Male as the assumed default.

Morag

Found this on the web, I think it explains how often male is the default and how then girls and women are 'other' which really is daft when in many countries women out number men but due to the fact women's voices were stifled for so long, be it women not allow into colleges, in professions or as writers (all the Bronte sisters books were published under male names for years) and how that then plays into how women an id with men as a protagonist but men have an issue iding with women.



http://voodoohamster.tumblr.com/post/7504756455/dogs-and-smurfs-why-women-writers-and-stories-about

This has been a great year for male writers, with women shunted aside for major prizes and all-new hand-wringing about why it is so. Because, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but male writers get taken more seriously. Also, stories about men, even if written by women, are considered mainstream, while stories about women are “women’s fiction.” This despite the fact that women read more than men, and write more, and are over-represented generally throughout publishing.

As the father of two girls, one aged five and one ten months, I know why. It’s because of dogs and Smurfs. I can’t understand why no-one else realizes this. I see these knotted-brow articles and the writers seem truly perplexed. Dogs and Smurfs: that’s the answer.

Let me walk you through it. We’ll start with dogs. I have written about this before, but to save you the click: people assume dogs are male. Listen out for it: you will find it’s true. To short-cut the process, visit the zoo, because when I say “dogs,” I really mean, “all animals except maybe cats.” The air of a zoo teems with “he.” I have stood in front of baboons with teats like missile launchers and heard adults exclaim to their children, “Look at him!” Once I saw an unsuspecting monkey taken from behind and there was a surprised silence from the crowd and then someone made a joke about sodomy. People assume animals are male. If you haven’t already noticed this, it’s only because it’s so pervasive. We also assume people are male, unless they’re doing something particularly feminine; you’ll usually say “him” about an unseen car driver, for example. But it’s ubiquitous in regard to animals.

Now, kids like animals. Kids really ****ing like animals. Kids are little animal stalkers, fascinated by absolutely anything an animal does. They read books about animals. I just went through my daughter’s bookshelves, and they all have animals on the cover. Animals everywhere. And because publishing is terribly progressive, and because Jen and I look out for it, a lot of those animals are girls. But still: a ton of boys. Because of the assumption.

Here’s an example: a truly great kids’ book is Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers. I love this story, but on page 22, after being called “it” three times, an otherwise sexless penguin twice becomes “he.” This would never, ever happen the other way around. The only reason a penguin can abruptly become male in an acclaimed children’s book without anybody noticing is because we had already assumed it was.

Then you’ve got Smurf books. Not actual Smurfs. I mean stories where there are five major characters, and one is brave and one is smart and one is grumpy and one keeps rats for pets and one is a girl. Smurfs, right? Because there was Handy Smurf and Chef Smurf and Dopey Smurf and Painter Smurf and ninety-four other male Smurfs and Smurfette. Smurfette’s unique personality trait was femaleness. That was the thing she did better than anyone else. Be a girl.

Smurf books are not as common as they used to be, but Smurf stories are, oddly, everywhere on the screen. Pixar makes practically nothing else. I am so disappointed by this, because they make almost every kids’ film worth watching. WALL-E is good. I will grant them WALL-E, because Eve is so awesome. But otherwise: lots of Smurfs.

Male is default. That’s what you learn from a world of boy dogs and Smurf stories. My daughter has no problem with this. She reads these books the way they were intended: not about boys, exactly, but about people who happen to be boys. After years of such books, my daughter can happily identify with these characters.

And this is great. It’s the reason she will grow into a woman who can happily read a novel about men, or watch a movie in which men do all the most interesting things, without feeling like she can’t relate. She will process these stories as being primarily not about males but about human beings.

Except it’s not happening the other way. The five-year-old boy who lives up the street from me does not have a shelf groaning with stories about girl animals. Because you have to seek those books out, and as the parent of a boy, why would you? There are so many great books about boys to which he can relate directly. Smurf stories must make perfect sense to him: all the characters with this one weird personality trait to distinguish them, like being super brave or smart or frightened or a girl.

I have been told that this is a good thing for girls. “That makes girls more special,” said this person, who I wanted to punch in the face. That’s the problem. Being female should not be special. It should be normal. It is normal, in the real world. There are all kinds of girls. There are all kinds of women. You just wouldn’t think so, if you only paid attention to dogs and Smurfs.

Is it the positive role model thing? Because I don’t want only positive female role models. I want the spectrum. Angry girls, happy girls, mean girls. Lazy girls. Girls who lie and girls who hit people and do the wrong thing sometimes. I’m pretty sure my daughters can figure out for themselves which personality aspects they should emulate, if only they see the diversity.

It’s not like this is hard. Dogs and Smurfs: we’re not talking about searing journeys to the depths of the soul. An elephant whose primary story purpose is to steal some berries does not have to be male. Not every time. Characters can be girls just because they happen to be girls.

P.S. Don’t talk to me about Sassette. Sassette was like the three millionth Smurf invented. You get no credit for that.

TL:DR try this youtube instead :P

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NKXNThJ610

gargleblaster

That's brilliant. Sums it right up, doesn't it? Not that some variation on this theme hasn't been said countless times before, but he puts it very well, putting it in terms of dogs and smurfs.

Morag

I don't think that is it a Man (and father) say it which gives it more weight at all,
I do think it is nice to see a father noticing and seeing it in action and how it may impact on his daughter and indeed his son if he has one or goes on to have one.

The more people who are aware of it then the greater chances are that it will change.

FTGFOP

Interesting article. Brontësaurus made me lol.


(Hope that's not too AH-y to say.)

gargleblaster

Sharrow wrote: »

I don't think that is it a Man (and father) say it which gives it more weight at all,
I do think it is nice to see a father noticing and seeing it in action and how it may impact on his daughter and indeed his son if he has one or goes on to have one.

