clueless about what's really going, regardless of their race


But:




> Unfortunately, however, I can say firsthand that some people still really don't want to talk about it. At all. They'll be the first to tell you they don't have a racist bone in their body, and they don't care if you're white, black, purple, or blue, etc. In fact, they say, they're "color blind"—meaning, they don't even see race. And that refusal to see it often goes hand-in-hand with an urgent desire to stop discussing racial disparities as soon as possible.


This is true. But does that mean they really are colorblind when it comes to race? Or, has the term been "culturally appropriated" because it was misused by folks who don't understand or is used by folks who are still trying to live up to it's meaning? Should we attack and criticize people for getting it wrong? Or, should we guide them? Is it possible as we try to correct people, we don't understand ourselves? Is it possible our response to "Oh! I would have never guessed you were Mexican. You're such a pretty girl, I bet most people don't even think about it when they see you" is just as bad because we don't understand?

I know there are a lot of things _I_ get wrong.


Things we need to think about and maybe explore in our storytelling.


----------



## Kent_Jacobs (Mar 1, 2021)

edit. Won't post for some reason.


----------



## bazz cargo (Mar 1, 2021)

Here, as a writer, you have an opportunity to mess with your readers. Subversion, surprise, seduction. Go on, give it a try...





MorganaPendragon25 said:


> One thing that bugs the HELL out of me is Gender Stereotypes.
> 
> I see this in a lot of stories. There is this need to present female characters as "feminine" and male characters as "masculine". What truly defines being feminine and being masculine? Why can't a female character exhibit traditionally masculine traits? Like being physically strong, aggressive and competitive? Why can't a male character exhibit traditionally feminine traits like nurturing, gentle, etc. I think a lot of this is bullshit.
> 
> ...


----------



## luckyscars (Mar 1, 2021)

indianroads said:


> Had to take a break there - my cat was eating my Thin Mint Girl Scout Cookies... so it was an emergency.



Girl Scout Cookies would be a perfect example of Gender Difference. 

Boy Scout Cookies, as we all know, taste of sweat, mud, pocket lint, vapo-rub and masturbation.


----------



## JJBuchholz (Mar 1, 2021)

JBF said:


> Given an equal height/weight bracket, women are at a disadvantage. There's a physical limit at play here
> that has no regard for belief. The reason professional sports are divided by sex has nothing to do  with propriety and everything
> to do with the fact that the top end of male athletic prowess will utterly  slaughter the top end of female prowess; literally, if
> we're talking contact sports.



Unfortunately, a lot of people (mainly the SJWs and feminists) fail to see this obvious answer, and don't stop to analyze anything
beyond the ends of their collective noses. Men have strengths in certain areas, but so do women, as almost everyone has listed
in this thread thus far. 

I'll use the example of the girl that was allowed to play on a men's NCAA football team this past season. She is a *kicker.* That
position takes the least amount of bodily harm in football, so it made sense to let her play with the boys. Kickers usually are
untouched in a game, save for being knocked down the occasional time after a punt/field goal. This is the ONLY position they
could do this for. Can you image a woman as a QB or WR getting mashed/sacked/flattened by a 300+ LB defensive back? Can't
be allowed, because the woman would be turned into a pancake.

This is not withholding 'gender equality', this is simply common sense.



Llyralen said:


> Women typically are considered more reliable with aim.



100% true. As someone who has been an archer for 23 years, I can say with certainty that as good as I am, women are far
better with aim, and can out shoot me on any day of the week. I have seen female archers make long-distance targets (further 
than my farthest shot has ever gone) with ease. Credit where credit is due.

Women are also way better at track & field, and distance running. Again, credit where credit is due. The reason why we as a
society have so many problems in the name of 'gender equality' is that the SJWs and feminists are too busy screaming over
the negatives instead of accentuating the positives and realizing that there are many things they do better than men and
focusing on those things and excelling even more. It's a vicious cycle.



ritudimrinautiyal said:


> Gender equality scenario is not homogenous throughout the world, I mean the
> conditioning in the upbringing, it is still stereotypical. Of course, the tendency to move away from that is getting better,
> but yet it has not been completely eradicated.



