Well there’s no point in calling anyone out… unless human biology is going to change anytime soon people will be attracted to what they are attracted to… and that’s okay. Men can have their curvy women and women can have their dreamy or toxic guys. It’s okay to cater to different audiences where ppl like to see and hear different things. We all don’t have to like the same things… we never will… just like any other ganre. In anime and manga they have shonen and seinin for men and shoujo and yaoi and yuri for women. It’s okay if it’s not the most perfect portrayal … it’s just fantasy and fiction. Just because there’s dragons coming from eggs we don’t think our chicken eggs will give dragon babies. The narrative where adult ppl are dumb, they can’t differentiate reality from fiction is lame in a society where we think 13 years olds can make life altering decisions.
Well there’s no point in calling anyone out… unless human biology is going to change anytime soon people will be attracted to what they are attracted to… and that’s okay. Men can have their curvy women and women can have their dreamy or toxic guys. It’s okay to cater to different audiences where ppl like to see and hear different things. We all don’t have to like the same things… we never will… just like any other ganre. In anime and manga they have shonen and seinin for men and shoujo and yaoi and yuri for women. It’s okay if it’s not the most perfect portrayal … it’s just fantasy and fiction. Just because there’s dragons coming from eggs we don’t think our chicken eggs will give dragon babies. The narrative where adult ppl are dumb, they can’t differentiate reality from fiction is lame in a society where we think 13 years olds can make life altering decisions.
Sometimes the store sells the stupid item not because they think it’s a good product, but because it’s what is currently in demand. I suspect that part of what is happening is that authors get rewarded by readers for writing in this way. And those of us who complain are a different set of readers.
The only thing worse than the male character being described as a hulking great 6'7 beast of a man is when the female one is described as a delicate little fairy who could get snapped in half - like surely someone being over a foot taller than you is a bit scary
I almost dated a dude who was a foot taller than me (he was 6'5, I'm 5'5), and he definitely wasn't scary to me, but then again, he was a nice guy and I didn't see him get angry. I'm sure if I saw him get really pissed, or if he was like, super buff and not really friendly (like a lot of these male characters always are), he'd be much more intimidating rather than hot. I mean, hell, even if a guy is only a few inches taller than you but much stronger, that's intimidating as hell.
I actually grew up with a guy who is 6’7”. He and his wife have been married for 20 years, have six kids, and she is between 4’10” and 5’1”. I remember her saying she was one or two inches from legally being a dwarf. I went to the movies with them once while they were dating and she got cold, so he gave her his jacket. When we left, the hem was dragging on the ground.
I like large height gaps in love stories, not because I think it's hot or anything but because I'd love for stuff like this to happen: Short partner:"WHY ARE YOU SO TALL?!" Tall partner: "Hehehe" Short partner: "Guys my partner is too tall for me to kiss them on the lips, what do I do?" Their friend: "Punch them in the stomach!" Tall partner: "NO?? JUST ASK ME TO BEND DOWN!" Their friend: (lifts up the short partner so they reach higher) Short partner: (pins their partner to the wall) "Hey gorgeous~" Tall partner: (dying from laughter) Short partner: "Oh, my partner... so tall, sweet and elegant-" Tall partner: (hits their head on something) Short partner: "...Being 4'11 also has its benefits."
Yes, many classic authors have written women very well, which is one reason why they’re classics. All the books with unrealistic men/women characters won’t be remembered in the long run. Tolkien writes women wonderfully in my opinion!
I want all people to know that Jonathan Harker and Mina Harker are relationships goals ✨ Like... The book literaly starts with Jonathan going on his business travel asking ev'ry recipe from Transylvania, not for forcing Mina to cook for him, but because he wants to share the pleasure of the taste with her once he's back home. Also, Mina learns typography, not only to help Jonathan on his job but for having a job for her own, a thing that Jonathan's don't oppose: he actually praises her for it. They both are really supportive of eachother's: truly, the most mysoginist part of the book are Van Helsing & Lucy's ex-fiancés that said no to her involving for being a woman... A thing that both Jonathan and Mina (specially Mina) thinks as counterproductive and unneccesary. They end up giving up because Jonathan truly does not want to see her on danger, however it is this decision that actually puts her on danger, proving Van Helsing & the other's wrong.
I honestly thought this was 90% a male problem, not only regarding sexualization, but also basic bodily-function stuff. Until I started to learn about romantasy books in which female authors write thing like guy remaining hard inside the protagonist all night long, while asleep, and things like that. 🤣 I don't know whether to laugh or cry, really
Of course it's not a ''male problem''. It is a writer's problem, regardless of gender, because these writers don't attempt to be truthful with reality and make the effort to flesh out the infinite nuances everything has.
@@brianmoren3780 I find its often just a YA novel thing, and to be fair I dont think every story NEEDS to have a perfect and accurate description of relationships and their nuance. Dragons aren't real but sometimes its nice to pretend they are. Sometimes it is also nice to pretend relationships are simple and go exactly how we want
Is there a group of people that *doesn’t* prefer to see themselves as the good guys heroically persevering thru greater hardship than what is experienced by others? Happens with religious groups, political parties, ethnicities.
My husband is over 2m tall & it is a PROBLEM. Fitting in cars, airplanes, hospital beds; shower nozzles usually spray him at nipple height; ceiling fans and hanging signs are lurking hazards. On the plus side, if i want to hide something from him i just need to put it on the bottom shelf & he’ll never know it’s there
As an ace writer, it's difficult for me to describe sxual attraction between characters. I'm like, "okay, he has a six-pack and he's tall ... so what?" Instead, my characters DO things I find attractive like reading, gardening, journaling, drawing, cooking, being emotionally supportive, etc.
The 6-pack isnt the sexy thing... the person is still the attraction. Being a strong and athletic person that takes care of their body is what somebody would find attractive not literally the muscles on their chest. Think of it like this, you find a person reading and drawing and being supporting attractive..... but you are not attracted to a bookshelf or a sandwich. Its not as different from you as you might think
this is why I go to sites like ao3 or fanfic because i can just read about my fav 2 idiots falling in love for the billonth time without having to read weird descriptions of new characters as they bounce boobily down the stairs.
'I think it's safe to say that women haven't taken it as far' Yeah about that.... it will take you about five minutes with someone seriously into yaoi and you'll hear shit that makes every quote in this video seem tame.
Yoai basically straight women fantasizing gay relationship which is sick a fuck. A person sexuality just reduce to nothing but fetish. To actual gay people i doubt if they can read despite being inherently gay it written for *heterosexual* woman or rarely a man(fundanshi) with sick fetish.
"Jack Machorich walked downstairs, the stairs were as manly as he was. His 20-pack abs shined like gold shining in the Sun. His junk bounced so testically one step at a time. His towering height towered over me so towerally."
The male gaze is shallow and predictable. But when I read "he was built like a Victorian mansion" I am forced to conclude that the female gaze is beyond the understanding of mortals.
You can always tell when an author doesn’t understand women. They always describe exactly what she looks like and nothing about who she is as a person, shallow characters kill the immersion for me.
tbf they are likely introducing the character from the visual perspective of another character (most likely the mc), so it should be a visual description. The personality and their life story are something that gets revealed through time and plot....when you have a good author.
@@MrReset94 yeah i get what you're saying. as long as the characters have depth and actually change/develop throughout the story then i'm usually happy.
@@MrReset94 you can use physical descriptions to describe the way they do things and give insight into their personality that way though. I don't think the way their boobs jiggle is going to say much, lol.
The examples for both sexes writing each other terribly seem to suffer from the same problem: they violate that great rule of 'show, don't tell.' Another good example of a male author writing women: Grushenka and Katerina in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. Grushenka fits that old character trope of the temptress while at the same time being far more than that, and I was surprised by how likeable she was as a character. Katerina is a woman spurned who at the same time has a lot more to her character. Of course, Dostoevsky is just generally known for nailing his the psychology of his characters.
I'll also say they that both suffer a case of "horny on main." With the way these characters are described, it would be safe to assume that these "characteristics" are what gets the author off (with male authors taking the cake on horny).
@@helixsol7171Not entirely sure what the original commenter meant, but I would say that "showing" would be something like >Natasha was scared of the knocking at the door. Vs >Natasha's blood went cold when she heard the rapping against the door. She could feel her fingers tremble as she reached for the door knob. In the context of the video, I think an issuse is that the authors have this exact image in their head thst they're trying to get across, but they write it like a wiki entry instead of a book. They also draw too much attention to stuff they like, i.e. a female character's enormous breasts or a male character's physique being constantly mentioned. Does that make sense?
As a 6'4" man, can confirm, the world is not meant for us. I have annoyed a couple partners by sleeping slightly sideways in a bed because your feet dangling over a footboard on the bed is annoying and uncomfortable as hell. Also, as a tradesmen, crawlspaces are N O T our friends. But, I guess, picking up stuff on the top shelves of the grocery stores and the stock shelves at home improvement stores unassisted is kinda okay.
I do not even reach the 6 feets, but i that the brooms and sink are made for women, because i have to hunch my back to use it properly When i was a child, we used to sleep in paralel to the bed to fit all, so my feets were dangling, but at some point, it started to feel comfortable and then was weird to sleep like a normal person, also, i don't know why, be i used to only sleep upside down
It's crazy that women being written by men as liking cars, guns or sports is dismissed as a fantasy and ridiculous, while these authors are obviously describing women that share their hobbies. Sure, it's a bit shallow, but is it ridiculous to want a S.O with similar interests as yours ? Also, in my opinion, as a guy who frequently is in male dominated spaces, it sounds great to meet someone like that, it makes them feel more approachable, as opposed to having to speak to random women. I think that men having to take the first step in most relationships is not really aknowledged. The overly sexual stuff is weird tho, I agree, but recent romantasy novels has shown that women can easily do the same thing.
Well, I think it can be (and often is) a variant of men writing stories around their fantasies about women, which may be fine if the main theme of the story is a male character's attraction to a woman, but tends to result in really bad character design in any other genre. Plus, note the other part of that clip, where the woman who's into "manly stuff" (sparing the male love interest from having to learn about any "girly" interests of hers that he's not already familiar with) while the man is courting her suddenly starts wanting to be "traditionally feminine" as soon as they get together, because now that means doing things that satisfy some of the man's desires (e.g. having children) instead of being inconvenient for him. This doesn't seem like a real person, or even a particularly interesting person from the perspective of anyone other than men who want a girlfriend like her. If she's supposed to play any role in the story beyond just "a reason for her male partner to do things motivated by his romantic interest in her" (which is exactly what terms like "objectification" or "male gaze" refer to) then she's going to need more personality traits than this, and she needs to express them more consistently, in ways that make more logical sense as responses to situations she gets into. I think that was the point of the critique--female characters who are just "everything a man wants in a woman", even to the point that their personalities change when the man's desires change, are lame and hard to take seriously. There's nothing wrong with wanting a romantic partner who shares some of your interests per se, obviously. (And it's also understandable if female readers find tropes like this a little insulting.)
Your comment about books from just five years ago feeling cringy is very accurate to me. Its amazing how much both the romance and the fantasy genres have changed so much and how each year seems to have a different flavor to the writing.
Well, I mean if you don't often read books written by men, like @rayareadzzzz admitted, then of course that's what you'd think. It's not dissimilar to guys who hardly read romantasy thinking that all romantasy novels are just porn for women
There is a contemporary author who writes excellent female characters, and that's Thomas Harris. Clarice Starling is the best female fictional character ever written by a man. Too bad that for every Harris there are 10000 male authors who know shit about writing female characters.
As adult fantasy, I would cite Guns of the dawn by Adrian Tchaikovsky, I was really pleasantly surprised by his portrayal of the female main character in this military fantasy
I love Children of Time! Can't say I have payed much attention to the human characters' physical descriptions... Neither did Tchaikovsky, I guess? Or maybe I'm super oblivious.
I read plenty of books by both men and women, and I rarely encounter bad characters, male or female. Maybe y'all just need better taste in books. 🤷♂️ Although I will mention that I avoid romance books as a rule, because I much prefer going in having no idea what's going to happen and being pleasantly surprised, while romance as a genre seems deadset on navigating towards a happy ending. Just ruins all the suspense for me.
@@marcosgonzalez4207 They said they avoid romance BOOKS, not romance entirely. There are plenty of good romances in books that aren't centered around them.
Thank you. I constantly see complaints about male authors writing women terribly, most of which are true and warranted but whenever I comment about how women write men and that being terrible too most women don't want to hear it. I think most authors will struggle writing the opposite sex for a long time due to the obvious fact of them being their gender. I also think it will add to the issue because authors spend so many hours in a room on their own with a computer writing. I think people are too harsh on authors for their writing of the opposite gender. Critique them on their first few books and hopefully they will get better at writing them.
It's probably because the men writing women poorly is in every genre of book and TV and movies. Men have more power. Women write men poorly mostly in romance and the descriptions are due in part to standards set by the people in power which are men.
It is pretty annoying when female authors have overtly feminist themes in their stories, often with female protagonists fighting for respect despite, e.g. their smaller stature. To that end, these popular female authors make a point of giving their female characters different body types occasionally and use any body shaming as a teachable moment. Yet, they make ALL their male love interests over 6 feet tall, muscular, unusually well-endowed and richer than the woman. It gives the impression that these traits are necessary for a man to be attractive to women when they definitely are not! To be clear, I love feminism, just not keen on double standards.
