Some of you may have seen this jokey item which has presumably been doing the rounds on the net. It is amusing, but the reason I have reproduced it below is to ask how true you all think it is? How different are men and women in what they want to read, or want to write? How much overlap is there? What do you think/what is your experience?

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(sorry about the dodgy formatting)

Remember the book "Men are from Mars, Women Are from Venus"? Here's a
prime example offered by an English professor at an American University :

"Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story.
The process is simple. Each person
will pair off with the person sitting to his or her immediate
right. One of you will then write the first
paragraph of a short story. The partner will read the first
paragraph and then add another paragraph to
the story. The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so
on back and forth. Remember to
re-read what has been written each time in order to keep the story
coherent. There is to be absolutely
NO talking and anything you wish to say must be written on the
paper. The story is over when both agree a
conclusion has been reached."

The following was actually turned in by two of my
English students: Michelle and Gary.

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THE STORY:

(first paragraph by Michelle)

At first, Laurie couldn't decide which kind of tea she
wanted. The chamomile, which used to be her favorite
for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much
of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked
chamomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep
her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if
she thought about him too much her asthma started acting
up again. So chamomile was out of the question.

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(second paragraph by Gary )

Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the
attack squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more
important things to think about than the neuroses of
an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named Laurie with whom
he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago. "A.S.
Harris to Geostation 17,???*?? He said into his transgalactic
communicator. "Polar orbit established. No sign of
resistance so far..." But before he could sign off a bluish
particle beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a hole
through his ship's cargo bay. The jolt from the direct hit
sent him flying out of his seat and across the cockpit.

-------------------------------------------------------

(Michelle)

He bumped his head and died almost immediately but not
before he felt one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing
the one woman who had ever had feelings for him. Soon
afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards
the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4. "Congress Passes Law
Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel," Laurie read
in her newspaper one morning. The news simultaneously
excited her and bored her. She stared out the window,
dreaming of her youth, when the days had passed
unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspapers to
read, no television to distract her from her sense
of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things
round her. "Why must one lose one's innocence
to become a woman?" she pondered wistfully.

------------------------------------------------------

( Gary )

Little did she know, but she had less than 10
seconds to live. Thousands of miles above the
city, the Anu'udrian mothership launched the first
of its Lithium fusion missiles. The dim-witted wimpy
peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral Aerospace
Disarmament Treaty through the congress had left
Earth a defenseless target for the hostile alien empires
who were determined to destroy the human race.
Within two hours after the passage of the treaty the
Anu'udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying
enough firepower to pulverize the entire planet.
With no one to stop them, they swiftly initiated their
diabolical plan. The lithium fusion missile entered
the atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his
top-secret Mobile submarine headquarters on the
ocean floor off the coast of Guam , felt the inconceivably
massive explosion, which vaporized poor, stupid,
Laurie and 85 million other Americans. The President
slammed his fist on the conference table. "We can't
allow this! I'm going to veto that treaty! Let's blow
'em out of the sky!"

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(Michelle)

This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of
literature. My writing partner is a violent,
chauvinistic semi-literate adolescent.

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( Gary )

Yeah? Well, you're a self-centered tedious neurotic
whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent
of Valium. "Oh shall I have chamomile tea? Or shall
I have some other sort of FUCKING TEA??? Oh no,
I'm such an air headed bimbo who reads too many
Danielle Steele novels."

-------------------------------------------------------

(Michelle)

Asshole.

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( Gary )

Bitch.

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(Michelle)

DICK!

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( Gary )

Slut.

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(Michelle)

Get fucked.

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( Gary )

Eat shit.

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(Michelle)

FUCK YOU - YOU NEANDERTHAL!!!

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( Gary )

Go drink some tea - whore.

**********************************************

(TEACHER)

A+ - I really liked this one.

Of course, not everyone can pair off with the person sitting immediately to their right. That doesn't make sense. But leaving that aside...

I think the key difference between Michelle and Gary is probably not their gender, but their lifeview and interests - not to mention their politics. But how much are their interests influenced by their gender? I don't know...

Deb

Lol, but a bit extreme. I've done that exercise in the CW class, and it wasn't that obvious which sex wrote which paragraph.

We used to do it when we were kids, and we called it Consequences. Well, okay, it was slightly different, but same general idea.

So how different do you think the reading interests of men and women are, Naomi?

Deb

<Added>

BTW it's interesting you saying that it wasn't that obvious which sex wrote which para...