What 'conditioning' do you speak of? I don't know anyone (friends/colleagues/family) that was 'conditioned' in their upbringing
to treat women unfairly, and I believe this statement of yours shows exactly why we have the problems we do in this world
at the moment. You're seeing everything through a set of thick dirty glasses, so to speak. There is nothing to be 'eradicated', and
to suggest such a thing would mean you are part of the problem instead of the solution.

'Gender equality' seems to be screamed by people who can't own up to their personal problems or situation and gives them an
out to blame others for their own failings. I have worked for female bosses that make more than I do, have seen women run
businesses that I wouldn't be able to, see female CEOs of large companies that do things I can't even comprehend, and also
see a lot of female athletes excelling in sports that are too tough for me.

No one is responsible for your life but you. The choices you make are your own. Blaming another gender or race and then 
trying to change the process because you couldn't make something of yourself is the wrong way to go about anything.

-JJB


----------



## luckyscars (Mar 1, 2021)

Yeah. I knew the moment the word 'gender' was uttered we would inevitably get fast-tracked onto the 'SJW'S AND FEMINISTS CAUSE THE PROBLEMZ' shit, via some mystifyingly irrelevant detours through the land of white people and the obligatory 'I don't see race just people' mutterings. 

Get on with writing.


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## VRanger (Mar 1, 2021)

MistWolf said:


> I cannot agree with this. There are white kids who are in the minority where they live. There are white kids who experience racism because of the friends they keep. Are there clueless white kids? Sure. A lot of kids are clueless about what's really going, regardless of their race



Certainly I made a blanket statement, and blanket statements never universally apply. What I have in mind is that kids today rarely grow up seeing the things people my age (and older) saw on a regular basis, which in large measure no longer exist. In our last move, we moved into a small Southern town, the first one I've lived in since the Jr. High school days I mentioned. When I was a kid, a mixed-race couple would have been frequently harassed, or worse. In this small town, I see a few every time I walk into a Walmart. No one cares. It's a sea change, and just one of many examples I can cite. In certain locations or situations, a kid today might see the things I saw as a kid, but it's FAR less likely. It's an element of society where, sadly, we'll always have more to do, but it's also an area where we've come a very long way. I'm not sure people who never lived through it then, or don't now, can ever really grasp that difference.


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## Kent_Jacobs (Mar 1, 2021)

[video=youtube;z2d2SzRZvsQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2d2SzRZvsQ&amp;ab_channel=TommyFlores[/video]

Now, where's my pen?


----------



## ritudimrinautiyal (Mar 1, 2021)

JJBuchholz said:


> Unfortunately, a lot of people (mainly the SJWs and feminists) fail to see this obvious answer, and don't stop to analyze anything
> beyond the ends of their collective noses. Men have strengths in certain areas, but so do women, as almost everyone has listed
> in this thread thus far.
> 
> ...



That's why I am talking about the non homogenous scenario of the entire world, not a particular region or a country. Pace of progress is not same everywhere, so the impact goes the same way. Gender equality can't be achieved in a day, because it is influenced by many factors. For example, if we want ladies to work in night shifts, walk out in odd hours, the police and other vigilant department and other technology related support system need to walk that extra mile for that, that means provision for solid infrastructure for that. Same goes for other areas which needed to walk an extra mile for inclusion of females as workpower. Where it was possible to walk that extra mile earlier, they reached the milestones earlier, others were moving with slow pace, but at least kept moving, didn't stop at a point. The society also changes it's rules accordingly and so the family as a unit of the society. The overall progress also has impact in the role of conditioning in upbringing. It's not men or women who should be held responsible for gender inequality scenario, but the society and the network of systems which already are in marathon for that. Rome was not built in a day, we are on the way, but we haven't yet reached destination and gratitude to all those men and women who were the first ones to realise that and tried working hard to achieve that.


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## JJBuchholz (Mar 1, 2021)

I believe you missed the whole point (and substance) of my post. You need to step out of that little box you call a world that you
apparently live in and see the world for what it is. Women have surpassed men in many areas, but you keep taking about 
'gender equality' that hasn't been reached, or so you say.

You have also made one of my points: You yourself are hanging onto the negatives and complain about them instead of focusing
on the positives. You don't seem to see the society of men and women being equal, while a lot of us really do.