So true. Honestly, I rarely see short or chubby male leads. Men have more to offer than their strength. Also, the very very few rare times I have seen it, the male lead was a total pushover and perfect partner. So, like does that mean if he is chubby, he's not allowed to have any flaws at all? Or if he did have flaws he turned out to be the secret villain. I hate it. Also where are the awkward male leads? Most guys are not suave or charming. They are awkward and dorky.
it all depends on how skilled the writer is. They're long, but the two books of the Stalingrad/Life and Fate duology by Vasily Grossman have quite a few really incredible male and female characters. One of my favorites is the older farmer who receives his draft notice. He uses his last full day before he goes off to war to quietly complete his wife's honey-do list because he knows the odds of him making it through the war are slim.
People who are bad at writing the opposite sex are usually making these specific mistakes - They are too focused on the fact that the character is the opposite sex, and not the character as a whole - They are writing their fantasy of an opposite sex person Their inability to see opposite sex people as normal is blocking them from writing a normal character
@@TheJadedJames The problem is whether it's because of socialization or biology man and women are different. So what if you don't fully understand a normal person that is the opposite sex because we have different normals to each other
I don’t think a book has to be bad for there to be issues with the portrayal. One of my favorite books is Atwood’s Oryx and Crake for its Dystopian world building around a future where genetic engineering has become quite advanced. The issue is the two male characters at the center of the novel feel off. They feel more like the projected fears of the author about male sexuality than realistic male sexuality. It’s nothing that’s glaringly wrong like what women complain about in regard to male authors, more of an uncanny feeling that the male characters are much more projections of the author’s fears/disgust surrounding males than fully realized male characters that have realistic motivations and actions. And so despite loving the book, theres a sense of uncanniness around how it portrays masculinity at the same time.
Bother genders struggle with this, and neither is "better" than the other at it. Unless we are talking about sheer volume. Hollywood and television especially are feel heavily skewed towards it being a male problem, probably because there are way too many men writers compared to women. Its an industry problem.
Total agree. A great example of how to do it well would be the movie "Salt" where the main character, Evelyn Salt was supposed to be Edwin Salt until they changed it. I thought it worked really really well because of it. I felt like she was a real person. That's why I love that movie. I think maybe a good writing exercise is to write everyone as your own gender, and then flip the genders to whatever is appropriate at the end. There would need to be a few edits to flesh it out properly as we are not exactly the same, but I doubt there would be a significant amount since books don't need that much detail after all. People are just people after all. Getting too caught up in the gender aspect is the pitfall everyone keeps stumbling into.
"The breasts were full and round, tending towards top-heavy. Nipples pointing slightly upwards under their skimpy bra. No traces of implants and a smooth transition between chest and mammary fat..... The attached face was fine, brown hair, medium height."
*Watched your video* *Checks my manuscript furiously to make sure my characters are okay* 😅 In all seriousness, as a woman (?) who writes male characters, I mostly just try to base them on either men I know in real life (many of which are wholesome and complex people) or my favourite male characters from good TV shows or books. Just people generally, it helps so much if you portray them as people. It doesn’t matter what gender they are. Great video 💞
@@rayareadzzzz I’m writing a fantasy novel series with a lot of LGBTQ+ characters where their individual stories are shown and eventually intertwine. I’ve just finished the first draft of part 1 and I’m really excited! 😄 But also nervous and hoping it will be good. Thanks again for the video. It’s really well done and well edited - I’ve been looking for something as in depth as this. Keep up the great work! 🫶
I'm a man writing female characters, and I mostly just write them as me with some structural changes. Although they do tend to be more competent than I am. Probably smarter, too.
Male authors that I think are great at writing female characters: - George R.R. Martin (Fantasy&SciFi) - Sorj Chalandon (Contemporary, French) - James Corey (SciFi) - Brandon Sanderson (Fantasy) - Frank Schätzing (Thriller, German) - Matt Haig (Literary) - Ewald Arenz (Literary, German) - Mark Sullivan (History) - Graeme Simsion (Romance) - David Safier (Comedy, German) - Gavin Extence (Contemporary) - Daniel Kehlmann (Literary, German) - Klaus Kordon (History, German) - Michael Gerard Bauer (Middle Grade) - Markus Zusak (History) - Kenneth Oppel (Middle Grade) - Louis Sachar (Middle Grade) - Paolo Giordano (Literary, Italian) - Terry Pratchett (Fantasy) - David Safier (Comedy & Romance, German) Loved your video!! I agree with your points in the video. I have put down many a book after realising how weird/creepy/boring women are written. These are all authors I enjoy reading. Some of these are not originally written in English, I put the original language in parentheses. Maybe you find something you like there 🤗
Timothy Zahn did an excellent job with his earlier work. I specify that because I haven't read anything newer then the mid 90s from him. But his creation and portrayal of Mara Jade for Starwars in particular was excellent as I recall.
15:13 Has everyone forgotten Game of Thrones? Or how about Lord of the Ring? Mundo Umbrio literally has the protagonist being female and its written by a man. Is it my good luck that most authors I read know how to do character descriptions?
I would like to point out up front, that I am not defending some of the more..."artistic" liberties of the male authors shown in the video. I also want to preface that this is the opinion of a random person online written long after their bedtime... I think there are a few things at play with WomenWrittenByMen and MenWrittenByWomen. Fundamentally I think it's perspective differences. Men will understand a man's perspective more easily, and women will understand a woman's perspective more easily. Men tend to be blunt and direct, thus using more crude or crass imagery for descriptions. Women tend to be more nuanced and subtle leading to them using softer and more subdued imagery. However, poor writing skills affect both male and female authors beyond their approach to imagery. I don't think the examples for MenWrittenByWomen were fundamentally any better than the examples of WomenWrittenByMen. Were the female authors more tactful with their imagery? Yes, but as you mentioned, they were both objectifying the opposite sex which seems to be the main issue being pointed out during discussions about WomenWrittenByMen. It seems that female authors are often given a pass for doing the same thing male authors do simply because their writing style is less crude. I personally don't see an issue with a love interest(male or female) being written solely as an object of desire when the relationship is not a focus of the story. But I do think there are acceptable ways of implementing it. For example, if it is being used solely to build the main character. Let's say we have a female character with a male love interest, and the love interest is there only as a way to explore the main character's desires that are affecting other aspects of her personality or to give context for or explain her actions throughout the story. I don't think we need a fully fleshed out male love interest for this purpose, and it's fine for him to simply exist as an expression of the main character's desires. However, I think this would only be acceptable if the main character is the entire focus of the story. If there were more being focused on in the story besides the main character, it would feel off to have another character just existing like this.
I'd like to mention The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis (yes its also a book) as an example of a male author writing a woman well. Beth Harmon is never NEVER an object in that book, she's a person. A very flawed, complex person who has strengths and weaknesses. I remember being surprised when I saw the book was written by a man, because I so little see male authors write character studies about women. It was great, though.
The statement that "it tells other men to treat women as sex objects", is at its core erroneous. Men don't look to littérature in ordre to decide how to treat other women or other men for that matter. That statement is as tired as it is in accurate.
THANK YOU! It's like they think we can't separate fiction from reality! If a guy wants to be an asshat to women and use the media he consumed as an excuse, that's on him, we shouldn't take that excuse seriously because he's not taking accountability for his own actions! The story essentially becomes a victim, which is then blamed for the behavior of the bad actor. I can get all googoo eyed/hot and bothered by a fictional man or women, and lust after them maliciously, but I still know how to treat REAL PEOPLE with respect irl!
So you have never heard of the Illusory truth effect or know how the brain works. It doesn't matter if you consciously look at literature like that. The more often a message is repeated the more likely the brain is to incorporate this message in your thinking. Even when you are fully aware that this message is wrong. So it doesn't do it actively but subconsciously you are getting the same message over and over again. Internalized misogyny for example is a huge problem for many women and in a lot of cases a big reason for this was media. Because in media the "mean girl" was also always the "super feminine" one, so you started associating meanness and shallowness with femininity. Which then also caused the whole "I'm not like other girls" trend. Medie does affect people. Especially if you get these message from a very young age.
@@byronwilliams7977 Yeah I agree. People should know the difference between fiction and reality. A bad written book is not an excuse for bad behavior. Like he is a grow up man but you can't say that treating a woman this way is a problem ? If that the case, it's not the book the problem, but a problem that came up long before.
I feel like it is very difficult for many people to even understand themself, let alone another person... or a different gender. Anyone who can describe themself accurately is already impressive, to me. If they can 'also' describe other people (of the same gender) and understand how they feel and what they would say in many different situations, that is amazing. If they can 'ALSO' understand a person of a different gender in that same level of detail... mind-blowing. If I ever tried to write a story... I would try my best to write every character as... a person. If a person is mistreated or favoured by others for a physical aspect of who they are, that would logically affect their personality in some way. If that physical aspect just so happens to be part of what defines their gender, then so be it. I would just want to write cool and interesting characters to tell a fun and thoughtful story... to feel better about life. I have zero understanding of what any other person 'truly' experiences in life, but I can compare my own experiences with theirs, and remember how I felt during those times. I can try to imagine how those events would have felt different, if my situation was more like theirs. How my situation would have actually been completely different, if I were them. Trying your best to understand another person is one of the most rewarding and valuable aspects of being human, I feel.
It’s really just a matter of who is the audience- who is the book for. I wouldn’t expect for romance novel where a werewolf or prince whose is obsessed with random woman to have astute or nuanced prose. The reader is here to project on to the main character. By the same token, it makes sense for a femme fatale in a noir or a damsel in pulp fantasy to be characterized in large part by what she looks like. Much of the criticism on this topic are blown out of proportion and argued in bad faith.
Terry Pratchett has very relatable women in his Discworld series - when I was younger I wanted to be like Tiffany Aching because I felt she acted and thought like me.
I am so glad to see people, a woman at that touch on the fact that men and women face this issue equally. As a young man with interest in psychology I find it fascinating how men and women think completely differently, not out of socialization, but out of simple biological predispositions. Men are visual creatures, they think abstractly and objectify everything, so naturally they reduce a woman to her physical features. It's not out of misogyny (but it can be that) but out of the very way and structure of their thinking. Women on the other side are social creatures, so they are interested in someone as a person, but that also means that they are interested in the status in a society, "taming an alpha" to impress others, or be "not like other girls". Honestly I think both men and women have on average great trouble understanding eachother and you'd find just as many bad examples of anatomy (or other features of spouse fantasy) in men as women. For every wierd blow up doll for men, there is a werewolf CEO billionaire. And as an autistic person this web of romance and desire is even more alien (although I'm not aro-ace).
Yeah, I find it so weird. I have a hard time differentiating between genders which has gotten me into trouble as I treat everyone similarly. I have also been told I am both butchy and girly among other labels which just makes me roll my eyes. It's all so confusing and it seems kind of arbitrary. Then I read stuff like this and how studies with monkeys reveal gender differences in toy preferences and I guess there is some basis to it. I'm also bi so there is that added confusion because to me everyone is attractive and these weird rules about not talking to someone or not being friends is also confusing. Like I guess I can't talk to or be friends with anyone lest they think I am madly in love with them or something?
I love this video! Your topics are so entertaining and relevant. I don't normally read romance novels written by men. I just don't trust they'll be relatable! Maybe there are some good ones out there, but unless I'm given a recommendation from someone I trust, I won't pick it up. Same with romcom movies. I've seen too many written by men, and the women in them don't even feel real. It gets a bit tiring 😴
The problem isn't the romance genre. People know how the tropes work there. The problem is when authors claim to write serious books. Books that are non fiction or seen as literary and write women like they are an alien species.
Where are you guys finding all these “bad” books written by men? I haven’t once even seen a male author describe a woman’s chest before. And I’ve been reading all my life… To answer your question though: For all women’s complaints about men not understanding them, women don’t understand men either and make no effort to try
A Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is the most mainstream book I can think of with such in depth physical description of female bodies, but only during the sections with male POV characters. There is a female narrator through part of the story and I don’t remember sexualized descriptions of women in her chapters
One of my favorite books does this (The Dresden Files) but it doesn't spoil the book, nor does it really worsen the female characters. I can see it annoying readers, but the idea that if a woman's body shape is described it means that the woman is going to be an object with no personality or agency or active role in the story is a little silly.
@@anomitasAh, no wonder I’ve never seen this before. Last few books I’ve read (Stormlight 1-3, Warbreaker, Elantris) were mostly fantasy with some romance in them and they were great
@@AxlPatrolRight? The conclusions women jump to are so weird. When I as a guy see a description of a male character, especially from a female character’s perspective, I don’t get offended by it. I just think, “Ok, that’s what he looks like to her”
Brandon Sanderson knows how to describe his female characters without making me want to off myself. Vin from "Mistborn", and Tress from "Tress of the Emerald" Sea are my favorites of his. He treats every character with so much care, from his informative descriptions to planned-out character arcs.
Crazy that TikTok decided men written by women are kind and sweet when the male leads of so many contemporary romance novels (written by women) are sexual predators.
I don't have a problem with male characters looking unrealistically hot if the book is a romance/romantasy. It's basically an expectation of the genre. But what I don't like is when the male love interest doesn't seem to have a life outside of being the object of attraction. A lot of romantasy these days is written exclusively from a first person female perspective, and honestly I think it suffers for it. Let me see the MMC actually going out and being a badass instead of just telling me about it. (Looking at you, ACOTAR.)
I haven’t read a lot of male authors in the last couple years either but the two I have were pretty good in terms of the female characters not being ridiculous and I think a lot of that had to do with the books being middle grade and ya. But my favorite fictional men written by women are Adrian Ivashkov from Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy and Bloodlines series (realistic, not really but literally so perfect imo) and Jest from Heartless by Marissa Meyer.
