A critic made a comment that my female character sounds like she was written by a man

A useful example to consider is the case of James Tiptree, Jr, the pen name of Alice Sheldon. She wrote her stories (especially the earlier ones) from a male viewpoint, and the impersonation was so successful that Robert Silverberg referred to the theory that Tiptree was a woman as "absurd", and no less an author than Ursula LeGuin refused a contribution to an anthology on the basis that contribution was restricted to women (this was in the relatively early days of feminism).

Judgement of authorial gender is (or can be) an exceedingly tricky business. In large part, it requires playing to the preconceptions of the audience. Sometimes you can get away with putting your character into situations where "acting like a man" is the only way to survive. Soldiering/combat is probably the best example of this. The required characteristics - aggression, unflinching toughness and apparent disconnection from emotions are all survival traits under this sort of stress, so it's easier to accept this sort of behavior.

Outside of these situations, you're in muddy waters. The best advice I can give is to read widely, observe people in everyday interactions (so far as they relate to your proposed story), and think very hard about what you've seen. In general (at least in our culture) women tend to be more passive, less overtly agressive, more socially active/involved, and more concerned with emotion/feelings than men. To do otherwise is to be accused of "acting like a man". And actually acting like a man will, in many circles, get a woman labelled a bitch.

Of course, delineating these differences can be tricky, too. There is an underlying behavioral/emotional/sociological thread which, if violated, will make your writing ring false. Worse, this thread is not constant among all readers. Compare the behavior of most women nowadays with that recommended in the book "The Rules", which was very popular 20 years ago.

Good luck.

posted almost 6 years ago

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WhatRoughBeast‭

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TL;DR: Try submitting with a female pen name. If the criticism goes away, there's your answer.

This is your character and you need not bow to anybody's tropes or nuances, or notions of how or why a female is. Justify your character's actions, outlook, language, interests with sources from within your character. Formative influences from youth and later on have their place, but those go into the character, not onto the page as such. As a reader, I do not so much care what happened to your character EXCEPT as far as it helps me to understand her.

So your character herself is the seat of anything she does, and your job as the author is to selectively show the reader what makes your character tick. I dated a girl who was a sysad on a university VAX system, she ran cross-country, she climbed mountains (for fun! -- ugh!), and she knew all about the music scene, criticized movies from a logic and plot point of view, and so forth. She was all woman, too.

Make your character live! Write her in your chosen voice, and keep working on things that you agree need working on. Don't take any "you write this female like a man would" criticism unless you can source it from a blind test.

In my own creative writing classes (long ago), we had a great demonstration of the frailty of most peoples' sense of the sex of the writer through anonymous submissions. It was revealing.

Finally, even when I do think that I can tell that an author is a man or a woman, it doesn't so much come across in the way the characters stick to sex-based roles, but in the overall writing. Yet only rarely do I get a chance to really blind test this, so YMMV.

You know your character better than anybody. Make this character work on her own ground, for who she is, and keep in mind that even the most perfect author (me., no doubt) still has to lump some criticism. Write to please a committee, and your voice will not be heard.

posted almost 6 years ago

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System‭

3226 reputation 147 215 553 0

Slightly different angle from other answers...

"However because the character swears, makes pop culture references and sexually objectifies men, some critics have commented that this makes it seem that it's a female character being written by a man."

There is (to me) some kind of logical disconnect between "the character swears, makes pop culture references and sexually objectifies men" (i.e. the character behaves in a somewhat "unlady-like" fashion) and "it's a female character being written by a man".

As a somewhat "unlady-like" person myself, I don't see anything particularly problematic about the character's behaviour (sounds perfectly believable and relatable).

However, "female character being written by a man" evokes cringe-worthy memories of:

• "strong" female characters who for no particular reason opt for absurdly impractical outfits (high heels, maximum skin exposure, etc.), and can't seem to keep their clothes on for more than 5 minutes (or, in a slightly tamer version, have the narrative camera longingly lingers on all their fully-clothed lady-bits at every opportunity)

• awkwardly inaccurate depictions of basic female body functions (periods, pregnancy, child birth, etc?), and/or failure to take these into account plot-wise (e.g. unsafe sex has no consequences, not even at a psychological level, e.g. fear of unwanted pregnancy)

Sanity check: are you 100% sure the criticism is really due to the character's laddish behaviour (in which case, whatever...), and not to some of the above narrative mishaps?