The more people who are aware of it then the greater chances are that it will change.

I was joking (hence the ). But I edited that out as I didn't want to arouse any hostility with my joke.

krudler

ppfffft, rubbish article.

All Smurfs are male, Smurfette was created by Gargamel to be an evil Smurf and then Papa Smurf turned her good and into a real Smurf.

If you're gonna nitpick, do it right

Morag

krudler wrote: »

ppfffft, rubbish article.

All Smurfs are male, Smurfette was created by Gargamel to be an evil Smurf and then Papa Smurf turned her good and into a real Smurf.

If you're gonna nitpick, do it right

Which just re enforces the point of woman as 'other' 'wrong' 'disruptive'
which many women get made to feel online or in work places with an inherent male culture.

Once Surfette was 'made' into a real smurf the stories/adventures still continue and the point still holds out, that male is default and varies but that female is 'other' there is no range of female characters and her specialness is being female and a particular type the femme fatal.

WindSock

Good article and just goes to show how women and girls usually take a secondary stance in society. When the word person is said, the general image is a man.

Look at any or most films (not porn) that has more women in it than men, or are aimed at women more, they are immediately bundled into the 'chickflick' box, whereas the opposite would be considered more 'mainstream'
Look at the thread in AH for example.
Anything that contains women is usually derided as pure fantastical drivel...never the same for the opposite though, in fact it is often celebrated.



I really like the end bit where stories can just as easily cast female characters as being anything else other than 'the girl in the story'

And yeah...because girls are more 'special' :rolleyes: No wonder there are problems with pedestal placing for some people...

NomdePlume

It's interesting.

Maybe languages are to blame, in a way, and not much can be done about them.

Look up any adjective in your French/Spanish/Whatever dictionary, and the masculine form is the one given first. And necessarily so, since the root form is invariably the masculine form. You have to learn the male form before the female.

There's no agenda there; but it does lend a major sense of normalcy to the treatment of maleness as default, classic, essence; and female as variant.

krudler

Religion may have something to do with it as well, Adam was created first then Eve. and it was Eve who ate the apple and caused Man to be cast out of paradise, women have always been the source of trouble according to the bible anyway, save for a select few. that troublesome little book has a lot to answer for in todays world..

Morag

Ah but it's not completely the fault of Judaic religions, western philosophy and medicine has it's roots in ancient Greece and you can't say they were under the influence of the books of Moses. Modern medicine still works of the premise of a woman being a man with bits missing and extra stuff inside and it's only in the last 50 years or so that is slowly changing.

So culturally in we have societies where male is the default and that is played out and re enforce in many of the expressions of culture. Video games maybe new but they tell stories and those stories are the same as the films, plays and novels before them in which the protagonist is male and the female is 'other'.

Yes there are exceptions, Ripley in Alien, the script was never revised when the role was cast as female and Josh Wedon's work but again considering how close to 50|50 most western countries are
male as default is still very much prevalent.

krudler

Its interesting how the article mentions Pixar movies, which do have a lot of central female characters, but a lot of characters that could either be male or female as well.Like take Finding Nemo, it could have easily been about a mother searching for her lost daughter, with Dory as a wacky male character instead of the way it is now and it would have essentially been the same movie.

seenitall

This thread reminded me of something I've heard of back home, years ago.

I have a (female) friend who went to a technological/engineering third-level institution (therefore male dominated). They have a club on-campus where they have drinks, play chess, watch films together and similar.

Her story was: one day a group of them sat down together to watch one of those fantasy/faux-historical action films in the vein of Highlander, Conan the Barbarian etc. I regret I can't remember the name of the film, but according to her, anyway, the narration began with the mention of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (as it would ): Pestilence, War, Famine and Death.

Now, the film/programme was subtitled, translated from English, and the actual translator was appaling, i.e. likely had never heard of the Four Horsemen and made a funny but telling mistake of translating "Famine" as if it read "Feminine", which somehow turned into "Females" at the end of that translation process.:(

The subtitles on screen, below the image of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, thus read (in my language): Pestilence, War, Females and Death. But the punchline to the story is that, according to my friend, none of the guys in the room made a sound or indicated in any way that they found anything a bit odd or funny in there. That image coupled with that translation appeared to be completely normal and straightforward to them.

Make of it what you will. I couldn't help laughing!

beegirl

krudler wrote: »

ppfffft, rubbish article.

All Smurfs are male, Smurfette was created by Gargamel to be an evil Smurf and then Papa Smurf turned her good and into a real Smurf.

If you're gonna nitpick, do it right

Thanks donnie darko ;-)


great article!

Morag

Another example of this was the song Endless Art by A House.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endless_Art

The song lyrics begin with the line "All art is quite useless according to Oscar Wilde" and for their remainder are mostly a list of the names and birth and death dates of artists from various fields, with the chorus remark: "all dead but still alive, in endless time and endless art". This "list" style of song is characteristic of many of Dave Couse's songs. Melodically, the song features a quotation from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony at the chorus.

For the first appearance of the song on Bingo, the band received some criticism for the fact that the artists listed in the song are all male, so they recorded a second version where all the artists are female.

This is the version called "More Endless Art". In "More Endless Art", the melodic quoatation from Beethoven is substituted with one from Carl Orff, who, it might be quibbled, is not a woman, while the substitution of "Walt Disney's Minnie Mouse" for his Mickey Mouse may not quite right the gender balance either. Still, "More Endless Art" was better than a defence Dave Couse had offered in interviews, that the band had thought that Joan Miró was a woman.

It is good that the second one was written and recorded but it's shame that women were just not included as default in the first one.