@@mothyclothy849 I reread it last year and it was so good 😩 and like 10 years ago I was given the first Bloodlines book having never heard of VA and now I finally have those which are also really good and definitely isn’t influenced by my love for Adrian 👀 lol
Well I think it’s problem of overall today’s writers and the mass reader community. Look at Russians, look at Germans, look at French people 100 years ago and further and you see the real artists, who wrote while challenging deep problems. And there you can also find “the right description of woman and man”. Somebody gotta save literature, it dies out of its shallowness and artistic void🙁
@@TheGeorgeD13Yeah, only the academic classics survive. There has always been more commercial literature. Hell, some of the classics are classics because they were criticising that commercial literature of the time, by parodying it or by re-inventing a popular genre that had become stale. One example that comes to mind is Don Quixote. It is quite literally a parody of all the novels about romantic knights that were being mass published and mass consumed at the time. There is always going to be room for artistry and literature. Just like there has always been room for more commercial writings. You have to also keep in mind these arr usually found separately. Usually only professor's and people with high incomes and lot's of time are able to publish for passion, and take all the times they need to refine a story so that it may be timeless, while people who write for a living are more concerned with paying rent and publishing as much as they can to pay the bills. Sometimes, this two world's manage to cross, and someone who writes commercially is able to write something amazing with demanding headlines in place, like Ray Bradbury for example, but that is rare. Most of them end up being satisfying works that you read and then forget.
if you dont think the magazines and pulps 100 years ago were filled with junk you're hilariously misinformed. You only know the "good stuff" because the good stuff is what survived an age where there was no digitization of every piece of work
Why don't they make characters with regular-looking people. Girls with normal bodies and guys with normal dadbods. People fall in love with unusual features all the time. Honestly, I like the imperfections and girls like imperfections too. As far as writing girls, I would just write what I want from a dream girl. The perfect girl.
This is fascinating! And illuminating. I'll give my perspective, though I tend to write short stories (writing my first novel now, actually). I am a man. For me, whenever I encounter something like this when I read, I don't really think about whether the author is a man or a woman. I mean, perhaps the thought crosses my mind, but it doesn't give me much pause outside of that. I think that if you look closely, you can, most likely, easily enough find characters of the same sex as the writer who are also poorly written within the same story; albeit, for different reasons. Furthermore, I tend to think that the oversexualization of one's characters generally points to a deeper symptom of bad writing than would be indicated by simply saying, 'Oh, you just can't write women/men.' If you do oversexualize your characters constantly, the odds aren't great that that's the only issue with your characters (lol). Here's the part that interests me the most: I really wonder why it is that men, in particular, do this so much. I suppose that's no mystery. Men are men, after all haha Perhaps my perspective is just a tad different -- I'm a bisexual guy, so I'm roughly as likely to think of men and women in a sexual way. Also, I avoid the topic of sex no matter what unless it's actually pertinent to the story. In my case, this is almost never. I don't really write much romance, nor do I include it much in my stories. It's just not something I want to write about, personally. If it were, I don't even know *how* my sexuality would manifest on the pages. Would I sexualize everybody?? lmao I don't know. What I do know is: "Boobs pointing to the sky like rocket ships" or whatever that guy wrote is a BAR😂😂😂 This is actually a fascinating topic. I might make a video on this myself, actually. This comment ended up being very long, so it can serve as some sort of precursor to a script lolol EDIT: I just wrote this comment, and I want to add something before someone replies saying, "romance ain't sex." I know that lol but sex just isn't something that comes up in my stories in the first place, and the only kind of story I can imagine myself writing where that would be pertinent at all would be romance. You might ask why it is that I don't even bring up sexual attraction much. The reason is the same reason I don't bring up when my characters take a shit lmaooo it's just not relevant to the story most of the time. For me, anyways.
Total agreement. I'm also bi, and bringing up sexual attraction in stories all the time just seems silly. I think it also seems kind of dumb in romance stories sometimes, because often times it's just at stupid moments. Like the male lead walks into the room and she is suddenly completely enraptured by him or vice-versa. I've met beautiful people, and I don't start drooling. They're people too and deserve the dignity of not being eyeballed like a piece of meat. In real life you notice those moments differently, or at least I do. Like the color of my husband's eyes when he looks over at me and the sun hits them just right. I'm not describing him head to toe in my head like "wow he has tousled hair like some kind of fashion magazine and blah blah blah, and oh yeah his eyes were emerald green blah blah" it's just silly.
5:25 half of this just sounds like a hot lesbian who joined the army lmao (speaking from experience, there’s a lot of them like this). These authors’ ideal women are swinging for the other team
Breasts aren't that deep they don't change temperature, shrink or grow depending on emotional state, they don't smile or cry or scream. Breasts just stay on the chest. Dostoyevsky also wrote women in a very good way, yes spoke about the physical appearance BUT he focused only on the face and her clothes - more to emphasize her social status through the way she dressed.
As an inspiring male writer, I often try to use actions to describe the characters, man or woman, and only mention physical characteristics when they are relevant. Like, if I were to mention some woman was muscular and hardy, I'd either do it in a fight sequence or in a situation that is a test of strength in a tasteful manner. I don't need to emphasise too much on it because sometimes less is more, and leaving in detail in good quality over forgettable quantity is a high priority for myself. If it isn't worth conveying, then it ain't worth the headache trying to fit it in, lol.
Joe Abercrombie's Age of Madness trilogy might restore some of your faith in humanity! Although the trilogy gets pretty bleak at times too, so it might bring you down a bit as well, but as far as creating consistent, believable female characters that have agency and unique personalities, outlooks, and goals, Abercrombie does a pretty solid job. Of course, my pov is limited as a straight white cis gender male lol. There are a few female booktubers who will reinforce my praise though, including Murphy Napier, and Bookborn is also a huge fan of that series. She even put the second novel in the trilogy on a list of books she considers basically perfect in every way, and she's very critical of how gender equality and sexuality etc., are approached in media.
If you're only seeing it through the lens of men/women portrayal equality, maybe, but much as I love Abercrombie, in his books everyone is a selfish bastard. Society wouldn't even exist with the average human being such a psycopath egotistical single-minded person as every character in an Abercrombie book is.
Characters written by people who've never interacted with the other gender are wild and I can only take it for so long. Love that you're calling both out, since lot's of people love to mock (rightfully so) the women-written-by-men trope while also loving the men-who-make-women-orgasm-in-two-strokes trope. Make it stop
I read a famous male author's (who has improved a lot in this regard since) first novel from the 80s and the main character is an obvious self-insert who has this young model with "full lips" (instant laughable red flag phrase for me) fall in love with him because he's "real."
again it’s the same as men when describe women. Most men can’t help their height, color of their eyes, hair or skin. And most of the fictional men who fall for some waitress are princes, nobles, super athletes, business owners… it’s about the unrealistic standard pf expectation it sets in women’s imagination when it comes to men. That some guy who literally looks like a god and is an actual prince would fall for an average looking, clumsy girl… for what…. Cz she’s ‘special’. That’s why men are complaining about … and I see comments like men should aspire to be better… then y don’t women look at women in men’s books and just aspire lol
because until you reach a certain level of skill everyone writes everything terribly. and most writing is below that level. 99% of smut/erotica is WAY below that level.
Even when they arent perfect in the Percy Jackson, 2nd saga its a múltiple POV between girls and boys: Heroes of Olympus. First, Hazel Lavesque, is a afroamerican girl, but also its presented as a ladylike girlie, she its a flower ❤ (that can kick ass) i really like Rick Riordan didnt pull the "strong black woman" trope there, cause i dont feel there its a lot of characters like her. Also Annabeth its awesome, even when some people acuse her at first of being a Hermione rip-off at first... she does have her own persona. Piper... ok here its where Rick fails and do the trend of "not like other girls" I do wish more justice to the female characters in the books, cause some of them are really interesting but have shortlived apearances (coffcoffBiancacoffcoff). AND In the romance aspect, I really like when they show you that a lot of the characters weren't eachothers type; i feel it gives out that the ships have a conexion other than physical attraction. In the POV you see them at the eyes of a friend and discover they werent that "atractive". Like Annabeth, yeah Percy has a crush with her since 12, but also she is his best friend and has a lot of personality. People think she was really pretty cause Percy perspective, but in HoO, even Leo (who like almost every girl he meet) say he didnt find her atractive, but he respected her as a leader.
15:00 But will they be able to support themselves from writing in order to develop their skills...? I've seen and heard multiple people say they're not interested in reading male writers like it's nothing and, wow, history really is cyclical. Thank ya. From an agender perspective, it's all the same thing from different angles: elision of agency, man, woman, bad writing. Either complete submissiveness in order to fold into every facet of one's fantasy--or preternatural, effortless grasping of another's desire in order to flow into every facet of one's fantasy.
I’m reading Anna Karenina right now and it’s such a beautiful example of a man understanding that women are complex and have minds and souls and are capable of thinking for themselves. It’s truly wonderful and heartbreaking to read
I need to read a novel where the protagonists are a terribly written female character made by a male and terribly written male character made by a female. Something like a D&D campaign with a fair balance of intrigue based roleplay and combat.
I think many writers don’t understand that there’s a difference between writing a character who happens to be attractive vs. writing an attractive person who happens to be a character
When we talk about this we are usually referring to the love interest or the protagonist, usually the side characters are underwritten or described negatively to contrast with the main male or female. I think genre and target audience have a lot to do with it. Many romance books are 'reader' insert wish fulfillment. It makes sense the male love interests would be exemplars of the current idea of male attractiveness. You won't get many readers if your love interest is a short, pudgy individual whose skin has not seen the sun for years. While the problems with female characters written by men is largely due to them being an after thought to make the book 'adult' when all the author really wanted to do was write about the protagonist who is often an 'author' self insert wish fulfillment weilding his big sword and slaying monsters. I generally like Joe Abercrombie's female characters, eg Monza in "Best Served Cold" or Ferro and Ardee in the First Law trilogy.
lol audhd me *writing about characters gazing into each other's eyes despite my feeling so awkward to do that, that i just avoid looking at eyes and one time went to buy makeup but there was a poster on the shelf with an entire boyband in it staring forwards on eye level with me and i literally just.... left the shop.* *writes another scene where a character defiantly stares at another's eyes* ..... i mean, i guess that works. it looks rude and like, defiant... no? no? bonus twist: *me realising three characters are constantly avoiding staring at eyes and once i got diagnosed i realised those characters were also autistic*
Most of the examples were not „men writing women“ but rather „men describing a woman‘s appearance“. Confusing the two reduces and citing such passages as evidence that „men are incapable of writing women“ reduces women to their appearance. To see how the entire women is written, you need to look at each and every sentence written about her, everything she says, everything she does, because a person‘s character shows in how they act and interact with others and their environment. In most cases person’s looks are all but irrelevant to their personality, no matter how cringy their description is.
The complaint from men saying that female authors don’t seem to know how much time at the gym it takes to have abs was hilarious to me. Like yes, there have been plenty of problematically written male characters, but THAT is what jumped out to you? Most of these male characters with washboard abs are either warriors or athletes. Xaden fourth wing is a third year at a literal war college. I think the better question is, fellas, do YOU know what it takes to have abs? And before anyone comes at me for not knowing enough about fitness, I was a professional ballerina and now I’m a fitness instructor. I myself am in possession of defined abs.
@@MrReset94 yeah but… you can still be in good shape even if your job is in an office. How many female love interests of male protagonists have been written to be slender and athletic even though they’re doctors or business women? It’s easy to assume that the time a male character spends off page and away from the female POV protagonist would be spent doing other things like sending emails, doing chores, and working out. My partner is a sales associate who spends his work week in desk, but he’s shredded because he goes to the gym 3 days a week. If I were to write a romance novel based on our relationship entirely from my perspective, the only evidence of going to the gym you’d see is the gym selfies he occasionally sends me because going to the gym isn’t something he and I do together. Doesn’t mean he doesn’t have time for it. And I think it’s safe to assume that they never question how the female love interests they’ve been reading are in good shape despite never seeing them work out on page. Like, do you think they lie awake at night wondering how Padme in Star Wars was able to improvise climbing a 40ft column and fend off a massive beast all on her own using nothing but a chain when she’s just a politician?
@@missanthropy6174 there's a difference between being in good shape, and having washboard abs all the time, as well as being 6'9, having a narrow waist, in big bulky alarms that go along with those washboard abs. A woman can be in good shape and also be a doctor, but you rarely see women being portrayed in any way close to men, mainly because the general public knows that a woman having a six-pack most of the time is very unhealthy. No one describes what the female love interest is doing, mainly because it's not really important to the story, what male authors do best, is write action stories, and those action stories are normally about the male protagonist, and his close friends, and the time we spend with them compared to the love interest are just not comparable. Sure there are some very well-written stories with more fleshed out female love interests, but other than that, a love interest is simply a love interest, when it comes to certain stories they are secondary to the plot, also I'm not sure that male love interests who are portrayed the way he is describing like the CEOs are ever talked about we don't know their gym routine is, we don't even know what they're doing, he is simply there to kidnap the female protagonist, and she just falls in love with him on the spot.
In Polish schools we have a list of books estabilished by the government that are mandatory to read. In ALMOST ALL of them we have descriptions like the ones in the video (mainly about female characters because sexism), meaning I had to tear through all of them to even graduate school. I don't know if I'll touch a book ever again after that, but for now i am trying to completely detox myself from the horrible writing trauma.
That first tiktok seems to be the outcome of the advice "Write a women like you would your regular characters, except with feminine features and aspects." I remember hearing that all the time when I started writing. The woman I heard it from first, I don't think she understood how men would take that advice. Personally I think it's done in ignorance most of the time. Female writers writing romance Novartis however, seem to do it on purpose.