Perhaps the 'progress' that needs to be made is for you and others like you to change the way you think and stop trying to
create rifts where there are none. Unity is strength, and this is what a lot of people (like you) don't seem to get, because you're
too busy pushing division as a means to justify you're own inadequacies.

-JJB


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## bdcharles (Mar 1, 2021)

luckyscars said:


> Yeah. I knew the moment the word 'gender' was uttered we would inevitably get fast-tracked onto the 'SJW'S AND FEMINISTS CAUSE THE PROBLEMZ' shit, via some mystifyingly irrelevant detours through the land of white people and the obligatory 'I don't see race just people' mutterings.
> 
> Get on with writing.



All I know is that somebody, somewhere, did something, and while I don't know what it was or who that someone is, I'm still mighty chuffed off about it.


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## luckyscars (Mar 1, 2021)

bdcharles said:


> All I know is that somebody, somewhere, did something, and while I don't know what it was or who that someone is, I'm still mighty chuffed off about it.



Chuffed off. This confuses me just like Dave being a spanner did. Isn't being chuffed a good thing?


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## JJBuchholz (Mar 1, 2021)

luckyscars said:


> Yeah. I knew the moment the word 'gender' was uttered....



Truth. This thread was doomed from the start, unfortunately.



luckyscars said:


> Get on with writing.



Best advice I've seen all day thus far!

-JJB


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## Phil Istine (Mar 1, 2021)

With all the different gender identities these days, shouldn't the thread be about "gender quadrophonictypes"?


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## JJBuchholz (Mar 1, 2021)

Phil Istine said:


> With all the different gender identities these days, shouldn't the thread be about "gender quadrophonictypes"?



No. We don't want to feed the trolls.


-JJB


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## clark (Mar 1, 2021)

JJBuchholz --it should, I would think, have been obvious to you from occasional non-standard (NS) usage and questionable word choice that English is not Ritu's first language. In India, a staggering percentage of women are raped as very young girls and women are second-class citizens in too many ways to enumerate here, suffice that 95% of rape cases are solved, but only 23% result in conviction.ttps://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/95-of-rape-cases-solved . You seriously misread this statement by Ritu:



> Gender equality scenario is not homogenous throughout the world, I mean the
> conditioning in the upbringing, it is still stereotypical. Of course, the tendency to move away from that is getting better,
> but yet it has not been completely eradicated.



He is saying that in many countries, certainly India, boys are heavily favored and valued. Girls are not . And the terms of their upbringing encourage this divisiveness. Yes, children are taught that boys are privileged, girls are not; boys get opportunities, girls do not; boys are studs, girls are sexual objects. Those roles are the 'stereotypes' he is trying to indicate. Over 70% of rape cases are perpetrated by family members or close family friends, which gives you some indication that  sexual exploitation is deeply engrained. You got your knickers in a severe knot, declaring that  "[you] don't know anyone (friends/colleagues/family) that was 'conditioned' in their upbringing to treat women unfairly." All that tells us is that you, your family, friends, and colleagues  are blessed to have been raised in circumstances such that you can make that claim.  I don't know that your anecdotal approach will stand up against  Ritu's lifetime in that kind of conditioning , or the trailer-trucks full of evidence from Indian courts, academic studies, and social programs that confirm his view, not yours . . .but let that go. Ritu says that some progress is being made, but "equality"  has not yet been achieved. The _implication_ in his statements--"the tendency to get away from that is getting better" [the referent for "that" is 'gender conditioning' or role playing]--and that gender *in*equality has "not yet been completely eradicated"--is that victory is imminent, which is a gross exaggeration. The surface has barely been pencil-marked in India, never mind scratched. I suspect that Ritu is not aware of the predictive nuances that cling to "yet" and "completely" in his wording.

All he is saying is that full and open non-sexist societal attitudes towards both genders is a world goal, but that certain parts of the world are going to have a much tougher time shedding an old and clinging skin of low regard for females than are others. Of course you and yours have not heard of anyone being raised to "treat women unfairly": you live in _Canada _for fuck's sake--a country where a reported case of a woman earning less than a man for the same work makes the National News!