Endless Art.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwvV_WajG4k

More Endless Art

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyBWXb2b9ho

krudler

beegirl wrote: »

Thanks donnie darko ;-)


great article!

Donnie Darko nuthing, child of the 80's :P

WindSock

Sharrow wrote: »

Ah but it's not completely the fault of Judaic religions, western philosophy and medicine has it's roots in ancient Greece and you can't say they were under the influence of the books of Moses. Modern medicine still works of the premise of a woman being a man with bits missing and extra stuff inside and it's only in the last 50 years or so that is slowly changing.

Yeah, that reminds me of the 'Bodies' exhibition I saw in Barcelona a few years ago. All the bodies were male, there were quite a few, I can't remember how many now. They only used a female to show the reproductive parts.

'Typical' I tut tutted as I made my way around the foetus department.

metrovelvet

This is news?

Its been theorised since the 1970s that women are particularised.

Let's do the time warp again.

Bottle_of_Smoke

The animal thing is very interesting. My hypothesis:

Humans view other animals through the context of how they view other humans.

Humans are very visual. It is immediately obvious whether a human is male or female. Body shape very different. Fashion very different. Hairstlyes very different

Other animals are not visual. Take dogs as he mentioned. Humans can't tell their gender without checking under their legs. They don't need to look different to each other because they are not as visual as us. They tell by smell.

Then take big cats in the zoo. Tigers of both sexes look the same. Leopards look the same. Lions go a step further. The females remind us of a man with a tight haircut. The males look like they have long hair! This theme of flamboyant looking males is repeated constantly in nature - particularly among reptiles and birds.

He mentioned baboons - whilst they may have teets they don't look like human boobs.

Therefore I think he was wrong about the crowd reaction to monkeys having sex. The crowd didn't joke about sodomy because the assumed gender is male. They joked because monkeys of either gender both look male to us

That's why I don't like the tone of the article. It has a real "something should be done" feel to it. What could this "something" be? Women should all cut their hair short? push up bras and miniskirts for female chimps?

Its not all bad though. Excellent points about male character dominated cartoons. Though once again capitalism rears its ugly head. If male dominated cartoons get more ratings cartoons will remain male dominated. There's no doubt some TV producers have tried it the other way but we don't know about them because they haven't been as successful.

Morag

metrovelvet wrote: »

This is news?

Its been theorised since the 1970s that women are particularised.

Let's do the time warp again.

As constructive as ever I see Metro.

Just because a concept or notion is not new to you that does not mean it is not new to other or does not merit discussion. I think it is pretty pertinent esp in terms of male being the default on this site.

Morag

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

That's why I don't like the tone of the article. It has a real "something should be done" feel to it. What could this "something" be? Women should all cut their hair short? push up bras and miniskirts for female chimps?

Its not all bad though. Excellent points about male character dominated cartoons. Though once again capitalism rears its ugly head. If male dominated cartoons get more ratings cartoons will remain male dominated. There's no doubt some TV producers have tried it the other way but we don't know about them because they haven't been as successful.

What can be done?

Well we can think about it and examine our own reactions and assumptions,
and look at ways to change that for the next generations.

Bottle_of_Smoke

Sharrow wrote: »

What can be done?

Well we can think about it and examine our own reactions and assumptions,
and look at ways to change that for the next generations.

I meant that purely in the context I'd set about the general animal point. The two paragraphs you quoted are not connected. On the overall topic I completely agree we should examine our reactions and assumptions with a view to further generations

pickarooney

A lot of it is language-based and often results in some weird mix-ups in translation.

In English, although virtually nobody sticks to them, the rules require for words like 'everyone' to take a male possessive pronoun. In Latin languages, plural pronouns default to male as soon as there is one man in a group of thousands of women. On the other hand, the word for 'person' is feminine in most of these languages and thus when speaking about a person unknown 'she' must be used.

Just to give a couple of random examples of where it gets confusing. In English, many animals are male default and there is a separate word for the female of the species (dog-bitch, pig-sow...) while a select few are female default (cat-tom, cow-bull...) and the rest have both a gender-neutral umbrella term with specifics for each sex (horse:mare/stallion, swan:cob/pen...).

In French, for example, most animals are male unless feminised. There are some exceptions, but don't ask me how they came about. We have two female cats - when using their names, everything is feminine ("X didn't finish her dinner, she must have been chasing birds again") but if their names are not used, they default to male ("the cat knocked over his bowl; he's so clumsy").

My son has a mole teddy-bear. He features in a lot of films where has a girlfriend and a couple of friends who are ostensibly male (those friends have wives and kids). I've always used 'he' and 'him' although the mole has no discernible sexual organs and doesn't speak. Moles are female in French and ever since he's first heard the word he's decided that the mole is a girl. We've had this ridiculous argument over and over with both of us basing our assumption on the flimsiest of reasons (me, that although his girlfriend is of a different species, he's still likely to be heterosexual), him, that she takes a feminine article).

Dumb as it sounds, it took something like this to make me reconsider how and why I presume asexual characters are male and why the stories I tell to my son and daughter tend to feature predominantly male humans and animals. I still don't know, but maybe it's about time I came up with some girl-based stories. On the one hand I think it's important for the sake of balance but on the other I don't want to alter the essence of the characters just to make them female and at the end of the day all that will change will be a few pronouns.

I think I'll change the sex of Anansi the spider and see do they notice (spiders are female-default in French anyway!)

Wibbs

Sharrow wrote: »

Modern medicine still works of the premise of a woman being a man with bits missing and extra stuff inside.

Even odder when you consider that all foetuses start out as externally female, only some later changing into males. Men are rejigged women basically, hence the vestigial nipples.

iguana

Wibbs wrote: »

Even odder when you consider that all foetuses start out as externally female, only some later changing into males. Men are rejigged women basically, hence the vestigial nipples.