I.e. how does your male gaze affect the way you talk about her female body? Does your attraction and/or lack of first-hand experience show somehow? (and if so, how much?). Conversely, maybe, being a true gentleman (and/or out of "paternal" love), your writing cautiously glosses over the fact your "female" character actually comes with a female body?

And if so, in either case... does it matter? (partly depends on the intended audience, I guess?)

Perhaps simply check how often her body is mentionned, and how? (is the reference more sexual, focusing on attractiveness, or practical? E.g. basic issues like pain, hunger, tiredness, physical comfort, etc.)

There's no clear-cut right or wrong, but you need to find a balance somewhere. In my (entirely subjective) opinion, a bit of objectification is not necessarily bad, as long as the overall humaness prevails in the end. You can contrast the two for comedic effect. E.g. sexy outfits are far less glamorous if you mention all the pre-requisite grooming involved, the subsequent blisters, etc. You can also contrast appearances and societal expectations with inner thought process. E.g. she normally prefers practical clothing, but may occasionally opt for a sexy outfit as a tactical decision (worn as "camouflage" to infiltrate a social event). You can alternate between external perspective ("phwoar!") and internal perspective (rational behind the decision, preparation required, etc.) for a well-rounded overall impression (making the gender of the author harder to guess, or at least less relevant).

More generally, alternating between different viewpoints in your narration (internal, external, through the eyes of different characters, omniscient, etc.) may help divert the reader's attention from you (the male author).

Finally... If your character's personality really is the main issue(?) here, maybe you can incorporate some of that criticism in your writing (have other characters, e.g. the antagonist, comment on her unlady-like behaviour), to show that you are aware it goes against certain societal expectations (you can also turn it on its head and make such "unlady-like behaviour" completely normal and expected in your story's setting, and paint the criticism as hopelessly old-fashioned...)

posted almost 6 years ago

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Mia‭

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Why would you want to "fix it"? The critique is absurd. If the only way to write literature would be to create female characters that MUST sound like if they were written by a woman, or male characters that MUST sound like if they were written by a man, it would be a damn shame for literature itself, since so many nuanced characters would be lost by the constant policing on how a male and female should sound in the text.

Is also a non-sensical critique, because it comes from the notion that there are only certain ways a person of a given gender can be... why on earth would we only want to read what is considered to be by certain critics a "truly whatever-gender-form" character?

All you need to worry about is if the character has true depth, if the storyline is well developed and if your story overall has a better than average artistic quality.

posted almost 6 years ago

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Darien‭

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There is a certain social image of what being a woman "means" - there are expectations both of how a woman would act, and how a woman would be treated. A particular female character is bound to engage with that image, whether she accepts it, rejects it, does something else with it. You, as a writer, cannot simply ignore that image - the image is already in the reader's mind.

What does that mean?
Before you write a particular female character, consider women's place in general in your world. Are they limited in any way by society? Are they the group that rules? Is there truly no difference between men and women in how they are treated, in what options are open to them, in what is expected of them?
Next, what character traits are considered "positive" in your world? Violence or diplomacy? Individualism or or social harmony?

You have assigned to your character behaviours that are in our world considered typically male, and typically "better", "stronger". You have sort of subconsciously decided that "strong" female character means "character who exhibits typically male behaviours", and you do not engage with that idea in any way.
Compare that to @user49466's example: the character's behaviour is understood as "typically masculine" within her society, her behaviour is compelled by the realities of her world.

There are other ways your character can engage the reader's expectations: the character's behaviour might lead to negative results, presenting "typically male" behaviours as weaker than "typically female" behaviours, whether exhibited by a male or a female character. The character might acknowledge the fact that she is very macho-man - whether this behaviour is compelled, or she just likes it that way.

There is also the way society treats your character: is she considered "stronger" because she is "manly"? Is she treated negatively because she's "not feminine"? Or are women like her as common as men like her, behaviour no longer being "typically male" or "typically female"?

There are many ways in which you can engage the gender expectations. Writing under the subconscious assumption that "strong" universally equals "manly" doesn't engage those expectations at all, instead very much intrinsically accepting them, for both men and women. Which, I guess, would be why your critic made the comment he did.

posted almost 6 years ago

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Galastel‭

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