A male's opinion

I agree with you on The Witches of Eileanean series, Jig. I read the first one a couple of years ago and I went around ordering them from overseas to find them. It wasn't anything to do with the gender of the characters really, especially since there was no sterotyping with females. There were characters from all ends of the spectrum, both genders.

So, my (probably hard to see) point is that it isn't the gender that affects my choice in reading at all. I generally have both genders in my writing, so I don't have any personal experience with it myself.

Oh, and another point which may steer males into reading books with male main characters is the teasing. I remember from one book that had a girl on the cover I got stereotyped as a homosexual by someone I'd never met and told by my friend that I had only got that book because of the girl on the cover. I assume some males would be annoyed by this and read seemingly "masculine" books.

Phindin wrote:I guess. It's kinda like reverse sexism or something.

It's actually not reverse sexism. It's just that "masculine" traits are considered "superior" to "feminine" traits. Ergo, if a female adopts "masculine" traits, she's "improving," but if a male adopts "feminine" traits, he's .. whatever the opposite of improving is. (*just woke up*) It's still discriminatory and restricting, but the sexism is still leaning in favor of "masculinity." Does that make sense?

Grif wrote:If a male protagonist has to go bath in a lake, it's no big deal. If a female character does, you feel awkward.

I'd just like to comment and say that reading about men bathing has never been awkward for me, unless it was written to be, er, you know - awkward. (This might also be linked to the media stereotype that hypersexualizes women, but not so much men. A man can be shown in his bathing suit with no racy implications, but you rarely see a woman in hers without at least a little sex appeal.)

Would anyone else care to comment on that (^).

Meep wrote:It's actually not reverse sexism. It's just that "masculine" traits are considered "superior" to "feminine" traits. Ergo, if a female adopts "masculine" traits, she's "improving," but if a male adopts "feminine" traits, he's .. whatever the opposite of improving is. (*just woke up*) It's still discriminatory and restricting, but the sexism is still leaning in favor of "masculinity." Does that make sense?

The " … or something" leaves no bounds. =P

No, but you're right. I was just too lazy to call it something else.

I'd just like to comment and say that reading about men bathing has never been awkward for me, unless it was written to be, er, you know - awkward. Wink (This might also be linked to the media stereotype that hypersexualizes women, but not so much men. A man can be shown in his bathing suit with no racy implications, but you rarely see a woman in hers without at least a little sex appeal.)

First sentence: true
Second sentence/parentheses: yes and no. Usually guys shown in their bathing suits are a distraction to the surrounding females in such media interpretations.

I think you're right in saying that a story narrated by a girl is not often a 'males' first choice. Not to say that guys don't read them, but there are so many male characters that we can relate to, so why would we need a female one? That is the dominating question. But none the less, to make a female character more accessible to a male audience you'd have to go about doing a few things:

- Don't make the character too emotional, as in, don't over girl the girl. Girls and guys really aren't that much different

- Don't put in too many scenes that deal with make-up, or shopping unless it's brief and unimportant

- Add male characters in the story, a brother a possible boyfriend (but don't over emphasise how much she likes him in monologues)

It all depends really on who your target audience is. I'm not here to prance around saying i read lots about female writers because in all honesty i don't. I read a girls allegory of her time during boarding school and it was ok, but not too great. You read should A.S Byatt. She's an english author and although i've only read a bunch of her short stories, the one i most liked involved no male characters whatsoever. And in fact, most of her stories central around female protagonists.

Barrio - so what you mean, in short, is that a female narrator should not be too "feminine." (I'm not attacking you or trying to make you sound like a bad person, just summarizing your post as I understand it.) I think this relates back to my earlier post about The Golden Compass, in which Lyra's brief phase of femininity is portrayed negatively because it holds her back from what she really wants to/should be doing.

I'm also still really curious about your opinions of books with male protagonist geared towards a female audience. (Also, are there books with female protagonists geared towards male audiences - like Tomb Raider, but in print. )

(side note: I say "masculine" and "feminine," because as I understand it "masculinity" and "femininity" are entirely socially constructed. They aren't universal or entirely natural.)

Meepster, I think he's referring to the uber-glossy girls- the type of characters that most girls don't even want to read about. In which case, I would agree. ^_~

There's something in mass media, it seems, about hypersexualizing women in the context of masculine activities. On the CSI shows, the ballistics expert is a girl on both Miami and NY (I'm not certain about Las Vegas). And on both of these shows, the men wear to work very conservative suits and ties, and the women show up in tight pants, leather boots, and cleavage-bearing blouses.

But that's another argument for another day.

Another question: what makes a book 'neuter'? Is it a balance of elements, like, per se, a little bit of gore and a little bit of romance? Or are some things simply unacceptable- shopping, or machine guns, or homosexuality? [I'm not so certain yaoi is such a big hit among mainstream high school guys.]

Hm... To the question asked at the begining of this thread. I can only think of one series where the main character is a female. The Abhorsen Trilogy by Garth Nix.

I happen to love it, I"m not sure if anyone else has heard of it but... Whatever. I happen to think its better than the Harry Potter series and 9I think) it appeals to both genders.


~Pol~

Sam, I think you have a really good point. (Dr. Cuddy comes to mind. Dr. House wears jeans, a t-shirt and a sports coat, but she wears rather low cut tops and shorter skirts. It's not as awesome as a ballistics expert, but another example of women being sexualized and men ... not so much. Interestingly, I don't think Detective Benson [in L&O:SVU] does the whole helpless/underdressed thing.)