One problem I have with subs like r/menwritingwomen is it's not taking a representative sample. It's taking the worst of the worst cases found by 570,000 book readers, so it's not completely surprising that tons of really really bad cases were found There are definitely both male and female authors who can do both genders well. I'd say GRRM is famously good at writing characters, of both genders. And I'd say one of my all time favourite books (House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds) leans a fair amount into the romance between it's two main characters but doesn't overly sexualize either character (not even during the sex scenes) and it's nice that every other chapter alternates which of the two of them is the POV character.
I’m a girl with a lot of guy friends and I’m usually the one reminding other girlies that guys are much more similar to girls than people assume. I’m kinda shocked at myself because this really made me realise that the main male character of one of my novels in progress has very little personality and basically is an extension of his wife’s personality, which is very unrealistic and not at all like my guy friends. I think I really needed this call out
IMO, you have to figure out what you'll be doing with him first. Not every single character needs to have a distinct personality, but becoming an extension of someone else can happen and it's an issue.
As a man, what do you mean by guys are a lot more like girls than girls think? If you mean we have insecurities, fears, feelings and we don't think about sex all the time, then you'd be right.
i feel like there’s too much emphasis on physical expectations in this video, and it misses the actual problems with men written by women. men HATE the kinds of guys that women write in romance books. they’re extremely grating in the same way as pick me girls are to women. none of us want to be like them, because none of us respect them, but these stories give women those expectations of men in relationships, in the same way as porn gives men unrealistic physical expectations in the first place men usually dont have the same sort of issue with male depictions in media. we LOVE a hypermasculine guy. think of doom guy, master chief, or batman. men love big strong dudes being big, strong, and dudely
Dostoyevsky writes good women. And Haruki Murak... lol jk but dostoyevsky writes characters well in general. I think both genders write their experience of the opposite gender, as a man being attracted to a woman can often overwhelm us in a way that we forget ourselves. Writing these bizarre almost dream logic descriptions of women may be goofy when viewed from an outside observer but is pretty representative of how men are experiencing attraction. Sure that's got alot to do with how men are patriarchally socialized but I think it's definitely deeper than just men are gross and weird. There's a reason we see most of the "well written" women be from older works written during more sexually repressive times, those guys weren't allowed to put their horned up mental images to the page so that had to be artistically depicted via the behavior of male characters who were interested in those women and by the behavior of the women themselves. Those writers were often no less misogynistic than writers today they just didn't have as much room to explore their own mental landscape.
I believe that cinematic incentive is a motivator driving more characters into physical desirability. What character is going to look good in a twenty-second trailer or movie poster? Not the multilayered introvert who struggles with body dysmorphia but volunteers at a homeless shelter where she meets her estranged father. It's going to be Scarlett Johansson doing something, yeah, blah, blah...attractive woman, sure, we'll see the movie. Oh, she's multilayered too? All that is just an incidental subset of the movie trailer quality that drew you into the theater. I don't believe that writers are too ignorant or stupid to make things laughably physical, rather, a bias toward seeing their creation on film predisposes them to weight those standards of beauty higher than they might have in a purely literary setting. For my case in point, read nonfiction: superb, compelling, amazing depictions of men and women by writers of various backgrounds. I'm guessing that David McCullough wasn't looking to get John Adams on film (even though HBO did a great job), so his rendition of Abigail Adams and the other women in John Adams' life is phenomenal.
I just think both men and women take fiction way too seriously. Like, if your biggest problem is a man writing about breasts in a goofy way, then you've got life pretty damn good
I've never read a romance book before, and I don't really plan it, so I've never had much experience with this sort of writing. A lot of the time it's usually quick visual descriptions, like describing someone as tall, stocky, slim, petite, and stuff like that. Then describing things like hair and eye color. I'm not really an experienced writer or author but I've thinking about wanting to write a book, a little fantasy anthology series to sorta introduce my fantasy world I've been world building. My main worry I suppose is that my woman characters might just be presented as overly masculine or just being men with breasts. The one I'm most worried about now is a freed slave who develops an interest in machinery, becomes a military engineer, and in the present day where the book takes place should be around 48 years old and is a 2 star general. I think I might just completely redo her character into being a man instead to make it easier.
My first experience with written by a woman wasn’t sexual. It was Ron in Goblet of Fire. Even my mom said, “I have never met a guy who acts like that.”
God, don't mention it. Rowling said that it was inspired by a guy she had a crush on or something, and boy, do you notice it. Like she had some deep contempt in that regard.
You also have the "sexy bad guy" trope in novels like After, 50 Shades of Grey and Twilight, where they romanticize abusive traits in men just because they are hot
I'm a male writer and I recently sent part of my manuscript to a beta reader friend who is a girl, and she told me Im good at writing female characters. All I could think was "Well, I'll be damned."
Well, since you just challenged us to give examples of women written by men that avoid descriptions of chest size, or focus more on a varied personality, I can gladly put my own books on the block. Look for the dark epic fantasy trilogy called Destiny of the Void Triangle, starting with the Chronomancer and the Book of Worms. My only flaw was that I didn’t know what the meaning of the word ‘courtesan’ was until after the third book, so I just took it to mean a noble lady of a court (oops). But I dare you to find mention of chest size there. I’ll even make it easy: the audiobooks are on my UA-cam channel. I wouldn’t have mentioned it, but you did challenge
I feel like a lot of the worst mrw and wrm sin are in books that are generally not good. When you look at accomplished male or female authors with a wide readership you get a lot less of this kind of thing. Schlock fantasy/scifi and romance literature tends to get the worst of it where clearly the authors wrote moste of it one-handed.
"In the dim light from the coffee table lamp, her auburn eyes were hard to make out from his perspective, as they were fixated intently upon the pages before her. Her long, raven black hair, now tied back in a tight bun, blended so seamlessly with the dark wall behind her that her olive skin glowed all the clearer in contrast. He could see her rich, full lips, unmarked with lipstick, continuously purse and relax as she studied the words. She was wilfully oblivious to the world around her, lost in another time and place and happier for it. Suddenly she formed a slight smile and her eyes widened with surprise, clearly the story was getting better! Her simple grey tank top hung loosely over her stout, shapely figure. Her short but deceptively strong legs, clad in her favourite purple PJ bottoms, were tucked neatly under the blanket so she could rest the book upon them. He smiled warmly, not wanting to disturb such a mundane, yet very pleasant scene. But then as she looked up for a moment to take a sip from her glass of wine, she noticed him in the doorway and beamed with delight." It's not that hard fellas 🤣
I'm currently writing a story and one of the characters is modeled after my best friend. I think it's easier to write while thinking of men that I know. He's not perfect, but also not terrible. He has flaws and strengths and a multifaceted personality and I also think that most of the time, it's unrealistic to write men as being so openly emotional. Yes, women want men to be more open, but that's usually not the case. My character has inner thoughts that the main character can pick up on, but he does not actually speak these thoughts, unless he's overly pressured to do so.
Naomi in The Expanse, I think, is a very well-written female character by a man because of how complex she is as a person (regardless of gender). She has a troubled past, quiet, but no necessarily shy, incredibly intelligent, and often the most level-headed of the group. She's intelligent, but not dorky or nerdy. She's level-headed, but not stoic, and shows emotion when warranted. She's quiet, but not afraid to speak her mind. That's a real person. We all don't fit into archetypes, so having complexity is really important to good characterization in my opinion.
Lena Grove in William Faulkner's "Light in August" was a good female character written by a man, and Milkman Dead in Toni Morrison's "Song of Solomon" was a good male character written by a woman. By "good" I mean quality, the mastery of creating a rounded, complex character. Therein lies the issue. For complexity you need flaws as well as admirable qualities. We don't want to confuse flaws as negative representation of a gender entirely. You have to admit and allow your character to be human. We're judgmental creatures, aren't we? We can't risk a reader tossing the entire book because of a particular flaw that touches a specific, unpredictable nerve in their sensibility. In this way, a female author can be equally unfair to her main female character as a male author can be to their female characters. It's just that with a male pen the surface has to be magazine-cover pin-up perfect whereas with a female pen the perfection is more in the traits. Then again, this is popular/genre fiction, a part of the industry fully generated year after year by its female readership/consumers. I wish I could say that all the women I grew up with were all powerful, inspirational figures but that's not life and not the truth, sadly. If you truly love something you're going to notice its flaws too. That's when a work becomes literature and not just fiction.
The problem with this issue is that women assume this is all literature, but I can assure you that these things happen mostly (if not only) in novels aimed at women, and their authors do it because they know women like it. It's like when men complain about fanservice in anime (a visual media). We're more primitive that we think we are and we often don't know what we want.
so people discovered that 98% of everything, books included, is crap. And then they sample in one direction as "proof" so that they can feel better about themselves. You included. Because, you know , they read everything so they can authoritatively say whats going on, not that they just read random things that show no picture of any sort other than what their interest and tastes are. Mkay.
"three and a half miliboobs per measure" what the heck? Where did they come up with those units? How much is a miliboob? Is that supposed to be a unit of mass or of volume?
A lot of the modern beauty standards for women actually originated in medieval Europe. Written by men, of course. Eleanor Janega, in "The Once and Future Sex", has a chapter on the development of medieval female beauty and what inspired it.
Hester Shaw from the Mortal Engines series by Phillip Reeve is probably my favorite example of a man writing a woman as a person rather than a sex object
In the end, both of these troupes accomplish their near-sighted goals; giving the protagonist motivation. Problem is that it's lazy writing. Problem also is, not everyone who picks up these stories is looking to be shaken to their core. My point is, part of storytelling is giving the people what they want and unfortunately (for me especially, since I'm uncomfortable writing like that) this stuff is exactly what a lot of people want. My wife and her friends didn't all pick up the 50 Shades series despite the ridiculous depiction of the male lead.
I've read it ages ago and I can't account for me actually not grasping the culture of women of his era, but I generally find that Alfred de Musset does a good job on female characters.
the true compliment is "written by fanfic author who knows english as second language"
so true hahahahh 😂😂
Both men and women are sooo guilty of this nonsense and I'm glad to see it called out.
Well there’s no point in calling anyone out… unless human biology is going to change anytime soon people will be attracted to what they are attracted to… and that’s okay. Men can have their curvy women and women can have their dreamy or toxic guys. It’s okay to cater to different audiences where ppl like to see and hear different things. We all don’t have to like the same things… we never will… just like any other ganre. In anime and manga they have shonen and seinin for men and shoujo and yaoi and yuri for women. It’s okay if it’s not the most perfect portrayal … it’s just fantasy and fiction. Just because there’s dragons coming from eggs we don’t think our chicken eggs will give dragon babies. The narrative where adult ppl are dumb, they can’t differentiate reality from fiction is lame in a society where we think 13 years olds can make life altering decisions.
Well there’s no point in calling anyone out… unless human biology is going to change anytime soon people will be attracted to what they are attracted to… and that’s okay. Men can have their curvy women and women can have their dreamy or toxic guys. It’s okay to cater to different audiences where ppl like to see and hear different things. We all don’t have to like the same things… we never will… just like any other ganre. In anime and manga they have shonen and seinin for men and shoujo and yaoi and yuri for women. It’s okay if it’s not the most perfect portrayal … it’s just fantasy and fiction. Just because there’s dragons coming from eggs we don’t think our chicken eggs will give dragon babies. The narrative where adult ppl are dumb, they can’t differentiate reality from fiction is lame in a society where we think 13 years olds can make life altering decisions.
Sometimes the store sells the stupid item not because they think it’s a good product, but because it’s what is currently in demand.
I suspect that part of what is happening is that authors get rewarded by readers for writing in this way. And those of us who complain are a different set of readers.
Esp women like pls
The only thing worse than the male character being described as a hulking great 6'7 beast of a man is when the female one is described as a delicate little fairy who could get snapped in half - like surely someone being over a foot taller than you is a bit scary
😂👌🏻 and then we get reminded of it every 5 minutes cause god forbid we forget
I almost dated a dude who was a foot taller than me (he was 6'5, I'm 5'5), and he definitely wasn't scary to me, but then again, he was a nice guy and I didn't see him get angry. I'm sure if I saw him get really pissed, or if he was like, super buff and not really friendly (like a lot of these male characters always are), he'd be much more intimidating rather than hot. I mean, hell, even if a guy is only a few inches taller than you but much stronger, that's intimidating as hell.
I actually grew up with a guy who is 6’7”. He and his wife have been married for 20 years, have six kids, and she is between 4’10” and 5’1”. I remember her saying she was one or two inches from legally being a dwarf. I went to the movies with them once while they were dating and she got cold, so he gave her his jacket. When we left, the hem was dragging on the ground.
I like large height gaps in love stories, not because I think it's hot or anything but because I'd love for stuff like this to happen:
Short partner:"WHY ARE YOU SO TALL?!"
Tall partner: "Hehehe"
Short partner: "Guys my partner is too tall for me to kiss them on the lips, what do I do?"
Their friend: "Punch them in the stomach!"
Tall partner: "NO?? JUST ASK ME TO BEND DOWN!"
Their friend: (lifts up the short partner so they reach higher)
Short partner: (pins their partner to the wall) "Hey gorgeous~"
Tall partner: (dying from laughter)
Short partner: "Oh, my partner... so tall, sweet and elegant-"
Tall partner: (hits their head on something)
Short partner: "...Being 4'11 also has its benefits."
not when the guy in question looks like(and is) a nerd- my head only reaches up to ex classmate's shoulder, and hes just a guy who really likes math
Yes, many classic authors have written women very well, which is one reason why they’re classics. All the books with unrealistic men/women characters won’t be remembered in the long run. Tolkien writes women wonderfully in my opinion!
50 Shades will definitely be remembered for generations. Its infamy is too legendary
@@natesamadhi33 the difference is that it’ll be remembered as an example of what not to write.