Only because their extremities haven't grown yet. The gender of a fetus begins at conception depending on whether the sperm was X or Y.

Wibbs

Of course they are(except in rare intersex and other cases), but the basic design is "female" at the start was my point.

Morag

There are women who were born women who have had kids who are XY.
The Y chromosome at a certain stage of development is meant to create a bio chemical trigger so that the developing baby starts to divide cells to create boy parts. Some times this fails to happen and so the developing baby keeps going and turns out to be a girl. It's medical fact, nothing is as simple or a black and white when it comes to biology and gender as people like to think.


But that doesn't really tie into why the narrative of our culture is over overwhelmingly male. It's not that we don't women authors, artists, composers, inventors, scientists, it just seems that for years they were written out, maybe as they were unseemly and would be a bad example to other women and young girls who might aspire to be like them.

iguana

Sharrow wrote: »

It's not that we don't women authors, artists, composers, inventors, scientists, it just seems that for years they were written out, maybe as they were unseemly and would be a bad example to other women and young girls who might aspire to be like them.

One thing in the above article that has annoyed me for years is the "chicklit" thing. Imo chicklit books are generally about female protagonists who love shopping and cocktails with their girlie friends, plus the one straight male who is their token "girlfriend." She embarks with on a love affair with a deeply unsuitable man before realising that her male friend is actually the love of her life. Along the way she will also have a career adventure to show that she is a modern woman. There are variations on the theme, it may be her existing boyfriend who is unsuitable, or even a cheating husband who leaves her in the lurch with her adorable but exhausting kiddies, it may be the guy she hates who she realises she loves, etc. But they are basically fluffy novels that you pretty much know the end of before you start.

Yet there are a huge amount of books that are defined as chicklit which are about much more complicated subjects. For example, Jodi Picoult's books are often called chicklit, but her stories are usually about suicide, rape, murder, terminal illness, etc (and pretty much always, a legal trial of some sort). I don't particularly like her books, I always find them less way interesting than the blurbs make them sound. (I hate that they descend into a trial, as that removes the moral dilemma from the protagonists which always strikes me as a cop out.) But I hate that they get lumped into the same category as books like Secret Diary of a Shopaholic just because they are both books by women about women.

Wibbs

Sharrow wrote: »

There are women who were born women who have had kids who are XY.

Linkeh S? AFAIR all XY women while identifying as and being women are infertile.

But that doesn't really tie into why the narrative of our culture is over overwhelmingly male.

I'd blame the move to farming 10,000 years ago. Along with that comes notions of property and defence and handing on of same. Physical strength is much more at play. The physically strong are best placed to defend and increase boundaries. Ergo men, or certain men would control more resources. Resource heavy males would be lauded and selected by more women increasing the effect. The wealth of equal experience in gender roles in the previous tribal types would be skewed more to the male side in the farmer. This would also bring along concepts like valuing virginity and all that stuff in women because of paternity. A concept valued in previous tribal societies, but not nearly so much when property and lineage suddenly becomes far more important. Now some societies(EG celtic) had the lineage running down the female side at times, but that can be argued as a way of keeping the sons on their toes. Marriage as a method to increase resources comes into play as well and women and the resources and alliances they bring with them become more of a commodity(dowries and the like). Fertility and fecundity becomes more important too. While it's important in previous societies, with the advent of farming and the need for labour and defence and care in old age(the tribe would've taken care of that before) and the excess food to be able to feed them women become more valued for the ability to have many kids. Barefoot and pregnant time.

All this makes the society more patriarchal which in turn kicks off a feedback loop making it more patriarchal again. Male = highly valued. Which then means women have to be or are percieved as acting male if they excel in whatever field, or indeed overtly apologise for their sex. Lizzy the first of England "I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king." Hatshepsut of Egypt another strong woman(and very well liked Pharaoh) some of whose statues even have a false beard attached. Her cartouche is often "male". Though she was well regarded their heads couldn't quite get around the concept.

So yea next time you eat a loaf of bread or boil some spuds that's for me anyway is where a lot of it started.

Morag

While it may have come from agri culture, we have had the industrial revolution which meant we had jobs either gender could do, or some which women were preferred for like the textile industry due, with that game a greater chance for independence and education for women but that was over a 100 years ago.

Yes I would like to think that western societies narrative is slowly changing but, we are not at the tipping point yet and the concept of male as default is one of the things stopping it and for the post part it is ubiquitous and unquestioned.

iguana the label of Chicklit drives me bonkers. It's being used to sideline stories written about women's experiences. Which are still seen as 'other' and not part of the over all human experience or not an important part of the human experience.

metrovelvet

Im not a history guru so I cant join the dots timewise. However, while I know farming had a lot to do with the establishment of patriarchy and patrilinear descent, etc, most of the lit and narratives we are taught in school and are passed down have male protganists. Greek and Irish mythologies had a good mix match, but even with the Greeks the epic tales were of the male heroic model, and that has saturated the western narrative ever since, and why we have a particularised genre called 'women's lit' or 'clit lit' as its also known. We are of course not Adam, but his rib.

What feotal, baby or as is accepted in the LL lounge, clump of cells development has to do with this topic is beyond me.

We dont have women greats composers and authors, because half the population has been stuck in kitchens for most of their lives through the centuries. That, and art at that level takes a certain predatoryness [I CAN DO THAT!] and that is most unladylike.

strobe

metrovelvet wrote: »

Im not a history guru so I cant join the dots timewise. However, while I know farming had a lot to do with the establishment of patriarchy and patrilinear descent, etc, most of the lit and narratives we are taught in school and are passed down have male protagonists.

