No, I'm not knee-jerking, and I'm not alone in the observation.
"Let’s face it. Women do not get along that well in real life. Women are bitchy. They are competitive. They do not tend to LOVE one another on sight. Sure it happens. Every once in a blue moon, but the cold hard facts are that women, especially when you group them into a pack, do not all love one another and get along famously." Sharon Long, Romancing the Blog
Full post is here: http://www.romancingtheblog.com/blog/?p=671
I lived through high school, college, and office jobs. It wasn't that rare to see best friends stab each other in the back. It didn't happen all the time, but it wasn't rare. It was drama.
As to stereotyping, any time you lump large groups of people into a class together, you've participated in stereotyping. Is it a stereotype to say that men are competitive and women are social? Yes. Is it a stereotype to suggest that men are cooperative and women competitive? Yes. Is either stereotype wrong? Not always, but isn't that how many stereotypes get started?
Believe me, I didn't intend to offend. Nor was I hoping to inspire pity. But it strikes me that in your quest for redefining, or un-defining, gender roles there is a question you're not asking, or at least, not answering.
You said: "There's another sense in which this issue does matter--and matters a lot--a sense that Virginia Woolf was talking about way back when and that we (women writers in the Anglo-American tradition) still haven't really come to grips with. I write more men than women because it's easier, and it's easier because ...
"Well?
"It's easier because Anglo-American narrative traditions support and expect a male protagonist. It's easier because the things we make stories about are traditionally male things. It's easier because I imprinted on male protagonists as a child far more strongly than on female. (Little Women and Anne of Green Gables did not do it for me. Tom Sawyer did.) It's easier because I, as a reader and writer, am conditioned to think about male protagonists. Part of my mind, down near the trapdoor to the subconsious, still thinks that men are more "interesting" than women.
"For the record, this is complete and total bullshit."
You started to answer the question, then stopped yourself. The question is "Why?" Why is it easier for you to write a male narrator?
I return to my original quote from your post: "among the people I make up, a characteristic of men is that they will cooperate with the narrative. Women mostly won't. The female narrator of The Mirador was actually lying to me."
Why? Tell me I'm full of shit, that's fine. As long as you ask "Why?"
Re: Real Life?
"Let’s face it. Women do not get along that well in real life. Women are bitchy. They are competitive. They do not tend to LOVE one another on sight. Sure it happens. Every once in a blue moon, but the cold hard facts are that women, especially when you group them into a pack, do not all love one another and get along famously." Sharon Long, Romancing the Blog
Full post is here: http://www.romancingtheblog.com/blog/?p=671
I lived through high school, college, and office jobs. It wasn't that rare to see best friends stab each other in the back. It didn't happen all the time, but it wasn't rare. It was drama.
As to stereotyping, any time you lump large groups of people into a class together, you've participated in stereotyping. Is it a stereotype to say that men are competitive and women are social? Yes. Is it a stereotype to suggest that men are cooperative and women competitive? Yes. Is either stereotype wrong? Not always, but isn't that how many stereotypes get started?
Believe me, I didn't intend to offend. Nor was I hoping to inspire pity. But it strikes me that in your quest for redefining, or un-defining, gender roles there is a question you're not asking, or at least, not answering.
You said: "There's another sense in which this issue does matter--and matters a lot--a sense that Virginia Woolf was talking about way back when and that we (women writers in the Anglo-American tradition) still haven't really come to grips with. I write more men than women because it's easier, and it's easier because ...
"Well?
"It's easier because Anglo-American narrative traditions support and expect a male protagonist. It's easier because the things we make stories about are traditionally male things. It's easier because I imprinted on male protagonists as a child far more strongly than on female. (Little Women and Anne of Green Gables did not do it for me. Tom Sawyer did.) It's easier because I, as a reader and writer, am conditioned to think about male protagonists. Part of my mind, down near the trapdoor to the subconsious, still thinks that men are more "interesting" than women.
"For the record, this is complete and total bullshit."
You started to answer the question, then stopped yourself. The question is "Why?" Why is it easier for you to write a male narrator?
I return to my original quote from your post: "among the people I make up, a characteristic of men is that they will cooperate with the narrative. Women mostly won't. The female narrator of The Mirador was actually lying to me."
Why? Tell me I'm full of shit, that's fine. As long as you ask "Why?"