@@Ididtherightthing correct, that's what I meant by "infamy."
Except that Tolkien almost never wrote women at all
I want all people to know that Jonathan Harker and Mina Harker are relationships goals ✨
Like... The book literaly starts with Jonathan going on his business travel asking ev'ry recipe from Transylvania, not for forcing Mina to cook for him, but because he wants to share the pleasure of the taste with her once he's back home. Also, Mina learns typography, not only to help Jonathan on his job but for having a job for her own, a thing that Jonathan's don't oppose: he actually praises her for it.
They both are really supportive of eachother's: truly, the most mysoginist part of the book are Van Helsing & Lucy's ex-fiancés that said no to her involving for being a woman... A thing that both Jonathan and Mina (specially Mina) thinks as counterproductive and unneccesary. They end up giving up because Jonathan truly does not want to see her on danger, however it is this decision that actually puts her on danger, proving Van Helsing & the other's wrong.
I honestly thought this was 90% a male problem, not only regarding sexualization, but also basic bodily-function stuff. Until I started to learn about romantasy books in which female authors write thing like guy remaining hard inside the protagonist all night long, while asleep, and things like that. 🤣 I don't know whether to laugh or cry, really
Of course it's not a ''male problem''. It is a writer's problem, regardless of gender, because these writers don't attempt to be truthful with reality and make the effort to flesh out the infinite nuances everything has.
@@brianmoren3780 I find its often just a YA novel thing, and to be fair I dont think every story NEEDS to have a perfect and accurate description of relationships and their nuance.
Dragons aren't real but sometimes its nice to pretend they are.
Sometimes it is also nice to pretend relationships are simple and go exactly how we want
Of course it’s not only a “male problem”. Every night i stay hard inside my gf while asleep, she complains about it as well. Its also her problem.
So typical.
Consider yourself victim number 1 till you are confronted with reality.
At least you admitted your hypocrisy and bias.
Is there a group of people that *doesn’t* prefer to see themselves as the good guys heroically persevering thru greater hardship than what is experienced by others?
Happens with religious groups, political parties, ethnicities.
My husband is over 2m tall & it is a PROBLEM. Fitting in cars, airplanes, hospital beds; shower nozzles usually spray him at nipple height; ceiling fans and hanging signs are lurking hazards.
On the plus side, if i want to hide something from him i just need to put it on the bottom shelf & he’ll never know it’s there
He'll never find your illegal collection of Kinder egg toys muhaha!
@@Phoenix.Sparkles real
As a 6'4 man, the bottom shelf trick absolutely works 🤣🤣🤣
@@Phoenix.Sparkles illegal? hwat?
@@RDrawzDragonzit's an USA joke
Cause they banned kinder eggs
On the account of it offering choke hazard for children
Ironic ain't it?
As an ace writer, it's difficult for me to describe sxual attraction between characters. I'm like, "okay, he has a six-pack and he's tall ... so what?" Instead, my characters DO things I find attractive like reading, gardening, journaling, drawing, cooking, being emotionally supportive, etc.
im aro ace so i just ask my non aro ace friends to help me writing that kinda stuff
The 6-pack isnt the sexy thing... the person is still the attraction. Being a strong and athletic person that takes care of their body is what somebody would find attractive not literally the muscles on their chest.
Think of it like this, you find a person reading and drawing and being supporting attractive..... but you are not attracted to a bookshelf or a sandwich.
Its not as different from you as you might think
I'm ace and I have literally never even considered writing about anybody's chest makeup. I don't see how it would ever become relevant in a plot.
Which honestly isn't a bad thing, as it creates more depth
Are you an ace pilot, too? Hey, now there'd be an interesting character.
this is why I go to sites like ao3 or fanfic because i can just read about my fav 2 idiots falling in love for the billonth time without having to read weird descriptions of new characters as they bounce boobily down the stairs.
✨slay✨
Good luck wading through all the gay incest.
Agreed! Save that for the big screen.
🤩😳🤷🏼♂️
'I think it's safe to say that women haven't taken it as far'
Yeah about that.... it will take you about five minutes with someone seriously into yaoi and you'll hear shit that makes every quote in this video seem tame.
I normally see those as fantasy creatures so I won’t die from laughing too hard
For real. BL is where you truly find the stuff comparable to "men writing women." Idk if I'd say it's worse tho.
I was going to say that: Yaoi. The bane of my existance.
Yoai basically straight women fantasizing gay relationship which is sick a fuck. A person sexuality just reduce to nothing but fetish. To actual gay people i doubt if they can read despite being inherently gay it written for *heterosexual* woman or rarely a man(fundanshi) with sick fetish.
not the knot....NOT THE KNOT... NOOOOOO..NNNNNOOOO!!!!
"Jack Machorich walked downstairs, the stairs were as manly as he was. His 20-pack abs shined like gold shining in the Sun. His junk bounced so testically one step at a time. His towering height towered over me so towerally."
the whopper be floppin'
@@Flesh_Wizard 🤣
20-pack abs snake 🤣
Step aside Chad Thundercock
@@adventurer3288 🤣
The male gaze is shallow and predictable. But when I read "he was built like a Victorian mansion" I am forced to conclude that the female gaze is beyond the understanding of mortals.
This is just making me picture a Victorian mansion with arms, legs and a face with windows for eyes and the door is the mouth. 😅
I'm sorry but I spit out my tea. What were you reading 🤣🤣🤣
@Penelope_777 In my defence, I have a weird imagination!
To me this is a symptoms of how disconnected we are from eachother.
kind of agree 🙈
More a symptom of people with no real writing talent trying to write.
@@joshuadehler5039out with that talent thing ! Everyone gotta starts somewhere.
Seeing "her breasts looking peaky" is hilarious because here in the UK peaky means 'pale and sick'😂😂
Hahaha!
6:00 im in tears barbie dolls dont even HAVE anything down there wtf
Yeah, this writer knows nothing about women OR dolls, apparently.
I’m just like, “You had me, right until you said something about a barbie doll.”
You can always tell when an author doesn’t understand women. They always describe exactly what she looks like and nothing about who she is as a person, shallow characters kill the immersion for me.
🫱🏼🫲🏽hard agree
tbf they are likely introducing the character from the visual perspective of another character (most likely the mc), so it should be a visual description. The personality and their life story are something that gets revealed through time and plot....when you have a good author.
@@MrReset94 yeah i get what you're saying. as long as the characters have depth and actually change/develop throughout the story then i'm usually happy.
Yeah, "sad eyes" doesn't count lol.
@@MrReset94 you can use physical descriptions to describe the way they do things and give insight into their personality that way though. I don't think the way their boobs jiggle is going to say much, lol.
The examples for both sexes writing each other terribly seem to suffer from the same problem: they violate that great rule of 'show, don't tell.'
Another good example of a male author writing women: Grushenka and Katerina in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. Grushenka fits that old character trope of the temptress while at the same time being far more than that, and I was surprised by how likeable she was as a character. Katerina is a woman spurned who at the same time has a lot more to her character. Of course, Dostoevsky is just generally known for nailing his the psychology of his characters.
Yes Dostoyevsky writes such wonderful women! Dunya and Sonya in Crime and Punishment are amazing too
I'll also say they that both suffer a case of "horny on main." With the way these characters are described, it would be safe to assume that these "characteristics" are what gets the author off (with male authors taking the cake on horny).
How the fuck do you "show, don't tell" in a purely TEXT BASED medium??? It's literally all tell!
@@milkeywilkieSonya is one of my favorite characters in literature. Really enjoyed her dynamic with Rodion.
@@helixsol7171Not entirely sure what the original commenter meant, but I would say that "showing" would be something like
>Natasha was scared of the knocking at the door.
Vs
>Natasha's blood went cold when she heard the rapping against the door. She could feel her fingers tremble as she reached for the door knob.
In the context of the video, I think an issuse is that the authors have this exact image in their head thst they're trying to get across, but they write it like a wiki entry instead of a book. They also draw too much attention to stuff they like, i.e. a female character's enormous breasts or a male character's physique being constantly mentioned.
Does that make sense?
As a 6'4" man, can confirm, the world is not meant for us. I have annoyed a couple partners by sleeping slightly sideways in a bed because your feet dangling over a footboard on the bed is annoying and uncomfortable as hell. Also, as a tradesmen, crawlspaces are N O T our friends. But, I guess, picking up stuff on the top shelves of the grocery stores and the stock shelves at home improvement stores unassisted is kinda okay.
I do not even reach the 6 feets, but i that the brooms and sink are made for women, because i have to hunch my back to use it properly
When i was a child, we used to sleep in paralel to the bed to fit all, so my feets were dangling, but at some point, it started to feel comfortable and then was weird to sleep like a normal person, also, i don't know why, be i used to only sleep upside down
ayoo 😳 the way you pronounced “anna karenina” 👀 i was not prepared for such perfection haha
heheh thanks! 🫶🏻😀 i do speak the language, so that helps😂
It's crazy that women being written by men as liking cars, guns or sports is dismissed as a fantasy and ridiculous, while these authors are obviously describing women that share their hobbies. Sure, it's a bit shallow, but is it ridiculous to want a S.O with similar interests as yours ? Also, in my opinion, as a guy who frequently is in male dominated spaces, it sounds great to meet someone like that, it makes them feel more approachable, as opposed to having to speak to random women. I think that men having to take the first step in most relationships is not really aknowledged.
The overly sexual stuff is weird tho, I agree, but recent romantasy novels has shown that women can easily do the same thing.
The problem is not her having shared hobbies as the male lead. You missed the entire point
Right? Romantasy is just… cringeworthy. They’re guilty of everything they find objectionable about men
@@abitsourrrrsorry4885elaborate
Well, I think it can be (and often is) a variant of men writing stories around their fantasies about women, which may be fine if the main theme of the story is a male character's attraction to a woman, but tends to result in really bad character design in any other genre.
Plus, note the other part of that clip, where the woman who's into "manly stuff" (sparing the male love interest from having to learn about any "girly" interests of hers that he's not already familiar with) while the man is courting her suddenly starts wanting to be "traditionally feminine" as soon as they get together, because now that means doing things that satisfy some of the man's desires (e.g. having children) instead of being inconvenient for him.
This doesn't seem like a real person, or even a particularly interesting person from the perspective of anyone other than men who want a girlfriend like her.
If she's supposed to play any role in the story beyond just "a reason for her male partner to do things motivated by his romantic interest in her" (which is exactly what terms like "objectification" or "male gaze" refer to) then she's going to need more personality traits than this, and she needs to express them more consistently, in ways that make more logical sense as responses to situations she gets into.
I think that was the point of the critique--female characters who are just "everything a man wants in a woman", even to the point that their personalities change when the man's desires change, are lame and hard to take seriously.
There's nothing wrong with wanting a romantic partner who shares some of your interests per se, obviously.
(And it's also understandable if female readers find tropes like this a little insulting.)
This is a good take.
Your comment about books from just five years ago feeling cringy is very accurate to me. Its amazing how much both the romance and the fantasy genres have changed so much and how each year seems to have a different flavor to the writing.
The funny thing is if you go back to the 90s-00s it's really not that bad.
if tolstoy was the last male author to write a good woman then we have an issue 💀
😂😂
Well, I mean if you don't often read books written by men, like @rayareadzzzz admitted, then of course that's what you'd think. It's not dissimilar to guys who hardly read romantasy thinking that all romantasy novels are just porn for women
Douglas Adams was okay at it I think XD
tolstoy clearly hated women
There is a contemporary author who writes excellent female characters, and that's Thomas Harris. Clarice Starling is the best female fictional character ever written by a man.
Too bad that for every Harris there are 10000 male authors who know shit about writing female characters.
This is such a good video essay! I love that you explore the "men written by women" thing as well. Thank you for this
thank u for watching!! 🫶🏻✨
As adult fantasy, I would cite Guns of the dawn by Adrian Tchaikovsky, I was really pleasantly surprised by his portrayal of the female main character in this military fantasy
I love Children of Time! Can't say I have payed much attention to the human characters' physical descriptions... Neither did Tchaikovsky, I guess? Or maybe I'm super oblivious.
I read plenty of books by both men and women, and I rarely encounter bad characters, male or female. Maybe y'all just need better taste in books. 🤷♂️
Although I will mention that I avoid romance books as a rule, because I much prefer going in having no idea what's going to happen and being pleasantly surprised, while romance as a genre seems deadset on navigating towards a happy ending. Just ruins all the suspense for me.
"I avoid romance"
I think that is the issue in your research
@@marcosgonzalez4207
They said they avoid romance BOOKS, not romance entirely. There are plenty of good romances in books that aren't centered around them.
@@helixsol7171 the issues in romance are pretty the same in every media, in anime in manga there are some extra details, but is pretty the same
Thank you.
I constantly see complaints about male authors writing women terribly, most of which are true and warranted but whenever I comment about how women write men and that being terrible too most women don't want to hear it. I think most authors will struggle writing the opposite sex for a long time due to the obvious fact of them being their gender. I also think it will add to the issue because authors spend so many hours in a room on their own with a computer writing.
I think people are too harsh on authors for their writing of the opposite gender. Critique them on their first few books and hopefully they will get better at writing them.
It's probably because the men writing women poorly is in every genre of book and TV and movies. Men have more power. Women write men poorly mostly in romance and the descriptions are due in part to standards set by the people in power which are men.
@@Aster_Risk just proved her point...