Maybe it's to do with the fact that traditionally men were the ones with the cash and therefore it made fiscal sense for writers to use male protagonists as their main customers would be more likely to buy a book featuring lead characters they would be more likely to identify with?

Wibbs

metrovelvet wrote: »

Greek and Irish mythologies had a good mix match, but even with the Greeks the epic tales were of the male heroic model,

yep, while the Greeks had godesses prancing about in the tales of ordinary people, even royalty women get little of a look in compared to the men. Helen of Troy may be famous through the centuries but in the tale itself she's very one dimensional indeed. To be fair to the Irish epics, women ordinary women are far more in evidence and have far more of a voice than the vast majority of classical literature. In the epic of The Tain, queen Meabh like Helen kicks off a war and the story, but unlike Helen it's all of her doing and she's got a helluva voice running through the narrative. It opens up and starts off with her and her husband the king reckoning he's brought the best parts to the marriage. Followed by her listing why he's talking through his bottom and doing a very good job of chopping his nuts off while she's at it.

We dont have women greats composers and authors, because half the population has been stuck in kitchens for most of their lives through the centuries. That, and art at that level takes a certain predatoryness [I CAN DO THAT!] and that is most unladylike.

On the first part one could argue that most of the other half were labouring or fighting, so it was really only ever the upper classes had the wherewithal to be artists. On the second part I'd somewhat agree alright. I'd add having children to the kitchen equation. Great artists and scientists can often be singleminded and abhor any distractions. Being pretty much the sole maintainer of children seriously cut into womens time to be so singleminded. Then there's the notion that some art in men springs from the fact they can't give life themselves so that need to give birth gives birth to art and science, but art in particular as a way to keep their name alive after they're gone. Their may be something to that.

metrovelvet

I read Helen as more of a plot device than a protgonist than heroine. OK I love the Greeks but I have to say, Homer really took the piss with Penelope hanging around faithfully for 40 years while her husband wanders the seas and has his little adventures. That seems to be what a lot of fictional women do, they wait.

Totally agree about the kids part, and kind of meant that in the kitchen comment, as well as the single mindedness of the big great artists. On the subject of male creativity, Margaret Mead gave a very interesting lecture about this, still stored in audio libraries, will try to think of where I found it.

southsiderosie

Is it the positive role model thing? Because I don’t want only positive female role models. I want the spectrum. Angry girls, happy girls, mean girls. Lazy girls. Girls who lie and girls who hit people and do the wrong thing sometimes. I’m pretty sure my daughters can figure out for themselves which personality aspects they should emulate, if only they see the diversity.

It’s not like this is hard. Dogs and Smurfs: we’re not talking about searing journeys to the depths of the soul. An elephant whose primary story purpose is to steal some berries does not have to be male. Not every time. Characters can be girls just because they happen to be girls.

Well an interesting case in children's literature is the success of the (female-authored) Harry Potter books. There are loads of female characters (some good, many bad), one of the main protagonists is female, hell, even some of the best quiddich players were girls...but they aren't seen as 'girl' books.

Granted I'm not trying to refute the argument based on a single case, but the popularity of those books among both boys and girls (and grownups) suggests that male readers are willing to pick up a book that a) is written by a woman and b) with strong female characters. Perhaps things would have been different if the main character was Henrietta Potter rather than Harry Potter (which is what the original article would suggest)...but I'm not so sure.

iguana

southsiderosie wrote: »

Perhaps things would have been different if the main character was Henrietta Potter rather than Harry Potter (which is what the original article would suggest)...but I'm not so sure.

I think that would have made an enormous difference and I suspect that Joanne Rowling possibly thought the same.

JamJamJamJam

I've always found that maths problems feature a pretty equal share of males and females.

However, it always reminds me that I myself seem to assume that the character will be male. For instance when the question reads "An athlete runs at the speed of light (:p) for 2 minutes. She then runs at 2 km/hr for another 2 minutes.. (blah blah blah)", I notice it as somehow surprising or unusual that the athlete is female. If it was a male I would take no notice. This isn't something I'd ever dwelled on much. I just assumed that, since I am a guy, I would be more likely to expect a male character (I don't know how I came to this conclusion), and that girls would assume the opposite. But now that I think of it, I shouldn't have any reason to make such an assumption.




Good thread. Once again, my eyes have been opened: :eek:

krudler

southsiderosie wrote: »

Well an interesting case in children's literature is the success of the (female-authored) Harry Potter books. There are loads of female characters (some good, many bad), one of the main protagonists is female, hell, even some of the best quiddich players were girls...but they aren't seen as 'girl' books.

Granted I'm not trying to refute the argument based on a single case, but the popularity of those books among both boys and girls (and grownups) suggests that male readers are willing to pick up a book that a) is written by a woman and b) with strong female characters. Perhaps things would have been different if the main character was Henrietta Potter rather than Harry Potter (which is what the original article would suggest)...but I'm not so sure.

They put Rowlings name as JK to not make it so obvious she was a woman though.

I used to read Roald Dahl's books a lot when I was a kid and he wrote books with female lead characters and it never mattered to me a bit, Matilda, The Twits, The BFG, all have girls as the main character.

Stheno

Wibbs wrote: »

I'd blame the move to farming 10,000 years ago.

Helen Fisher an anthropologist who has done a lot of work in this are agrees with you

Interesting article imo (I'm a bit of a Helen Fisher fan, first came across her in the old testosterone debate). In another of her writings she cites the advent of tools as being a reason for the gender divide that society has developed.

Marriage has changed more in the past 100 years than it has in the past 10,000, and it could change more in the next 20 years than in the last 100. We are rapidly shedding traditions that emerged with the Agricultural Revolution and returning to patterns of sex, romance, and attachment that evolved on the grasslands of Africa millions of years ago.