Po, I hadn't even thought of that. (I've never actually finished reading Sabriel.) Just an interesting note, however, is that it's still called The Abhorsen Trilogy - Abhorsen is male, correct? (I'm just pointing it out, not judging.)

Often, it seems like - although the protagonists are female - the story somehow relies on a male to get it started, if that makes sense? (I'm thinking of Card Captor Sakura. Sakura is the main character, but the story relies heavily on Clow, Li and Kero-chan, all male. Sakura's best (girl) friend doesn't add to the main plot at all.)

(... and I totally had a (straight, high-school aged guy) friend read Tokyo Babylon. I wasn't yaoi, but the Seishiro/Subaru hints are pretty heavy. On that note, if I may ask, why do guys have such a hard time reading about homosexual male characters? I mean, I've never known any of my girl friends to have a problem reading about lesbians.*)

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*except one, who's a very conservative Christian - and that's a whole 'nother debate entirely

Just an interesting note, however, is that it's still called The Abhorsen Trilogy - Abhorsen is male, correct? (I'm just pointing it out, not judging.)

In the Old Kingdom series (It's often called a trilogy, but Nix has himself stated that he has another novel planned out, he's just not sure if he's going to write it) all the main characters are female, Sabriel being the Abhorsen in the first book, and I'm sure that there are mentionings of other female abhorsens down the line. I believe the Clayr are mostly female, but it's been quite a while since I last read the books.

I do recall finding the genders of the supporting characters interesting, looking back after I'd read them. The Disreputable Dog is one of the stronger ones, and is female, where as I would say that many of the male support characters tend to be weaker (I'm about 80% certain, though I really should read those books again >.>)

Thanks for the correction, Fishy. (I really oughta read those.) I misunderstood.

You know, I don't think it matters so much what the gender is of the protagonist. I don't really care one way or another if they're a girl or a boy; if the character is likeable and well-developed, and I can actually stand them, that's enough for me.

Peace, love, chocolate,
Muffin

Thought I'd add my two cents on this.

I don't care about the gender of the protagonist, if I can empathise with them then I'm comfortable reading a book. Well, I shouldn't say that, I'm extremely picky about what I read. So that's not exactly true. But if I like the character - and I have liked female protagonists before - then I really couldn't care less about gender. It's negligible to me.

But taking this discussion into account, I feel like adding a few things. Supporting characters often fill the void of the opposing gender role. Hermione from Harry Potter is a fairly obvious example and the only one I'm going to bother to give. She contributes so much, and because Harry and Ron are both male, it affords girls an alternate, relative perspective. One which they wouldn't have had if Hermione's place was taken by another male character.

Not to say that she supersedes Harry Potter as the protagonist, but I know from introspection that there are supporting characters that I get anxious to read about in some books.

Guys: what turns you off to reading a specific book? At what point is there too much "girly stuff" in it to make you not want to read (and please cite something other than the hot-pink "teen" books; they make me nauseous too), or does this seem to happen by default when there is a female protagonist?

The dilemma isn't easily solved, because the criteria of girlishness is relative to the individual reader. So the best I can do is to say that you should write however you feel is right. Just write for yourself and your characters.

EDITED THIS LINE: I'd also like to say that all this sexism and feminist talk is just c**p.

I'm sick of this ubiquitous domination of the semantics and philosophy of discrimination. Stop saying stuff like 'Not to be sexist...' Just say what you want. Honestly...

It's just ironic that racists, sexists, etc. Are some of the most hated of all in the current zeitgeist.

Guys, John Marsden, "Tomorrow When the War Began" and series etc. Female protag, but realistic teenage crap and explosions. Appeals equally to both sexes. Marsden's quite clever that way.

Katharsis wrote:Supporting characters often fill the void of the opposing gender role.

It could be argued that this in itself is sexist. The main character is male, the supporting character is female. (Hermione is outnumbered two to one in gender representation, another form of "symbolic annihilation.")
These are not my opinions on the matter; instead, they are repeated from what I have learned in class. I'm just saying that that this (main vs. supporting, 2:1 ratio) could be interpreted as sexist.

Katharsis wrote:So the best I can do is to say that you should write however you feel is right. Just write for yourself and your characters.

I don't think that was the question here. It was more of a curiosity about the other gender. (Really, there's nothing more alien than the opposite sex/gender.)

Katharsis wrote:I'd also like to say that all this sexism and feminist talk is just crap.

Are there particular arguments/posts you've seen that make you say this? If so, which ones? Please explain.

Katharsis wrote:I'm sick of this ubiquitous domination of the semantics and philosophy of discrimination.

You have quite the vocabulary, my friend. I'm willing to bet I know what you mean and how you mean it, but would you care to elaborate for the sake of discussion?

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I'm thinking about writing next semester's research paper on gender and readership and stuff like that. It's fascinating to me; please don't take any offense by my questions, I'm just trying to get some more information. (If I choose to write my paper on this, and if this discussion is acceptable material to cite, I will not use any responses without getting your permission first, so please do not worry. Nobody will be quoted or referenced or anything at all until all steps have been taken to ensure that it is A-OKAY on all fronts.)