is it the emotional intention that all female readers look for in books? I know guys sometimes do that too.
I just think guys tend to be more shy in discussing these things. Or they don't easily use many words to describe how they 'feel'.
I am more along the lines of what GingerCoffe said. There are neurological differences between male and female brains, so there are going to be differences in male and female psychology. Yes, there are outliers, there are other influences like environment, and sure some differences might be small, but there are differences and they are part of our basic psychology. Males do generally have more grey matter - clusters of neurons that are responsible for doing the brain's calculations. Females generally have more white matter - neurons that send information to different parts of the brain. Females have a larger corpus callosum, which links the two halves of the brain together, allowing them to communicate. Females have a larger hippocamus, which is basically responsible for memory (there's a lot more to it than that but I don't have the qualifications to write a textbook on it). Males have larger amygdalas, which is generally responsible for fear reactions and aggression. So there's a stereotype that men tend to be more linear/analitical thinkers and other stereotype that women are holistic, intuitive thinkers. There's a stereotype that men are competitive and that women are collaborative. Is there any truth to that? According to brain physiology, there is. Some stereotypes exist for a reason. There are plenty of females that are aggressive, who are linear thinkers, and there are plenty of intuitive thinking males that are collaborative, like me for instance, but the general trends still exist along the lines of what we would expect. I think this is really important to understand, even if we don't agree with it. We writers are essentially creating people, and therefore creating that person's thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Psychology should be of great importance to us and sex differences in human psychology are very much a part of that. To assume that males and females are essentially the same is, in my view, a self-inflicted handicap. We should understand the differences at least, even if we are writing characters that challenge those stereotypes.
I prefer to write my characters in my own way, even if they sound unbelievable. Some stories are meant to have alternate realities that are extremely different from our own. I would like to see a world where men are like girls and women are like men. Or a world where humans evolved from dinosaurs and act weird. Although critics look for the intention in stories, some of them have their own point of view of how the story should be. Some of the girls in my class think my female character is flat and sexist. They ask me to make her realistic and remove the sexy tone. If I don't, they said I will alternate readers. I don't care about what they said. My short story is meant to aim to males who like sexy women. What kind of guy would be turned off from a hybersexual character who acts like a typical sex object. I am not insulting any female readers. I just want to make a short exotic Sci -Fi story for men. It wouldn't be fair if exotic only belongs to women. And in girl manga stories, the male characters are always feminine in unrealistic way. Men are suppose to be strong and smart. The same with women, but some male readers like exotic girls who have no pride.
Unless one really understands how the physical differences in brain activity/size effects behavior, it is safer to assume similarity than to equate those differences to arbitrary stereotypes. Although I may be wrong, I don't think theirs a man alive who truly understands this subject, and if so, that person is not me.
I agree and the degree of gender overlap suggests the same. I just wanted to point out we can take the concept of gender PC so far we ignore the fact there really are biological differences. As far as the OP question is concerned, one must also consider gender acculturation differences. In the year plus I've been going to MeetUp writer's critique groups, I have noticed a difference in how the story elements are critiqued between the genders. The technical aspects are pretty much gender neutral. But when it comes to preferences for conflict vs romance, there's definitely been a gender difference in the critiques. And these are groups with some stable members and lots of members who come and go so the sample size of reviewers has been substantial. That doesn't mean women don't like any conflict or men don't appreciate romance, like I said, the overlap is important. I'm talking about smaller, but still noticeable differences.
I come here to get away from my feminism essay, and this is the first thing I see? There's a social stigma involved with guys saying 'heavy' emotional things, that extends right down to their reaction to a book. If you say something sensitive about love and the meaning of life, your mates are either going to slowly back away or resort to homophobic slurs. It's not that the guys don't want to comment, it's that there's an instinctive block on them doing so lest some big-shot in their peer group question their masculinity.
So you think the male readers were trying to be cautious to female readers? I can understand that. In class we are suppose to analyze each students' work and give them positive comments. We can't say this word sucks or how negative this paragraph is. However I didn't like how some of the female readers stated that my time thief character is sexist. But it is just their thought.
It's not just that she mentions her body and has sex. Some may have found her sexist, since she giggles like a little girl in a serious situation and fantasizes about being tied up, in a sexual context, also while in a fairly serious situation. I think the sexist argument could be greatly curtailed by some changes in how we get to know the character. She comes across as objectifying her body -- you could show her utilizing her body to get what she wants, which is a subtle difference, but can be substantial. The story has other issues, and you've received some good responses. I suggest you ask specific questions in the thread where you posted your story if you really want to flesh out some of these issues.