Let’s look at virginity at marriage, arranged marriages, the concept that men should be the sole family breadwinners, the credo that a woman’s place is in the home, the double standard for adultery, and the concepts of “honor thy husband” and “til death do us part.” These beliefs are vanishing. Instead, children are expressing their sexuality. “Hooking up” (the new term for a one-night stand) is becoming commonplace, along with living together, bearing children out of wedlock, women-headed households, interracial marriages, homosexual weddings, commuter marriages between individuals who live apart, childless marriages, betrothals between older women and younger men, and small families.

Our concept of infidelity is changing. Some married couples agree to have brief sexual encounters when they travel separately; others sustain long-term adulterous relationships with the approval of a spouse. Even our concept of divorce is shifting. Divorce used to be considered a sign of failure; today it is often deemed the first step toward true happiness.

These trends aren’t new. Anthropologists have many clues to life among our forebears; the dead do speak. A million years ago, children were most likely experimenting with sex and love by age six. Teens lived together, in relationships known as “trial marriages.” Men and women chose their partners for themselves. Many were unfaithful—a propensity common in all 42 extant cultures I have examined. When our forebears found themselves in an unhappy partnership, these ancients walked out. A million years ago, anthropologists suspect, most men and women had two or three long-term partners across their lifetimes. All these primordial habits are returning.

But the most profound trend forward to the past is the rise of what sociologists call the companionate, symmetrical, or peer marriage: marriage between equals. Women in much of the world are regaining the economic power they enjoyed for millennia. Ancestral women left camp almost daily to gather fruits, nuts, and vegetables, returning with 60% to 80% of the evening meal. In the hunting and gathering societies of our past, women worked outside the home; the double-income family was the rule, and women were just as economically, sexually, and socially powerful as men. Today, we are returning to this lifeway, leaving in the “dustbin of history” the traditional, male-headed, patriarchal family—the bastion of agrarian society.

This massive change will challenge many of our social traditions, institutions, and policies in the next 20 years. Perhaps we will see wedding licenses with an expiration date. Companies may have to reconsider how they distribute pension benefits. Words like marriage, family, adultery, and divorce are likely to take on a variety of meanings. We may invent some new kinship terms. Who pays for dinner will shift. Matriliny may become common as more children trace their descent through their mother.

All sorts of industries are already booming as spin-offs of our tendencies to marry later, then divorce and remarry. Among these are Internet dating services, marital mediators, artists who airbrush faces out of family albums, divorce support groups, couples therapists, and self-improvement books. As behavioral geneticists begin to pinpoint the biology of such seemingly amorphous traits as curiosity, cautiousness, political orientation, and religiosity, the rich may soon create designer babies.

For every trend there is a countertrend, of course. Religious traditions are impeding the rise of women in some societies. In countries where there are far more men than women, due to female infanticide, women are likely to become coveted—and cloistered. The aging world population may cling to outmoded social values, and population surges and declines will affect our attitudes toward family life.

Adding to this mix will be everything we are learning about the biology of relationships. We now know that kissing a long-term partner reduces cortisol, the stress hormone. Certain genes in the vasopressin system predispose men to make less-stable partnerships. My colleagues and I have discovered that the feeling of romantic love is associated with the brain’s dopamine system—the system for wanting. Moreover, we have found that romantic rejection activates brain regions associated with profound addiction. Scientists even know some of the payoffs of “hooking up.” Casual sex can trigger the brain systems for romantic love and/or feelings of deep attachment. In a study led by anthropologist Justin Garcia, some 50% of men and women reported that they initiated a hook up in order to trigger a longer partnership; indeed, almost a third of them succeeded.

What will we do with all these data? One forward-thinking company has begun to bottle what our forebears would have called “love magic.” They sell Liquid Trust, a perfume that contains oxytocin, the natural brain chemical that, when sniffed, triggers feelings of trust and attachment.

We are living in a sea of social and technological currents that are likely to reshape our family lives. But much will remain the same. To bond is human. The drives to fall in love and form an attachment to a mate are deeply embedded in the human brain. Indeed, in a study I just completed on 2,171 individuals (1,198 men, 973 women) at the Internet dating site Chemistry.com, 84% of participants said they wanted to marry at some point. They will. Today, 84% of Americans wed by age 40—albeit making different kinds of marriages. Moreover, with the expansion of the roles of both women and men, with the new medical aids to sex and romance (such as Viagra and estrogen replacement), with our longer life spans, and with the growing social acceptance of alternative ways to bond, I believe we now have the time and tools to make more-fulfilling partnerships than at any time in human evolution. The time to love is now.

Logical Fallacy

krudler wrote: »

They put Rowlings name as JK to not make it so obvious she was a woman though.

That is definitely part of it. There is also the midly elitist side of things as well.

If J.R.R was good enough for Tolkien.

And H.P was good enough for Lovecraft etc etc

goose2005

This has been a great year for male writers, with women shunted aside for major prizes and all-new hand-wringing about why it is so. Because, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but male writers get taken more seriously. Also, stories about men, even if written by women, are considered mainstream, while stories about women are “women’s fiction.” This despite the fact that women read more than men, and write more, and are over-represented generally throughout publishing.

tbh this is a very questionable opening. Among recent Booker winners, The Gathering, the Inheritance of Loss, and the Blind Assassin all had female protagonists, and women have won 3 of the last 5 awards.

As for all dogs being stereotyped as males, I think it's because dogs have stereotypically male characteristics - they're active, energetic, etc. In my experience, birds and cats are often called "she" even when gender is unknown - I can even recall someone calling a peacock "she" because in humans, ornamentation is a female thing.

Wibbs wrote: »

Linkeh S? AFAIR all XY women while identifying as and being women are infertile.

