If you’re a boy writer, it’s a simple rule: you’ve gotta get used to the fact that you suck at writing women and that the worst women writer can write a better man than the best male writer can write a good woman. And it’s just the minimum... ... you, because of your privilege, have a very distorted sense of women’s subjectivity. And without an enormous amount of assistance, you’re not even going to get a D. It’s the same way when people write about race...

Full - and very cogent - argument here:

http://ofgrammatology.tumblr.com/post/62134937653/if-youre-a-boy-writer-its-a-simple-rule-youve

Did I click on the wrong link or am I at the wrong side of a sarchasm (sic)?

If I understand the argument: "if you are an obnoxious toad, brought up with obnoxious toady expectations, then you will write like an obnoxious toad, and by the way, in case you didn't get it, all boys are obnoxious toads."

Pretty much, I think, a textbook example of extreme prejudice pointing out supernormal bigotry.

I was a bit shocked, Gaius; then I decided that Emma must definitely be joking!

Oooooh - look:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/18/noel-gallagher-fiction-waste-time

- is it National Great Thoughts Week or something?

Well, I was trailing my coat a bit, posting that link, but I do think he has a point (Diaz, not necessarily Gallagher - though I know too many people, mainly men but not by any means solely, who also think fiction is a waste of time because it's not "true".)

So I do think Diaz has a point, however over-the-top-ly he puts it - and let's not forget that he's a man himself. Maya Angelou makes the same point about being a group of black actors playing white characters (in the early 60s, I think) and being congratulated on how well they did it, compared to how dreadful white actors are at playing black characters. She puts it thus: if you're in the vulnerable, subordinate group, your survival depends on reading the minds of the people who have so much power over your existence. So you get very good at it, picking up and understand tiny signals that others miss, and acting on your understanding of how they see things - Diaz's "subjectivity". (hence, perhaps, the old saw that women are more "intuitive" - which is only another word for picking up small signals and processing them very quickly).

Whereas there's much less need for the members of a dominant group to learn to read the insides of the minds of a subordinate group: to shed the dominant group's perception of things, and replace it with the subordinate character's perception - replacing the familiar subjective experience with the unfamiliar or invisible one.

From which it follows that if you belong to a group which is culturally and historically dominant, and your subjectivity has been shaped by that, you may need to try harder - which is all Diaz is saying - that you'd think, to try to enter a different subjectivity that life has never forced you to have to enter before.

And I'd think that he's talking through his hat, were it not for the fact that I've read so many stories by men where the women are just flat shapes on the wall... And even had students who are surprised when I say that the characters may see this woman like that, but he musn't, and I suggest he goes away and writes this story in her voice and point of view, as an exercise, just to find out what it would be.

Edited by EmmaD at 13:14:00 on 19 October 2013

I was trailing my coat a bit

Not heard that phrase before. What does it mean?

Back on topic: the article suffered the same way as similarly generalising articles are prone to do from coming across as simple, ignorant prejudice. And that form of selfish dominance is a character trait not a symptom of status.

simple, ignorant prejudice

I agree with you, Gaius. I don't think he's got even the beginnings of a point. I don't even think that one can say, any more, that men are culturally dominant in UK society. And lots of male writers write absolutely fantastic and totally believable female characters.

And yes - I've never heard of trailing one's coat, either. What does it mean?

coat-trail·ing [koht-trey-ling] Show IPA noun British . behavior that is deliberately provocative. Origin: 1925–30; from the phrase trail one's coat, provoking someone to step on it

Ah.

The man is a genius writer tho'.

I'd never heard of him before, FV, but I have just looked him up and found that he's quite famous, and has won some seriously big literary prizes ... which I would never have guessed in a thousand years, just from reading that piece. Interesting. I'm quite curious to read something of his, now.

Very interesting! I'm with Emma, largely: if you're in the dominant group you just don't realise there's another worldview and it must handicap your/our writing. However, the male writers I read write brilliantly about women – maybe it's just that they're brilliant writers full stop, because I also think if you write about people properly you can nail it. Because there's lots of female writers writing about women that's nothing like my experience of being a woman – it's the individuality that's interesting to me
Must find a way of using coat trailing – especially pertinent as I have a gorgeous tailcoat which could easily be stepped on it I'm sitting down

Edited by Annecdotist at 09:35:00 on 23 October 2013