@@Aster_Risk This is, without a doubt, the most phenomenal own goal I have had the pleasure to read on UA-cam
@@Aster_RiskSelf own lmao
It is pretty annoying when female authors have overtly feminist themes in their stories, often with female protagonists fighting for respect despite, e.g. their smaller stature. To that end, these popular female authors make a point of giving their female characters different body types occasionally and use any body shaming as a teachable moment. Yet, they make ALL their male love interests over 6 feet tall, muscular, unusually well-endowed and richer than the woman. It gives the impression that these traits are necessary for a man to be attractive to women when they definitely are not! To be clear, I love feminism, just not keen on double standards.
So true. Honestly, I rarely see short or chubby male leads. Men have more to offer than their strength. Also, the very very few rare times I have seen it, the male lead was a total pushover and perfect partner. So, like does that mean if he is chubby, he's not allowed to have any flaws at all? Or if he did have flaws he turned out to be the secret villain. I hate it. Also where are the awkward male leads? Most guys are not suave or charming. They are awkward and dorky.
They don't hurt.
True that
it all depends on how skilled the writer is. They're long, but the two books of the Stalingrad/Life and Fate duology by Vasily Grossman have quite a few really incredible male and female characters. One of my favorites is the older farmer who receives his draft notice. He uses his last full day before he goes off to war to quietly complete his wife's honey-do list because he knows the odds of him making it through the war are slim.
People who are bad at writing the opposite sex are usually making these specific mistakes
- They are too focused on the fact that the character is the opposite sex, and not the character as a whole
- They are writing their fantasy of an opposite sex person
Their inability to see opposite sex people as normal is blocking them from writing a normal character
@@TheJadedJames The problem is whether it's because of socialization or biology man and women are different. So what if you don't fully understand a normal person that is the opposite sex because we have different normals to each other
I don’t think a book has to be bad for there to be issues with the portrayal.
One of my favorite books is Atwood’s Oryx and Crake for its Dystopian world building around a future where genetic engineering has become quite advanced. The issue is the two male characters at the center of the novel feel off. They feel more like the projected fears of the author about male sexuality than realistic male sexuality. It’s nothing that’s glaringly wrong like what women complain about in regard to male authors, more of an uncanny feeling that the male characters are much more projections of the author’s fears/disgust surrounding males than fully realized male characters that have realistic motivations and actions. And so despite loving the book, theres a sense of uncanniness around how it portrays masculinity at the same time.
Bother genders struggle with this, and neither is "better" than the other at it. Unless we are talking about sheer volume. Hollywood and television especially are feel heavily skewed towards it being a male problem, probably because there are way too many men writers compared to women. Its an industry problem.
fair point!
Total agree. A great example of how to do it well would be the movie "Salt" where the main character, Evelyn Salt was supposed to be Edwin Salt until they changed it. I thought it worked really really well because of it. I felt like she was a real person. That's why I love that movie. I think maybe a good writing exercise is to write everyone as your own gender, and then flip the genders to whatever is appropriate at the end. There would need to be a few edits to flesh it out properly as we are not exactly the same, but I doubt there would be a significant amount since books don't need that much detail after all. People are just people after all. Getting too caught up in the gender aspect is the pitfall everyone keeps stumbling into.
"The breasts were full and round, tending towards top-heavy. Nipples pointing slightly upwards under their skimpy bra. No traces of implants and a smooth transition between chest and mammary fat..... The attached face was fine, brown hair, medium height."
☠️
someday I will make a character say that
Based description from a healthy individual that doesnt hate the motor of life: sex.
*Watched your video*
*Checks my manuscript furiously to make sure my characters are okay* 😅
In all seriousness, as a woman (?) who writes male characters, I mostly just try to base them on either men I know in real life (many of which are wholesome and complex people) or my favourite male characters from good TV shows or books. Just people generally, it helps so much if you portray them as people. It doesn’t matter what gender they are.
Great video 💞
thank you for watching! ☺️☺️ what are you writing, if you don’t mind sharing?
@@rayareadzzzz I’m writing a fantasy novel series with a lot of LGBTQ+ characters where their individual stories are shown and eventually intertwine. I’ve just finished the first draft of part 1 and I’m really excited! 😄 But also nervous and hoping it will be good.
Thanks again for the video. It’s really well done and well edited - I’ve been looking for something as in depth as this. Keep up the great work! 🫶
I'm a man writing female characters, and I mostly just write them as me with some structural changes.
Although they do tend to be more competent than I am. Probably smarter, too.
@@JustClaude13 lol same tbh, your book sounds interesting to read 😊
‘Towering over me like a towering tower’ Is actually peak humor
it kind of is
Male authors that I think are great at writing female characters:
- George R.R. Martin (Fantasy&SciFi)
- Sorj Chalandon (Contemporary, French)
- James Corey (SciFi)
- Brandon Sanderson (Fantasy)
- Frank Schätzing (Thriller, German)
- Matt Haig (Literary)
- Ewald Arenz (Literary, German)
- Mark Sullivan (History)
- Graeme Simsion (Romance)
- David Safier (Comedy, German)
- Gavin Extence (Contemporary)
- Daniel Kehlmann (Literary, German)
- Klaus Kordon (History, German)
- Michael Gerard Bauer (Middle Grade)
- Markus Zusak (History)
- Kenneth Oppel (Middle Grade)
- Louis Sachar (Middle Grade)
- Paolo Giordano (Literary, Italian)
- Terry Pratchett (Fantasy)
- David Safier (Comedy & Romance, German)
Loved your video!! I agree with your points in the video. I have put down many a book after realising how weird/creepy/boring women are written. These are all authors I enjoy reading. Some of these are not originally written in English, I put the original language in parentheses. Maybe you find something you like there 🤗
wooww thank uuu!! ✨ and thanks for watching, glad u enjoyed☺️
Would also add Terry Pratchett! I love his female characters.
@@Craspcrisper had him on my tbr for ages!
Timothy Zahn did an excellent job with his earlier work. I specify that because I haven't read anything newer then the mid 90s from him. But his creation and portrayal of Mara Jade for Starwars in particular was excellent as I recall.
Shoutout to Nathaniel Hawthorne
15:13 Has everyone forgotten Game of Thrones? Or how about Lord of the Ring? Mundo Umbrio literally has the protagonist being female and its written by a man. Is it my good luck that most authors I read know how to do character descriptions?
Romance genre is the cancer of occidental literature
I would like to point out up front, that I am not defending some of the more..."artistic" liberties of the male authors shown in the video. I also want to preface that this is the opinion of a random person online written long after their bedtime...
I think there are a few things at play with WomenWrittenByMen and MenWrittenByWomen. Fundamentally I think it's perspective differences. Men will understand a man's perspective more easily, and women will understand a woman's perspective more easily. Men tend to be blunt and direct, thus using more crude or crass imagery for descriptions. Women tend to be more nuanced and subtle leading to them using softer and more subdued imagery. However, poor writing skills affect both male and female authors beyond their approach to imagery.
I don't think the examples for MenWrittenByWomen were fundamentally any better than the examples of WomenWrittenByMen. Were the female authors more tactful with their imagery? Yes, but as you mentioned, they were both objectifying the opposite sex which seems to be the main issue being pointed out during discussions about WomenWrittenByMen. It seems that female authors are often given a pass for doing the same thing male authors do simply because their writing style is less crude.
I personally don't see an issue with a love interest(male or female) being written solely as an object of desire when the relationship is not a focus of the story. But I do think there are acceptable ways of implementing it. For example, if it is being used solely to build the main character. Let's say we have a female character with a male love interest, and the love interest is there only as a way to explore the main character's desires that are affecting other aspects of her personality or to give context for or explain her actions throughout the story. I don't think we need a fully fleshed out male love interest for this purpose, and it's fine for him to simply exist as an expression of the main character's desires. However, I think this would only be acceptable if the main character is the entire focus of the story. If there were more being focused on in the story besides the main character, it would feel off to have another character just existing like this.
I'd like to mention The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis (yes its also a book) as an example of a male author writing a woman well. Beth Harmon is never NEVER an object in that book, she's a person. A very flawed, complex person who has strengths and weaknesses. I remember being surprised when I saw the book was written by a man, because I so little see male authors write character studies about women. It was great, though.
ohh i haven’t read the book, but i adored her character in the series
Yes, and it was written in the 60s, so it's possible to do that today too. :))
@@FabricadeBasmeit was written in the 80s, 1983 to be exact.
The statement that "it tells other men to treat women as sex objects", is at its core erroneous. Men don't look to littérature in ordre to decide how to treat other women or other men for that matter. That statement is as tired as it is in accurate.
THANK YOU! It's like they think we can't separate fiction from reality! If a guy wants to be an asshat to women and use the media he consumed as an excuse, that's on him, we shouldn't take that excuse seriously because he's not taking accountability for his own actions! The story essentially becomes a victim, which is then blamed for the behavior of the bad actor. I can get all googoo eyed/hot and bothered by a fictional man or women, and lust after them maliciously, but I still know how to treat REAL PEOPLE with respect irl!
@@helixsol7171 Furthermore, its like this young lady had forgotten that the depictions of men/women are often times fantasies or flat.
So you have never heard of the Illusory truth effect or know how the brain works. It doesn't matter if you consciously look at literature like that. The more often a message is repeated the more likely the brain is to incorporate this message in your thinking. Even when you are fully aware that this message is wrong. So it doesn't do it actively but subconsciously you are getting the same message over and over again.
Internalized misogyny for example is a huge problem for many women and in a lot of cases a big reason for this was media. Because in media the "mean girl" was also always the "super feminine" one, so you started associating meanness and shallowness with femininity. Which then also caused the whole "I'm not like other girls" trend. Medie does affect people. Especially if you get these message from a very young age.
@@byronwilliams7977 Yeah I agree. People should know the difference between fiction and reality. A bad written book is not an excuse for bad behavior. Like he is a grow up man but you can't say that treating a woman this way is a problem ? If that the case, it's not the book the problem, but a problem that came up long before.
I feel like it is very difficult for many people to even understand themself, let alone another person... or a different gender. Anyone who can describe themself accurately is already impressive, to me. If they can 'also' describe other people (of the same gender) and understand how they feel and what they would say in many different situations, that is amazing. If they can 'ALSO' understand a person of a different gender in that same level of detail... mind-blowing. If I ever tried to write a story... I would try my best to write every character as... a person. If a person is mistreated or favoured by others for a physical aspect of who they are, that would logically affect their personality in some way. If that physical aspect just so happens to be part of what defines their gender, then so be it. I would just want to write cool and interesting characters to tell a fun and thoughtful story... to feel better about life. I have zero understanding of what any other person 'truly' experiences in life, but I can compare my own experiences with theirs, and remember how I felt during those times. I can try to imagine how those events would have felt different, if my situation was more like theirs. How my situation would have actually been completely different, if I were them. Trying your best to understand another person is one of the most rewarding and valuable aspects of being human, I feel.
As an enby I always write my characters with as few physical descriptions as possible for this exact reason.
You go 🔥
same lmfao
It’s really just a matter of who is the audience- who is the book for. I wouldn’t expect for romance novel where a werewolf or prince whose is obsessed with random woman to have astute or nuanced prose. The reader is here to project on to the main character. By the same token, it makes sense for a femme fatale in a noir or a damsel in pulp fantasy to be characterized in large part by what she looks like. Much of the criticism on this topic are blown out of proportion and argued in bad faith.
Terry Pratchett has very relatable women in his Discworld series - when I was younger I wanted to be like Tiffany Aching because I felt she acted and thought like me.
Came here to say this. All his women are full-fledged characters
I am so glad to see people, a woman at that touch on the fact that men and women face this issue equally.
As a young man with interest in psychology I find it fascinating how men and women think completely differently, not out of socialization, but out of simple biological predispositions.
Men are visual creatures, they think abstractly and objectify everything, so naturally they reduce a woman to her physical features. It's not out of misogyny (but it can be that) but out of the very way and structure of their thinking.
Women on the other side are social creatures, so they are interested in someone as a person, but that also means that they are interested in the status in a society, "taming an alpha" to impress others, or be "not like other girls".
Honestly I think both men and women have on average great trouble understanding eachother and you'd find just as many bad examples of anatomy (or other features of spouse fantasy) in men as women.
For every wierd blow up doll for men, there is a werewolf CEO billionaire.
And as an autistic person this web of romance and desire is even more alien (although I'm not aro-ace).
Yeah, I find it so weird. I have a hard time differentiating between genders which has gotten me into trouble as I treat everyone similarly. I have also been told I am both butchy and girly among other labels which just makes me roll my eyes. It's all so confusing and it seems kind of arbitrary. Then I read stuff like this and how studies with monkeys reveal gender differences in toy preferences and I guess there is some basis to it. I'm also bi so there is that added confusion because to me everyone is attractive and these weird rules about not talking to someone or not being friends is also confusing. Like I guess I can't talk to or be friends with anyone lest they think I am madly in love with them or something?
I love this video! Your topics are so entertaining and relevant. I don't normally read romance novels written by men. I just don't trust they'll be relatable! Maybe there are some good ones out there, but unless I'm given a recommendation from someone I trust, I won't pick it up. Same with romcom movies. I've seen too many written by men, and the women in them don't even feel real. It gets a bit tiring 😴
thank u for watching!! 🫶🏻✨✨
The problem isn't the romance genre. People know how the tropes work there. The problem is when authors claim to write serious books. Books that are non fiction or seen as literary and write women like they are an alien species.
Where are you guys finding all these “bad” books written by men? I haven’t once even seen a male author describe a woman’s chest before. And I’ve been reading all my life…
To answer your question though: For all women’s complaints about men not understanding them, women don’t understand men either and make no effort to try
A Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is the most mainstream book I can think of with such in depth physical description of female bodies, but only during the sections with male POV characters. There is a female narrator through part of the story and I don’t remember sexualized descriptions of women in her chapters
Well, she's mostly describing romance novels, which is more of a genre issue than anything else
One of my favorite books does this (The Dresden Files) but it doesn't spoil the book, nor does it really worsen the female characters. I can see it annoying readers, but the idea that if a woman's body shape is described it means that the woman is going to be an object with no personality or agency or active role in the story is a little silly.