I'd blame the move to farming 10,000 years ago. Along with that comes notions of property and defence and handing on of same. Physical strength is much more at play. The physically strong are best placed to defend and increase boundaries. Ergo men, or certain men would control more resources. Resource heavy males would be lauded and selected by more women increasing the effect. The wealth of equal experience in gender roles in the previous tribal types would be skewed more to the male side in the farmer. This would also bring along concepts like valuing virginity and all that stuff in women because of paternity. A concept valued in previous tribal societies, but not nearly so much when property and lineage suddenly becomes far more important.

Entirely false, in all hunter-gatherer societies men seek virgin wives and seek to control women's reproduction.

Hatshepsut of Egypt another strong woman(and very well liked Pharaoh) some of whose statues even have a false beard attached. Her cartouche is often "male". Though she was well regarded their heads couldn't quite get around the concept.

Actually all pharoahs wore false beards.

metrovelvet wrote: »

I read Helen as more of a plot device than a protgonist than heroine. OK I love the Greeks but I have to say, Homer really took the piss with Penelope hanging around faithfully for 40 years while her husband wanders the seas and has his little adventures. That seems to be what a lot of fictional women do, they wait.

Actually it was 20 years, of which 10 was war and 7 was as Calypso's prisoner. You could just as easily ask why Odysseus bothered to risk his life so much just for some woman. Moreover, even Penelope's waiting, and refusing to take a husband because she believed Odysseus was still alive, took great courage.

Wibbs

goose2005 wrote: »

Entirely false, in all hunter-gatherer societies men seek virgin wives and seek to control women's reproduction.

You'll note I didn't say they didn't, however I did say it became more important. Plus it is incorrect to state all HG societies seek virgin wives. They often seek younger wives and virginity usually comes with that. They also seek out younger women who are widowed and have kids, thereby proving their fecundity. The latter is a common one in various New Guinean HG cultures. HG cultures can't be lumped in as an homogenous group anyway and various cultures practice different things, but pretty much all settled agrarian societies are notable for this preference(nomadic cultures tend to be more like HG).

Actually all pharoahs wore false beards.

Early kingdom Pharaohs tended to have real beards. Shaving was the norm later on and then false beards(and head wigs) were worn as another item of regal clothing. Regardless the point still stands. Outside of a traveling freakshow women with beards is an incongruous match. It's a male secondary sexual characteristic. If the gender roles were completely reversed in a society it would be akin to the odd male ruler in that society donning false breasts as a sign of office.

Actually it was 20 years, of which 10 was war and 7 was as Calypso's prisoner. You could just as easily ask why Odysseus bothered to risk his life so much just for some woman. Moreover, even Penelope's waiting, and refusing to take a husband because she believed Odysseus was still alive, took great courage.

They still both act as a foil to the male character(s) who drives the story. One could even argue that Helen is the woman in peril/prize/to blame for the whole thing. In the Irish epics Meabh is far more among equals in driving the story.

*EDIT*

I can even recall someone calling a peacock "she" because in humans, ornamentation is a female thing.

Incorrect. In some cultures inc our own ornamentation is a female thing, in quite a few others throughout history that role very much fell to the male. The aforementioned New Guinean cultures a very good example. It's the men who wear the makeup and extremely ornate headdresses. They're not alone in that.

Logical Fallacy

goose2005 wrote: »

Actually it was 20 years, of which 10 was war and 7 was as Calypso's prisoner. You could just as easily ask why Odysseus bothered to risk his life so much just for some woman. Moreover, even Penelope's waiting, and refusing to take a husband because she believed Odysseus was still alive, took great courage.

I agree with the last part...but didn't Odysseus hook up with Circe for a year after she turned some of his men into piggies?

Monkey61

Logical Fallacy wrote: »

That is definitely part of it. There is also the midly elitist side of things as well.

If J.R.R was good enough for Tolkien.

And H.P was good enough for Lovecraft etc etc

Except that in the case of JK Rowling, she was asked to use initials solely because the publisher feared that boys wouldn't pick up a book with an obviously female author. She had to choose a middle initial as she doesn't have a middle name.

And even though I am a girl, and a lover of children's literature, I probably would have been put off by the central lead being female. I can't even explain why. I just generally prefer male characters in books/films etc.

Anyway, great article, something which would always have been in the back of my mind but I never actually thought of it that clearly.

Unregistered.

This has been a great year for male writers, with women shunted aside for major prizes and all-new hand-wringing about why it is so. Because, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but male writers get taken more seriously. Also, stories about men, even if written by women, are considered mainstream, while stories about women are “women’s fiction.” This despite the fact that women read more than men, and write more, and are over-represented generally throughout publishing.

As the father of two girls, one aged five and one ten months, I know why. It’s because of dogs and Smurfs. I can’t understand why no-one else realizes this. I see these knotted-brow articles and the writers seem truly perplexed. Dogs and Smurfs: that’s the answer.

Let me walk you through it. We’ll start with dogs. I have written about this before, but to save you the click: people assume dogs are male. Listen out for it: you will find it’s true. To short-cut the process, visit the zoo, because when I say “dogs,” I really mean, “all animals except maybe cats.” The air of a zoo teems with “he.” I have stood in front of baboons with teats like missile launchers and heard adults exclaim to their children, “Look at him!” Once I saw an unsuspecting monkey taken from behind and there was a surprised silence from the crowd and then someone made a joke about sodomy. People assume animals are male. If you haven’t already noticed this, it’s only because it’s so pervasive. We also assume people are male, unless they’re doing something particularly feminine; you’ll usually say “him” about an unseen car driver, for example. But it’s ubiquitous in regard to animals.