You've thrown a mantle of righteous indignation over your shoulders, proclaiming huffily that many people need to get out of their tiny caves and see the world for what it really is (I'll just bet you'll be there to guide them, eh?), but you cross the Writing Forums line into Restricted territory when you presume to tell Ritu by inclusion that he sees the world through "thick dirty glasses" and that he won't "own up to [his] personal problems" and then, a direct personal insult: "Blaming another gender or race and then trying to change the process because you couldn't make something of yourself . . . ". Wow! I wouldn't say that to a man I'd known for twenty years, never mind a man I've never met and do not know at all. There is no place on the Writing Forums public boards for remarks like that. If your knickers have cinched up til your ears are ringing and you want to get personal. . . send a PRIVATE MESSAGE.

[PS--how you came to your interpretation of Ritu's words, is beyond me. I have read and re-read his posts and find nothing in his words that warrant the negative construction you find there]


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## bdcharles (Mar 1, 2021)

luckyscars said:


> Chuffed off. This confuses me just like Dave being a spanner did. Isn't being chuffed a good thing?



Hmm. Now you’re asking. Chuffed is pleased, but chuffed off isn’t, so ... perhaps it’s a contranym of sorts.


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## BornForBurning (Mar 1, 2021)

> Let me get this right. When you say a female warrior has stopped being female, would you then say that a male nurse has stopped being a male? Or you use the idea of a male secretary... that he has stopped being male?


Hi Lyralen. I think you may have misunderstood my point. What I was trying to say was that a female warrior cannot be 'just' a warrior. To do so would be an erasure of her femaleness. Essentially, I am arguing that we cannot divorce an individual trait from its embodied state, ala the _reduction _of the female warrior to her component parts. Warrior-ness is not a trait we may arbitrarily assign on some mythical 'gender' spectrum. A warrior-woman and a warrior are completely distinct constructs, and a warrior-woman is _not _masculinized, due to the fact that she, by definition, embodies the trait of warrior-ness in a specifically feminine way.

My apologies if my wording is not particularly clairvoyant...


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## JJBuchholz (Mar 1, 2021)

clark said:


> JJBuchholz --it should, I would think, have been obvious to you from occasional non-standard (NS) usage and
> *questionable word choice* that English is not Ritu's first language.



I did not know that English wasn't his first language, nor would I look down upon him because of the way he worded something, which isn't
a big deal with me because I know that sometimes (as a writer, and human being) it's hard to put things into words and/or find the right
term to use when describing something.

Had I known that, I might have taken a different approach to his statements, but because I treat everyone equally, I responded to it the
way I normally would have with anyone else.

I apologize for any issue this may have caused.

-JJB


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## ironpony (Mar 2, 2021)

Do you think in order to avoid gender stereotyping, it's best not to give the character a lot of obvious male or female character traits?

For example, in a story of mine, there is a court judge supporting character who I origiinally wrote as male, but in rewrites, decided to change the character to female.  But all I changed in the writing was her when referring to her in the third person, I changed 'he' to 'she'.  Everything else I kept the same in the character.

But was this bad and I should give her different personality traits if I have decided to change the character's gender?


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## indianroads (Mar 2, 2021)

ironpony said:


> Do you think in order to avoid gender stereotyping, it's best not to give the character a lot of obvious male or female character traits?
> 
> For example, in a story of mine, there is a court judge supporting character who I origiinally wrote as male, but in rewrites, decided to change the character to female.  But all I changed in the writing was her when referring to her in the third person, I changed 'he' to 'she'.  Everything else I kept the same in the character.
> 
> But was this bad and I should give her different personality traits if I have decided to change the character's gender?



Write people, not caricatures. It's not hard - yet everyone seems to try to make it so.

Observe, meet all sorts of people, listen to how they speak, find insight and inspiration in their personalities. Write that.

Don't write June Cleaver, or Uncle Tom, or Kato, or Paddy, or Lord Snooty. Create characters with depth. Make them unique. Breathe life into them and write that.