@@anomitasAh, no wonder I’ve never seen this before. Last few books I’ve read (Stormlight 1-3, Warbreaker, Elantris) were mostly fantasy with some romance in them and they were great
@@AxlPatrolRight? The conclusions women jump to are so weird. When I as a guy see a description of a male character, especially from a female character’s perspective, I don’t get offended by it. I just think, “Ok, that’s what he looks like to her”
Brandon Sanderson knows how to describe his female characters without making me want to off myself.
Vin from "Mistborn", and Tress from "Tress of the Emerald" Sea are my favorites of his.
He treats every character with so much care, from his informative descriptions to planned-out character arcs.
Crazy that TikTok decided men written by women are kind and sweet when the male leads of so many contemporary romance novels (written by women) are sexual predators.
I honestly think people need to stop looking at romance novels for examples. Of course they’ll be awful.
I don't have a problem with male characters looking unrealistically hot if the book is a romance/romantasy. It's basically an expectation of the genre. But what I don't like is when the male love interest doesn't seem to have a life outside of being the object of attraction. A lot of romantasy these days is written exclusively from a first person female perspective, and honestly I think it suffers for it. Let me see the MMC actually going out and being a badass instead of just telling me about it. (Looking at you, ACOTAR.)
I haven’t read a lot of male authors in the last couple years either but the two I have were pretty good in terms of the female characters not being ridiculous and I think a lot of that had to do with the books being middle grade and ya.
But my favorite fictional men written by women are Adrian Ivashkov from Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy and Bloodlines series (realistic, not really but literally so perfect imo) and Jest from Heartless by Marissa Meyer.
omg I thought I was the only one who read vampire academy
@@mothyclothy849 I reread it last year and it was so good 😩 and like 10 years ago I was given the first Bloodlines book having never heard of VA and now I finally have those which are also really good and definitely isn’t influenced by my love for Adrian 👀 lol
So you almost exclusively read trash
@@IkesPimpHand If people enjoy it is it really trash or do you just like to criticize what others read because it’s not “real” literature 🙄
Well I think it’s problem of overall today’s writers and the mass reader community. Look at Russians, look at Germans, look at French people 100 years ago and further and you see the real artists, who wrote while challenging deep problems. And there you can also find “the right description of woman and man”. Somebody gotta save literature, it dies out of its shallowness and artistic void🙁
Eh, there was trash written 100 years ago. Only the good stuff survives and is remembered.
As a German, I disagree. That Malleus Maleficarum guy was so bad at writing women, it got them burned at the stake.
@@TheGeorgeD13Yeah, only the academic classics survive. There has always been more commercial literature. Hell, some of the classics are classics because they were criticising that commercial literature of the time, by parodying it or by re-inventing a popular genre that had become stale. One example that comes to mind is Don Quixote. It is quite literally a parody of all the novels about romantic knights that were being mass published and mass consumed at the time.
There is always going to be room for artistry and literature. Just like there has always been room for more commercial writings. You have to also keep in mind these arr usually found separately. Usually only professor's and people with high incomes and lot's of time are able to publish for passion, and take all the times they need to refine a story so that it may be timeless, while people who write for a living are more concerned with paying rent and publishing as much as they can to pay the bills.
Sometimes, this two world's manage to cross, and someone who writes commercially is able to write something amazing with demanding headlines in place, like Ray Bradbury for example, but that is rare. Most of them end up being satisfying works that you read and then forget.
if you dont think the magazines and pulps 100 years ago were filled with junk you're hilariously misinformed. You only know the "good stuff" because the good stuff is what survived an age where there was no digitization of every piece of work
Why don't they make characters with regular-looking people. Girls with normal bodies and guys with normal dadbods. People fall in love with unusual features all the time. Honestly, I like the imperfections and girls like imperfections too.
As far as writing girls, I would just write what I want from a dream girl. The perfect girl.
Couse surrounded by imperfections, people want to see beauty even somewhere
This is fascinating! And illuminating. I'll give my perspective, though I tend to write short stories (writing my first novel now, actually). I am a man.
For me, whenever I encounter something like this when I read, I don't really think about whether the author is a man or a woman. I mean, perhaps the thought crosses my mind, but it doesn't give me much pause outside of that. I think that if you look closely, you can, most likely, easily enough find characters of the same sex as the writer who are also poorly written within the same story; albeit, for different reasons.
Furthermore, I tend to think that the oversexualization of one's characters generally points to a deeper symptom of bad writing than would be indicated by simply saying, 'Oh, you just can't write women/men.' If you do oversexualize your characters constantly, the odds aren't great that that's the only issue with your characters (lol).
Here's the part that interests me the most: I really wonder why it is that men, in particular, do this so much. I suppose that's no mystery. Men are men, after all haha
Perhaps my perspective is just a tad different -- I'm a bisexual guy, so I'm roughly as likely to think of men and women in a sexual way. Also, I avoid the topic of sex no matter what unless it's actually pertinent to the story. In my case, this is almost never. I don't really write much romance, nor do I include it much in my stories. It's just not something I want to write about, personally. If it were, I don't even know *how* my sexuality would manifest on the pages. Would I sexualize everybody?? lmao
I don't know. What I do know is: "Boobs pointing to the sky like rocket ships" or whatever that guy wrote is a BAR😂😂😂
This is actually a fascinating topic. I might make a video on this myself, actually. This comment ended up being very long, so it can serve as some sort of precursor to a script lolol
EDIT: I just wrote this comment, and I want to add something before someone replies saying, "romance ain't sex." I know that lol but sex just isn't something that comes up in my stories in the first place, and the only kind of story I can imagine myself writing where that would be pertinent at all would be romance. You might ask why it is that I don't even bring up sexual attraction much. The reason is the same reason I don't bring up when my characters take a shit lmaooo it's just not relevant to the story most of the time. For me, anyways.
Total agreement. I'm also bi, and bringing up sexual attraction in stories all the time just seems silly. I think it also seems kind of dumb in romance stories sometimes, because often times it's just at stupid moments. Like the male lead walks into the room and she is suddenly completely enraptured by him or vice-versa. I've met beautiful people, and I don't start drooling. They're people too and deserve the dignity of not being eyeballed like a piece of meat. In real life you notice those moments differently, or at least I do. Like the color of my husband's eyes when he looks over at me and the sun hits them just right. I'm not describing him head to toe in my head like "wow he has tousled hair like some kind of fashion magazine and blah blah blah, and oh yeah his eyes were emerald green blah blah" it's just silly.
5:25 half of this just sounds like a hot lesbian who joined the army lmao (speaking from experience, there’s a lot of them like this). These authors’ ideal women are swinging for the other team
Just like how men written for women sound very zesty
Breasts aren't that deep they don't change temperature, shrink or grow depending on emotional state, they don't smile or cry or scream. Breasts just stay on the chest.
Dostoyevsky also wrote women in a very good way, yes spoke about the physical appearance BUT he focused only on the face and her clothes - more to emphasize her social status through the way she dressed.
As an inspiring male writer, I often try to use actions to describe the characters, man or woman, and only mention physical characteristics when they are relevant. Like, if I were to mention some woman was muscular and hardy, I'd either do it in a fight sequence or in a situation that is a test of strength in a tasteful manner. I don't need to emphasise too much on it because sometimes less is more, and leaving in detail in good quality over forgettable quantity is a high priority for myself. If it isn't worth conveying, then it ain't worth the headache trying to fit it in, lol.
Joe Abercrombie's Age of Madness trilogy might restore some of your faith in humanity! Although the trilogy gets pretty bleak at times too, so it might bring you down a bit as well, but as far as creating consistent, believable female characters that have agency and unique personalities, outlooks, and goals, Abercrombie does a pretty solid job. Of course, my pov is limited as a straight white cis gender male lol. There are a few female booktubers who will reinforce my praise though, including Murphy Napier, and Bookborn is also a huge fan of that series. She even put the second novel in the trilogy on a list of books she considers basically perfect in every way, and she's very critical of how gender equality and sexuality etc., are approached in media.
If you're only seeing it through the lens of men/women portrayal equality, maybe, but much as I love Abercrombie, in his books everyone is a selfish bastard. Society wouldn't even exist with the average human being such a psycopath egotistical single-minded person as every character in an Abercrombie book is.
Jeff Vandermeer's character The Biologist is an incredibly well written fictional woman.
Characters written by people who've never interacted with the other gender are wild and I can only take it for so long. Love that you're calling both out, since lot's of people love to mock (rightfully so) the women-written-by-men trope while also loving the men-who-make-women-orgasm-in-two-strokes trope. Make it stop
I read a famous male author's (who has improved a lot in this regard since) first novel from the 80s and the main character is an obvious self-insert who has this young model with "full lips" (instant laughable red flag phrase for me) fall in love with him because he's "real."
who? what? when? where? Spill the tea my dude
again it’s the same as men when describe women. Most men can’t help their height, color of their eyes, hair or skin. And most of the fictional men who fall for some waitress are princes, nobles, super athletes, business owners… it’s about the unrealistic standard pf expectation it sets in women’s imagination when it comes to men. That some guy who literally looks like a god and is an actual prince would fall for an average looking, clumsy girl… for what…. Cz she’s ‘special’. That’s why men are complaining about … and I see comments like men should aspire to be better… then y don’t women look at women in men’s books and just aspire lol
because until you reach a certain level of skill everyone writes everything terribly.
and most writing is below that level.
99% of smut/erotica is WAY below that level.
Even when they arent perfect in the Percy Jackson, 2nd saga its a múltiple POV between girls and boys: Heroes of Olympus.
First, Hazel Lavesque, is a afroamerican girl, but also its presented as a ladylike girlie, she its a flower ❤ (that can kick ass) i really like Rick Riordan didnt pull the "strong black woman" trope there, cause i dont feel there its a lot of characters like her. Also Annabeth its awesome, even when some people acuse her at first of being a Hermione rip-off at first... she does have her own persona.
Piper... ok here its where Rick fails and do the trend of "not like other girls"
I do wish more justice to the female characters in the books, cause some of them are really interesting but have shortlived apearances (coffcoffBiancacoffcoff).
AND In the romance aspect, I really like when they show you that a lot of the characters weren't eachothers type; i feel it gives out that the ships have a conexion other than physical attraction. In the POV you see them at the eyes of a friend and discover they werent that "atractive". Like Annabeth, yeah Percy has a crush with her since 12, but also she is his best friend and has a lot of personality. People think she was really pretty cause Percy perspective, but in HoO, even Leo (who like almost every girl he meet) say he didnt find her atractive, but he respected her as a leader.
15:00 But will they be able to support themselves from writing in order to develop their skills...? I've seen and heard multiple people say they're not interested in reading male writers like it's nothing and, wow, history really is cyclical.
Thank ya. From an agender perspective, it's all the same thing from different angles: elision of agency, man, woman, bad writing. Either complete submissiveness in order to fold into every facet of one's fantasy--or preternatural, effortless grasping of another's desire in order to flow into every facet of one's fantasy.
I’m reading Anna Karenina right now and it’s such a beautiful example of a man understanding that women are complex and have minds and souls and are capable of thinking for themselves. It’s truly wonderful and heartbreaking to read
I need to read a novel where the protagonists are a terribly written female character made by a male and terribly written male character made by a female. Something like a D&D campaign with a fair balance of intrigue based roleplay and combat.
Feels like it does still appeal more to men at least in the west by type moon visual novels have peak female characters written by a man.
I think many writers don’t understand that there’s a difference between writing a character who happens to be attractive vs. writing an attractive person who happens to be a character
When we talk about this we are usually referring to the love interest or the protagonist, usually the side characters are underwritten or described negatively to contrast with the main male or female. I think genre and target audience have a lot to do with it. Many romance books are 'reader' insert wish fulfillment. It makes sense the male love interests would be exemplars of the current idea of male attractiveness. You won't get many readers if your love interest is a short, pudgy individual whose skin has not seen the sun for years. While the problems with female characters written by men is largely due to them being an after thought to make the book 'adult' when all the author really wanted to do was write about the protagonist who is often an 'author' self insert wish fulfillment weilding his big sword and slaying monsters.
I generally like Joe Abercrombie's female characters, eg Monza in "Best Served Cold" or Ferro and Ardee in the First Law trilogy.
Men: writing women horribly
Women: writing men horribly
Me, an autist: writing eyes despite me never looking at them
to be fair you do have peripheral vision
But you’ve seen pictures of eyes before, right? (I’m autistic too btw)
lol audhd me
*writing about characters gazing into each other's eyes despite my feeling so awkward to do that, that i just avoid looking at eyes and one time went to buy makeup but there was a poster on the shelf with an entire boyband in it staring forwards on eye level with me and i literally just.... left the shop.*
*writes another scene where a character defiantly stares at another's eyes* ..... i mean, i guess that works. it looks rude and like, defiant... no? no?
bonus twist: *me realising three characters are constantly avoiding staring at eyes and once i got diagnosed i realised those characters were also autistic*
Most of the examples were not „men writing women“ but rather „men describing a woman‘s appearance“. Confusing the two reduces and citing such passages as evidence that „men are incapable of writing women“ reduces women to their appearance.
To see how the entire women is written, you need to look at each and every sentence written about her, everything she says, everything she does, because a person‘s character shows in how they act and interact with others and their environment. In most cases person’s looks are all but irrelevant to their personality, no matter how cringy their description is.