I've seen this before, it's quite funny but I actually think the stereotypes aren't that true.
My husband is really prejudiced (although he denies it) against reading books by women, unless they're very definitely 'genre' stuff, like thrillers. Yet he, and every other man I know who's read my book, said they wouldn't have picked it up in a shop (due to pink cover) but they enjoyed it and related to it in a way that surprised them.
Certainly, most of the books my husband or my dad read (the only men whose reading habits I'm totally familiar with) are all ones I would be happy to read, or have read, myself, and only one male friend limits himself to purely Bravo Two Zero/ Tom Clancy-type stuff. Similarly, most female friends and family also read stuff that could be regarded as 'male' - sci-fi, thrillers etc. Although my sister does have a rule of thumb whereby she mainly limits herself to books with pastel cover designs...
So really, I think it's as much about marketing and men and women being 'told' which books are 'theirs'.
As for writing fiction - I feel strongly that men can get extra credit from emotional honesty in a way that women can't. E.g. Tony Parsons or Nick Hornby are 'brave' and 'honest' and 'thought-provoking' and 'harrowing' where a woman writing in the same way about the same subject matter will be described as 'escapism' or 'a tear-jerking romance'.

Claire, that's all very interesting, and I esp like your last para, which made me laugh, but is so true!

My husband reads boy books, and I read a variety - usually staying away from the most girlie or most boyish and opting for the transgender books (that sounds weird, but hopefully YKWIM).

Yes, I think you're right it could partly be to do with people being 'told' which books are for them. Reminds me of my husband, who won't wear pink cos he thinks it's girlie, but actually, with his colouring, he'd look great in it.

I have always fought against the idea that men and women think that differently, but I think we are on a sliding scale. Some men are very male, some women are very female, and many of us are a happy medium, with both male and female aspects to ourselves and able to relate to both.

My current WIP is quite a male story in some ways, but there's some emotional women's stuff, and I have 3 female MCs and one male MC, so I'm not sure who it's going to appeal to! <!>

Deb

I think Michelle and Gary have really been having a torrid affair but he's took the hump because she refused to dress up as a clingon and satisfy his ultimate fantasy!

Edel

LOL Edel - very funny!

LOL, Edel!

I think it's rubbish, to be honest. SOME men and women may fit that stereotype but I bet, as Naomi says, in any creative writing class it would be really hard to pick out people's gender from their writing samples. My husband can't stand macho books and loves things like Ann Tyler.

Lol, Edel.

I'm sure some men live up to the reading/writing stereotype, but all I can say is it goes out of the window when you sit them down in a group of women and pass round a writing exercise like this. My tutor used to try to guess who had written what section and invariably got it wrong. There was one young bloke writing a thriller who could write the most wonderfully romantic stuff. It's difficult to generalise.

<Added>

Come to think of it there was also a middle-aged guy who had recently got remarried after a traumatic divorce, who wrote very moving poetry. He never expressed any interest, however, in writing or reading 'womens fiction', but did like the male equivalent: lad-lit, eg, Nick Hornby.

I like to say in public that in our house, when it's my turn to choose the movie, it's Action/SF and when it's my partner's turn, it's RomCom. But if I did a survey of what we actually watch, I suspect the truth would not be quite so obvious. I like Action/SF that errs on the side of character/humour/dialogue. My partner likes romance that - well, not quite so neat as to say, errs on the side of action; but let's just say we happily join tastes with Buffy. Buffy and some RomComs which I am still too traumatised by liking to admit the names of here. I do draw the line at Brothers and Sisters, though.

Hey, while I'm in confessional mode, I just sold my first Romance story . . . although it won't be appearing under my actual name. It does have some Action in it, too. And romance. Quite a bit of romance.


Terry

This is a whole new side to you, Terry!

I'd have to wonder whether that example of a class exercise is real, or whether it's just someone parodying such a scenario? The man/woman argument, that seems to start from the first two paragraphs, just seems too stereotyped and extreme to ring true. Even the teacher's comment at the end, giving them an A+ for having an argument on paper, sounds like someone's idea of a joke.

I've never been a great believer in gender stereotypes, or even of any real difference in attitudes between men and women (other than those that have to do with biological differences). If you listen to certain media stories, or to the chattering classes, you can easily come away with the impression of a fundamental difference in mindset between men and women. But listen to ordinary people talking about subjects other than children, women, families or sport, and you'd be hard pressed to tell which gender had expressed which views.

Alex

I used to think that, Alex, but my husband has made me reassess that view. He is not very interested in people and I find him looking at photos of car brake discs on his computer. I can't imagine doing that myself, and yet I have always felt quite male for a woman.

I believe, in reality, it's a sliding scale. If you put most women between 0 and 5, with the girliest at 0 and the most androgynous at 5 (I don't mean in looks, but in attitude), and the most androgynous men at 5 and the most male men at 10, then I find that most of my friends are in the 4-6 area, and I'd say I was on 5. And I'd say it's rare to find a man in the 0-5 or a woman in the 5-10, but happens. But of course you get some people right on the edges - very girlie, or very male.

Well, this is my view anyway, inspired by a documentary which used a similar system and did various tests on men and women and evaluated them reasonably scientifically.

Deb

It's easy to pick out one example and believe that it's representative of a pattern. That's largely how stereotypes come about, and how they survive. I can't imagine looking at car brake discs on the computer, either. Or watching football on a Saturday afternoon. Or drooling over cars as if they were something other than a means of getting from A to B. Or playing darts down the pub.

Alex