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## ritudimrinautiyal (Mar 2, 2021)

clark said:


> JJBuchholz --it should, I would think, have been obvious to you from occasional non-standard (NS) usage and questionable word choice that English is not Ritu's first language. In India, a staggering percentage of women are raped as very young girls and women are second-class citizens in too many ways to enumerate here, suffice that 95% of rape cases are solved, but only 23% result in conviction.ttps://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/95-of-rape-cases-solved . You seriously misread this statement by Ritu:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Thanks a lot for understanding and conveying my point of view. I am a female by the way. 

Regards

Ritu


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## luckyscars (Mar 2, 2021)

ironpony said:


> Do you think in order to avoid gender stereotyping, it's best not to give the character a lot of obvious male or female character traits?
> 
> For example, in a story of mine, there is a court judge supporting character who I origiinally wrote as male, but in rewrites, decided to change the character to female.  But all I changed in the writing was her when referring to her in the third person, I changed 'he' to 'she'.  Everything else I kept the same in the character.
> 
> But was this bad and I should give her different personality traits if I have decided to change the character's gender?



To change the character's gender, if all you changed was the pronoun then I would question how well developed the character was in the first place. It's not that gender is the only aspect to a character, far from it, but it's still a fundamental part. Of course, this really depends on how important the character is. If they only have a few 'lines', appear in just one or two scenes, then it may not matter, but in that case they're barely a character at all.

Look at it another way, imagine if I said _"In a story of mine, there is a supporting character who is *a woman in her twenties*. I originally wrote her as a *woman in her eighties*, but in rewrites, decided to make her younger. But all I changed was her date of birth, everything else I kept the same". 
_
Just like gender, age factors into lots of areas of life. Consider something as simple as the way somebody walks. Old people tend to walk quite differently to young people. Likewise, women tend to walk quite differently to men. Suddenly you need to use a word like 'hobbled' or 'shuffled' for the old person instead of 'strode' for the young person. Women may 'sway' while men almost never do. And this is just walking. There are endless other actions and behaviors that are influenced by gender, just like age. 

On the other hand, I do believe in the 'write the character first' approach. How to write a lesbian? Write a character with hopes, dreams, hobbies, interests, likes, dislikes, etc. Then, once you have done all that, add '...and she's a lesbian'. There, you just wrote one. You should do this for any 'type' of character. Ethnic minorities? Write a character with hopes, dreams, hobbies, interests, likes, dislikes, etc. Then, once you have done all that, add '...and they are Hispanic'. Congrats, you just wrote a compelling Hispanic character! But, of course, there is a little more to it than that. Once you identify the character as being [type] you do need to evaluate how this would impact the other stuff.


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## ironpony (Mar 2, 2021)

Oh okay thanks, I can do that.  Well in this case, the court judge's role is to sit behind her desk in court and make decisions in the case.  She doesn't have a role beyond that, so I guess for such a supporting character, then perhaps not giving her a lot of character depth is okay, compared to a more major character?


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## EternalGreen (Mar 2, 2021)

There are ninety-nine genders, and every time someone complains about it, we add another one.


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## JJBuchholz (Mar 2, 2021)

EternalGreen said:


> There are ninety-nine genders



The reason for this is because people can't face reality and create another 'gender' to hide behind and pretend to be a part of
to escape the real world. I know I'm going to take flak for this, but there are only two genders. Always have been, always 
will be. You're either born a boy or a girl, and to suggest otherwise would be to further the fantasy world that too many people
live in. No one on this planet has the power to create something like an additional gender that doesn't exist. The two genders
were given to us by the Great Maker so that we could build a society and move forward. Add to the fact that the school system 
nowadays have kids so utterly spun that they don't know which way is up, as well as the over-reliance on technology, and it's 
no wonder the world is in the state that it's in currently.

I could just as easily start identifying as a helicopter, and have that added as a 'gender' so to speak. This would entail that I
have given up on any tangible reality, and would be hiding in a realm of my own making, as others have done. In order not
to 'offend' me, 'helicopter' would be added as a gender, and I would be able to live my delusion thanks to a system that has
not only lost it's way, but it also responsible for the downfall of society as a whole.

The world is not moving in the right direction whatsoever.

-JJB


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## VRanger (Mar 2, 2021)

I suspect this thread has run it's course, and is starting to run far beyond it's original scope. I'm closing it pending contemplation of that action by supervisors.


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