The complaint from men saying that female authors don’t seem to know how much time at the gym it takes to have abs was hilarious to me. Like yes, there have been plenty of problematically written male characters, but THAT is what jumped out to you? Most of these male characters with washboard abs are either warriors or athletes. Xaden fourth wing is a third year at a literal war college. I think the better question is, fellas, do YOU know what it takes to have abs? And before anyone comes at me for not knowing enough about fitness, I was a professional ballerina and now I’m a fitness instructor. I myself am in possession of defined abs.
YES. YES. GET EM QUEEN
I think the complaint is directed at the CEO guys, not the fantasy warrior ones.
@@MrReset94 yeah but… you can still be in good shape even if your job is in an office. How many female love interests of male protagonists have been written to be slender and athletic even though they’re doctors or business women? It’s easy to assume that the time a male character spends off page and away from the female POV protagonist would be spent doing other things like sending emails, doing chores, and working out. My partner is a sales associate who spends his work week in desk, but he’s shredded because he goes to the gym 3 days a week. If I were to write a romance novel based on our relationship entirely from my perspective, the only evidence of going to the gym you’d see is the gym selfies he occasionally sends me because going to the gym isn’t something he and I do together. Doesn’t mean he doesn’t have time for it. And I think it’s safe to assume that they never question how the female love interests they’ve been reading are in good shape despite never seeing them work out on page. Like, do you think they lie awake at night wondering how Padme in Star Wars was able to improvise climbing a 40ft column and fend off a massive beast all on her own using nothing but a chain when she’s just a politician?
@@missanthropy6174 there's a difference between being in good shape, and having washboard abs all the time, as well as being 6'9, having a narrow waist, in big bulky alarms that go along with those washboard abs. A woman can be in good shape and also be a doctor, but you rarely see women being portrayed in any way close to men, mainly because the general public knows that a woman having a six-pack most of the time is very unhealthy. No one describes what the female love interest is doing, mainly because it's not really important to the story, what male authors do best, is write action stories, and those action stories are normally about the male protagonist, and his close friends, and the time we spend with them compared to the love interest are just not comparable. Sure there are some very well-written stories with more fleshed out female love interests, but other than that, a love interest is simply a love interest, when it comes to certain stories they are secondary to the plot, also I'm not sure that male love interests who are portrayed the way he is describing like the CEOs are ever talked about we don't know their gym routine is, we don't even know what they're doing, he is simply there to kidnap the female protagonist, and she just falls in love with him on the spot.
Now that ai’ve finally read Fourth Wing I can finally say that Xaden is not only a terribly written man, but also a bad character.
In Polish schools we have a list of books estabilished by the government that are mandatory to read. In ALMOST ALL of them we have descriptions like the ones in the video (mainly about female characters because sexism), meaning I had to tear through all of them to even graduate school. I don't know if I'll touch a book ever again after that, but for now i am trying to completely detox myself from the horrible writing trauma.
That first tiktok seems to be the outcome of the advice "Write a women like you would your regular characters, except with feminine features and aspects." I remember hearing that all the time when I started writing. The woman I heard it from first, I don't think she understood how men would take that advice.
Personally I think it's done in ignorance most of the time. Female writers writing romance Novartis however, seem to do it on purpose.
One problem I have with subs like r/menwritingwomen is it's not taking a representative sample. It's taking the worst of the worst cases found by 570,000 book readers, so it's not completely surprising that tons of really really bad cases were found
There are definitely both male and female authors who can do both genders well. I'd say GRRM is famously good at writing characters, of both genders. And I'd say one of my all time favourite books (House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds) leans a fair amount into the romance between it's two main characters but doesn't overly sexualize either character (not even during the sex scenes) and it's nice that every other chapter alternates which of the two of them is the POV character.
I’m a girl with a lot of guy friends and I’m usually the one reminding other girlies that guys are much more similar to girls than people assume. I’m kinda shocked at myself because this really made me realise that the main male character of one of my novels in progress has very little personality and basically is an extension of his wife’s personality, which is very unrealistic and not at all like my guy friends. I think I really needed this call out
IMO, you have to figure out what you'll be doing with him first. Not every single character needs to have a distinct personality, but becoming an extension of someone else can happen and it's an issue.
As a man, what do you mean by guys are a lot more like girls than girls think? If you mean we have insecurities, fears, feelings and we don't think about sex all the time, then you'd be right.
@@Onnarashi yep pretty much that. I go to an only girls school
@@Raven_Rainy Good to know you're giving them some good info. I really don't like some of these stereotypes about guys.
@@Onnarashi lol me neither! Down with the patriarchy and thanks
i feel like there’s too much emphasis on physical expectations in this video, and it misses the actual problems with men written by women. men HATE the kinds of guys that women write in romance books. they’re extremely grating in the same way as pick me girls are to women. none of us want to be like them, because none of us respect them, but these stories give women those expectations of men in relationships, in the same way as porn gives men unrealistic physical expectations
in the first place men usually dont have the same sort of issue with male depictions in media. we LOVE a hypermasculine guy. think of doom guy, master chief, or batman. men love big strong dudes being big, strong, and dudely
Dostoyevsky writes good women. And Haruki Murak... lol jk but dostoyevsky writes characters well in general. I think both genders write their experience of the opposite gender, as a man being attracted to a woman can often overwhelm us in a way that we forget ourselves. Writing these bizarre almost dream logic descriptions of women may be goofy when viewed from an outside observer but is pretty representative of how men are experiencing attraction. Sure that's got alot to do with how men are patriarchally socialized but I think it's definitely deeper than just men are gross and weird. There's a reason we see most of the "well written" women be from older works written during more sexually repressive times, those guys weren't allowed to put their horned up mental images to the page so that had to be artistically depicted via the behavior of male characters who were interested in those women and by the behavior of the women themselves. Those writers were often no less misogynistic than writers today they just didn't have as much room to explore their own mental landscape.
12:11 A male Medusa of a very... _special_ sort.
HELPPPP
I believe that cinematic incentive is a motivator driving more characters into physical desirability. What character is going to look good in a twenty-second trailer or movie poster? Not the multilayered introvert who struggles with body dysmorphia but volunteers at a homeless shelter where she meets her estranged father. It's going to be Scarlett Johansson doing something, yeah, blah, blah...attractive woman, sure, we'll see the movie. Oh, she's multilayered too? All that is just an incidental subset of the movie trailer quality that drew you into the theater. I don't believe that writers are too ignorant or stupid to make things laughably physical, rather, a bias toward seeing their creation on film predisposes them to weight those standards of beauty higher than they might have in a purely literary setting. For my case in point, read nonfiction: superb, compelling, amazing depictions of men and women by writers of various backgrounds. I'm guessing that David McCullough wasn't looking to get John Adams on film (even though HBO did a great job), so his rendition of Abigail Adams and the other women in John Adams' life is phenomenal.
Girls wake up the queen herself just posted a video
But seriously that thumbnail was perfect I already know this is gonna eat
stop iiiit 😭💕ty, hope you enjoy! 🫶🏻
I just think both men and women take fiction way too seriously. Like, if your biggest problem is a man writing about breasts in a goofy way, then you've got life pretty damn good
I've never read a romance book before, and I don't really plan it, so I've never had much experience with this sort of writing. A lot of the time it's usually quick visual descriptions, like describing someone as tall, stocky, slim, petite, and stuff like that. Then describing things like hair and eye color.
I'm not really an experienced writer or author but I've thinking about wanting to write a book, a little fantasy anthology series to sorta introduce my fantasy world I've been world building. My main worry I suppose is that my woman characters might just be presented as overly masculine or just being men with breasts. The one I'm most worried about now is a freed slave who develops an interest in machinery, becomes a military engineer, and in the present day where the book takes place should be around 48 years old and is a 2 star general. I think I might just completely redo her character into being a man instead to make it easier.
My first experience with written by a woman wasn’t sexual. It was Ron in Goblet of Fire. Even my mom said, “I have never met a guy who acts like that.”
God, don't mention it. Rowling said that it was inspired by a guy she had a crush on or something, and boy, do you notice it. Like she had some deep contempt in that regard.
Love the hair omg
❤️❤️❤️
they just write their sexual fantasies and forget to write actual characters
You also have the "sexy bad guy" trope in novels like After, 50 Shades of Grey and Twilight, where they romanticize abusive traits in men just because they are hot
I'm a male writer and I recently sent part of my manuscript to a beta reader friend who is a girl, and she told me Im good at writing female characters. All I could think was "Well, I'll be damned."
Well, since you just challenged us to give examples of women written by men that avoid descriptions of chest size, or focus more on a varied personality, I can gladly put my own books on the block. Look for the dark epic fantasy trilogy called Destiny of the Void Triangle, starting with the Chronomancer and the Book of Worms. My only flaw was that I didn’t know what the meaning of the word ‘courtesan’ was until after the third book, so I just took it to mean a noble lady of a court (oops). But I dare you to find mention of chest size there. I’ll even make it easy: the audiobooks are on my UA-cam channel.
I wouldn’t have mentioned it, but you did challenge
I feel like a lot of the worst mrw and wrm sin are in books that are generally not good. When you look at accomplished male or female authors with a wide readership you get a lot less of this kind of thing.
Schlock fantasy/scifi and romance literature tends to get the worst of it where clearly the authors wrote moste of it one-handed.
"In the dim light from the coffee table lamp, her auburn eyes were hard to make out from his perspective, as they were fixated intently upon the pages before her.
Her long, raven black hair, now tied back in a tight bun, blended so seamlessly with the dark wall behind her that her olive skin glowed all the clearer in contrast.
He could see her rich, full lips, unmarked with lipstick, continuously purse and relax as she studied the words. She was wilfully oblivious to the world around her, lost in another time and place and happier for it. Suddenly she formed a slight smile and her eyes widened with surprise, clearly the story was getting better!
Her simple grey tank top hung loosely over her stout, shapely figure. Her short but deceptively strong legs, clad in her favourite purple PJ bottoms, were tucked neatly under the blanket so she could rest the book upon them.
He smiled warmly, not wanting to disturb such a mundane, yet very pleasant scene. But then as she looked up for a moment to take a sip from her glass of wine, she noticed him in the doorway and beamed with delight."
It's not that hard fellas 🤣
It seems being a little wordy can be a problem?
I'm currently writing a story and one of the characters is modeled after my best friend. I think it's easier to write while thinking of men that I know. He's not perfect, but also not terrible. He has flaws and strengths and a multifaceted personality and I also think that most of the time, it's unrealistic to write men as being so openly emotional. Yes, women want men to be more open, but that's usually not the case. My character has inner thoughts that the main character can pick up on, but he does not actually speak these thoughts, unless he's overly pressured to do so.
Naomi in The Expanse, I think, is a very well-written female character by a man because of how complex she is as a person (regardless of gender). She has a troubled past, quiet, but no necessarily shy, incredibly intelligent, and often the most level-headed of the group. She's intelligent, but not dorky or nerdy. She's level-headed, but not stoic, and shows emotion when warranted. She's quiet, but not afraid to speak her mind. That's a real person. We all don't fit into archetypes, so having complexity is really important to good characterization in my opinion.
Lena Grove in William Faulkner's "Light in August" was a good female character written by a man, and Milkman Dead in Toni Morrison's "Song of Solomon" was a good male character written by a woman. By "good" I mean quality, the mastery of creating a rounded, complex character. Therein lies the issue. For complexity you need flaws as well as admirable qualities. We don't want to confuse flaws as negative representation of a gender entirely. You have to admit and allow your character to be human. We're judgmental creatures, aren't we? We can't risk a reader tossing the entire book because of a particular flaw that touches a specific, unpredictable nerve in their sensibility. In this way, a female author can be equally unfair to her main female character as a male author can be to their female characters. It's just that with a male pen the surface has to be magazine-cover pin-up perfect whereas with a female pen the perfection is more in the traits. Then again, this is popular/genre fiction, a part of the industry fully generated year after year by its female readership/consumers. I wish I could say that all the women I grew up with were all powerful, inspirational figures but that's not life and not the truth, sadly. If you truly love something you're going to notice its flaws too. That's when a work becomes literature and not just fiction.
The problem with this issue is that women assume this is all literature, but I can assure you that these things happen mostly (if not only) in novels aimed at women, and their authors do it because they know women like it.
It's like when men complain about fanservice in anime (a visual media). We're more primitive that we think we are and we often don't know what we want.
so people discovered that 98% of everything, books included, is crap. And then they sample in one direction as "proof" so that they can feel better about themselves. You included. Because, you know , they read everything so they can authoritatively say whats going on, not that they just read random things that show no picture of any sort other than what their interest and tastes are. Mkay.
"three and a half miliboobs per measure" what the heck? Where did they come up with those units? How much is a miliboob? Is that supposed to be a unit of mass or of volume?
everybody’s so creative
A lot of the modern beauty standards for women actually originated in medieval Europe. Written by men, of course. Eleanor Janega, in "The Once and Future Sex", has a chapter on the development of medieval female beauty and what inspired it.
Hester Shaw from the Mortal Engines series by Phillip Reeve is probably my favorite example of a man writing a woman as a person rather than a sex object
In the end, both of these troupes accomplish their near-sighted goals; giving the protagonist motivation. Problem is that it's lazy writing. Problem also is, not everyone who picks up these stories is looking to be shaken to their core. My point is, part of storytelling is giving the people what they want and unfortunately (for me especially, since I'm uncomfortable writing like that) this stuff is exactly what a lot of people want. My wife and her friends didn't all pick up the 50 Shades series despite the ridiculous depiction of the male lead.
I've read it ages ago and I can't account for me actually not grasping the culture of women of his era, but I generally find that Alfred de Musset does a good job on female characters.