I haven't read your story, but in general remember that two of the keys concerning feminist understanding is agency and penetration. Does she have complete control over herself, or is she "driven by nature." Does she giggle because that's what women do, or because she knows it presents a softer side of her that she can then use to overcome a difficulty (thus, she's in control and playing off someone else's sexism. That's agency in a nutshell). The penetration is a different issue. If she is say, breaking in to steal a priceless vase, and in the middle of the break-in where she's penetrating space (think the male sexual act of penetration), she giggles, then what you've done is negate her ability to act in the male role of penetrator because she has to revert back to the feminine gender role in the middle of the crime. That's just a scenario. Hopefully you can see what I mean by it.
I really didn't mean to insult women, but I am glad some of the female readers like my story and think of ideas of why my character is like that. If she did explain why she thinks of herself as a sex object that could reveal her past, then maybe the female readers might understand without assuming.
It's not really suprising that the girls in your class don't really like your charater. However good your plot is, if it's aimed at hormonal men then women won't enjoy it, just like you probably wouldn't enjoy reading a romance that's aimed purely at women. You obviously don't want to change it, so just try and concentrate on the opinion of the guys in your class. After all, they are your intended audience.
People are way, way too concerned with giving offence here. It shouldn't matter if an aspect of a character's personality give offence. There are aspects of people in real life that give offence, we can't neutralise them from writing - they're an integral part of each and every one of us, as well as how we perceive and interact with others. Plus I hardly see how giggling and wanting to be tied up are 'sexist.' I can't exactly give the real life example I want to (she'd kill me), but let's just say that women like that exist and we shouldn't eliminate them from writing just because someone might fail to understand the concept of 'individuality' and appoint themselves moral arbiter of an entire gender.
Doubt it. Whenever I critique something, I always look at the diction,syntax,etc. But to be honest, what critic doesn't say what sentences work and what doesn't? This is coming from a guy by the way. Based on what I read, it seems like the women in your class are more passionate about writing than the men. But that's all I can deduce from what you said in your original post.
Granted, it's okay for a reader to hate a character in fiction. I do it all the time. But it all depends on how you present the character. I read Chekhov's story,"The Lady and The Dog," and both of the main characters are having an affair with each other. I already hated them cause of the adultery, but Chekhov made them seem human instead of "people just doing things for the sake of doing them."
This isn't a very new post, but having read through it all, I can say the discussion was/is an interesting one. I cannot say that women in general critique one way and men, in general critique another. As a reader I've never considered my critique as the result of my being male unless feminism is was involved. In those cases I'd try to focus more on the grammar, style, structure, and intent of the author as oppose to how I feel about it. The reason for that is because I tend to disagree with a lot of feminist articles, or to dislike heavily feminist stories. I will say that Women, in general, tend to be more aware of their emotions and the impact a piece will have on how it makes them feel, whereas we men can critique more objectively. If the intent was to make us feel something, We either will or won't and we'll comment on it. But for me, the emotional impact will come more from the context of the work in place-- what's going on, who's involved, how are the character's impacted, how well the tension is built up in the writing. Moreover, women and men have equal potential to critique in the same fashion regarding any element of a piece, but women are more inclined to talk about how a piece makes them feel as a normal part of the critique, while men tend to leave it out unless the feeling was something prominent in their mind. Consider the Twilight Saga. There are plenty of men and women who like and dislike it for their own reasons. I will only say that from my experience, the girls who enjoyed it enjoyed it because it made them feel a certain way. They could step into Bella's position and feel the tensions and the fascination with being desired by two "incredible" guys. They could relate to Bella's feelings and overall had an emotional connection to the story. The guys who liked it enjoyed that to some degree, but were invested in the growing tension between Edward and Jacob. For those who didn't like it, much of the the problem was that they didn't care about the blank slate that was Bella or the stoic disco ball, Edward, OR the tattooed attitude, Jacob. We had no emotional investment to the story and, thus, judged it on everything else, which was less than satisfying for many of us because of the emphasis on the characters. That is why so many people say Twilight sucks. With regards to the story in question, on this thread, I can only stress the importance of how you present your character and to what audience. If she sees herself as a sort of sexual object and gives in to her passions more than modern women would like, I feel it's sort of tough luck for them. Any woman can write about a man who is promiscuous or vulgar or one who is anything but dominant in a relationship, but no one will complain that it being a sexist representation of men. Write the story and let your character be who she is; just keep in mind that she is who she is because of her life not because of what you or men want her to be-- that is, unless you're writing specifically for fantasizing young men. In that sense, it all depends on your intent.
You could go with another stereotype, and say the girls don't give the guys a chance to get a word in edgeways.