Now, kids like animals. Kids really ****ing like animals. Kids are little animal stalkers, fascinated by absolutely anything an animal does. They read books about animals. I just went through my daughter’s bookshelves, and they all have animals on the cover. Animals everywhere. And because publishing is terribly progressive, and because Jen and I look out for it, a lot of those animals are girls. But still: a ton of boys. Because of the assumption.

Here’s an example: a truly great kids’ book is Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers. I love this story, but on page 22, after being called “it” three times, an otherwise sexless penguin twice becomes “he.” This would never, ever happen the other way around. The only reason a penguin can abruptly become male in an acclaimed children’s book without anybody noticing is because we had already assumed it was.

Then you’ve got Smurf books. Not actual Smurfs. I mean stories where there are five major characters, and one is brave and one is smart and one is grumpy and one keeps rats for pets and one is a girl. Smurfs, right? Because there was Handy Smurf and Chef Smurf and Dopey Smurf and Painter Smurf and ninety-four other male Smurfs and Smurfette. Smurfette’s unique personality trait was femaleness. That was the thing she did better than anyone else. Be a girl.

Smurf books are not as common as they used to be, but Smurf stories are, oddly, everywhere on the screen. Pixar makes practically nothing else. I am so disappointed by this, because they make almost every kids’ film worth watching. WALL-E is good. I will grant them WALL-E, because Eve is so awesome. But otherwise: lots of Smurfs.

Male is default. That’s what you learn from a world of boy dogs and Smurf stories. My daughter has no problem with this. She reads these books the way they were intended: not about boys, exactly, but about people who happen to be boys. After years of such books, my daughter can happily identify with these characters.

And this is great. It’s the reason she will grow into a woman who can happily read a novel about men, or watch a movie in which men do all the most interesting things, without feeling like she can’t relate. She will process these stories as being primarily not about males but about human beings.

Except it’s not happening the other way. The five-year-old boy who lives up the street from me does not have a shelf groaning with stories about girl animals. Because you have to seek those books out, and as the parent of a boy, why would you? There are so many great books about boys to which he can relate directly. Smurf stories must make perfect sense to him: all the characters with this one weird personality trait to distinguish them, like being super brave or smart or frightened or a girl.

I have been told that this is a good thing for girls. “That makes girls more special,” said this person, who I wanted to punch in the face. That’s the problem. Being female should not be special. It should be normal. It is normal, in the real world. There are all kinds of girls. There are all kinds of women. You just wouldn’t think so, if you only paid attention to dogs and Smurfs.

Is it the positive role model thing? Because I don’t want only positive female role models. I want the spectrum. Angry girls, happy girls, mean girls. Lazy girls. Girls who lie and girls who hit people and do the wrong thing sometimes. I’m pretty sure my daughters can figure out for themselves which personality aspects they should emulate, if only they see the diversity.

It’s not like this is hard. Dogs and Smurfs: we’re not talking about searing journeys to the depths of the soul. An elephant whose primary story purpose is to steal some berries does not have to be male. Not every time. Characters can be girls just because they happen to be girls.

P.S. Don’t talk to me about Sassette. Sassette was like the three millionth Smurf invented. You get no credit for that.

Did a woman write that?

Morag

Why do you ask?

If you had read the thread or indeed where the piece was linked from then you'd know that answer.

LeeHoffmann

If you had read the thread or indeed where the piece was linked from then you'd know that answer.

or indeed as far as the second paragraph!

As the father of two girls

Unregistered.

LeeHoffmann wrote: »

or indeed as far as the second paragraph!

tl;dr :P

Mallei

Sharrow wrote: »

Ah but it's not completely the fault of Judaic religions, western philosophy and medicine has it's roots in ancient Greece and you can't say they were under the influence of the books of Moses. Modern medicine still works of the premise of a woman being a man with bits missing and extra stuff inside and it's only in the last 50 years or so that is slowly changing.

This is something that's always bothered me. If a man goes to a doctor (female or male) with a male problem, he's seen to and dealt with. If a woman goes to the same doctor with a female problem, she's referred to a speciality "woman's" clinic. A man and his sexual organs are the "norm", a woman and hers must be sent to a special place for women. A case in point - a normal GP will deal with giving a man a vasectomy; a woman must go to a special woman's clinic for the mirena.

On the general note in the OP about men and women in fiction, I believe that this fundamentally comes down to the biological differences between the genders. Women on average are far more empathetic than men (I include the "on average" caveat so that this post isn't subsumed by the flaming of irate male posters). I think it is therefore not surprising that they find it easier to deal with main characters of the opposite gender.

I read a theory once that when a woman reads a novel, she is empathising with the main characters. Male or female, she can feel their pain and understand them, and their gender doesn't really come into it because she can associate with them. Men, on the other hand, don't so much feel the characters as become them. Men, lacking the same level of empathy, instead tend to put themselves in the place of the main character, so where a woman would be watching and empathising with the main character from outside, a man will read the book imagining he is the main character. Which means they really struggle to associate with a female main character, because they can't place themselves in her shoes in the same way.

I also think most men simply find strong female characters threatening and dismiss them out of hand. It's easier to have a strong male lead because "men want to be him and women want to be with him", but that's a separate issue.

LeeHoffmann

Mallei, any links for that theory? Sounds fishy to me. I'm always wary when people start talking about innate traits or gender traits and that's what it sounds like to me. I don't buy it, but maybe some men could tell us whether they imagine themselves as the character when reading books! And is there a big difference between empathising with characters and imagining you are the characters in the story?

I also think most men simply find strong female characters threatening and dismiss them out of hand.

What makes you think that??

Mallei

LeeHoffmann wrote: »

What makes you think that??

Men are scared of strong women because they threaten the status quo of the patriarchal society we live in. That's not up for debate, surely?