Gender Roles in Writing

[Wandering Rhythmical Phoenix]

Howdy folks.
Well, ealier this morning I was involved in a lively debate on MyYearbook, and my friend (Who was shadow reading the thread) pointed somthing out. We react diffrently to diffrent genders in diffrent rolls. To test this, I went into my fic and twiddled around with a few sceans. Actualy, the whole first chapter, more or less.
You don't have to read the examples, but it's sugested to get my point.
Compaire. The top is the old version, the bottom the "Role Reversed"
Ignore misspellings, I threw this together at 4 AM.
The format is Original on top, then Modified on the bottom

Original: Male Ryu, Female Sylvia

Spoiler: Example 1A

“Well, tell me about yourself.” Sylvia said, shuffling through pans for a skillet.

”I’m Ryu, seventeen years old.” He said attempting to unfold a napkin placed on the table in front of him.

“Well Ryu, do you have a last name?” She asked, cracking open an egg.

“Ryu Rider.” He replied, still struggling with the napkin. “Rider pronounced like ‘rid-er’- he who gets rid of something.”

“That’s an unusual pronunciation. You from Johto or something?”

”Yeah, I was born in Ecruteak, but I was raised here in Sinnoh.” He placed the napkin in his lap. “I only started training Pokemon a few months ago. I’ve got reasons that I started, but that’s a story longer than breakfast.”

“Well, then why don’t you tell me why you’re taking the road solo?” Sylvia flipped the eggs in the pan. “Most trainers go in groups of three or more.”

“I’m not alone. I have two friends. Lynn, she’s a great girl, a little pushy, but she’s got a good head on her shoulders when it comes to what is. Kyle, he’s a pretty smart guy, and he’s got a sharp pair of eyes, a bit weird though. But he’s got this thing, sees the world ‘right’ and ‘wrong,’ and I’ve told him that’s not all there is, he just won’t listen.” He spun a coaster around with his finger. “And then I’ve got Ivysaur, Wingull, and all my other Pokemon with me.”

Sylvia slid bacon into the pan. “This Kyle sounds like a good guy; you’ll have to introduce me to him. Maybe he’d like to marry into a family with money.”

Ryu let out a small laugh. “Good luck. Kyle’s not in to people like you.”

“People like me? What’s that mean?” she asked getting a plate down from the cupboard.

“Girls,” Ryu answered, “he likes guys, not girls. I said he was a little weird.”

Sylvia placed a plate down on the table, the bacon still sizzled, and the eggs were scrambled to perfection. “Well, you’ve only started training, so, you can’t have many badges can you?”

\Modified: Female Ryu, Male "Salvester"

Spoiler: Example1B

“Well, tell me about yourself.” Salvester said, shuffling through pans for a skillet.

”I’m Ryu, seventeen years old.” She said attempting to unfold a napkin placed on the table in front of her.

“Well Ryu, do you have a last name?” he asked, cracking open an egg.

“Ryu Rider.” SHe replied, still struggling with the napkin. “Rider pronounced like ‘rid-er’- she who gets rid of something.”

“That’s an unusual pronunciation. You from Johto or something?”

”Yeah, I was born in Ecruteak, but I was raised here in Sinnoh.” SHe placed the napkin in her lap. “I only started training Pokemon a few months ago. I’ve got reasons that I started, but that’s a story longer than breakfast.”

“Well, then why don’t you tell me why you’re taking the road solo?” Salvester flipped the eggs in the pan. “Most trainers go in groups of three or more.”

“I’m not alone. I have two friends. Lynn, he’s a great guy, a little pushy, but he’s got a good head on his shoulders when it comes to what is. Kyle, she’s smart too, and she’s got a sharp pair of eyes, a bit weird though. But she’s got this thing, sees the world ‘right’ and ‘wrong,’ and I’ve told her that’s not all there is, she just won’t listen.” SHe spun a coaster around with her finger. “And then I’ve got Ivysaur, Wingull, and all my other Pokemon with me.”

Salvester slid bacon into the pan. “This Kyle sounds like a good girl; you’ll have to introduce me to her. Maybes she’d like to marry into a family with money.”

Ryu let out a small laugh. “Good luck. Kyle’s not in to people like you.”

“People like me? What’s that mean?” he asked getting a plate down from the cupboard.

“Guys,” Ryu answered, “she likes girls, not guyss. I said she was a little weird.”

Salvester placed a plate down on the table, the bacon still sizzled, and the eggs were scrambled to perfection. “Well, you’ve only started training, so, you can’t have many badges can you?”

See how diffrently Female Ryu seems from Male Ryu? And Male "Salvester" from Female Syvlia?

To further hit the point, I went in to a chapter that only focused on the female chareter Lynn:
Orginal: Female Lynn, Male Waiter

Spoiler: 2A

“Hey, Waitmonkey.” She snapped, “What’s a girl gotta do to get some more juice?”

The waiter stared at the girl’s empty plate. “Pay her bill,” he replied smartly. The girl sighed and reached into her pocket, producing two folded blue bills with “P200” written on them. “And then leaving, you’re crowding a table we need for other customers.”

The girl gave him a shocked look. “How can you say that to a paying customer?”

“Ma’m, you’ve been staring at that crossword puzzle since we opened.
If you couldn’t solve it then, you can’t solve it now.”

She slammed the news paper down on the table, “Touché, good sir!” She yelled, stomping off.

Modified: Male Lynn, Female waitress

Spoiler: Example2B

“Hey, Waitmonkey,” he snapped, “What’s a guy gotta do to get some more juice?”

The waitress stared at the boy’s empty plate. “Pay his bill,” she replied smartly. The boy sighed and reached into his pocket, producing two folded blue bills with “P200” written on them. “And then leaving, you’re crowding a table we need for other customers.”

The boy gave her a shocked look. “How can you say that to a paying customer?”

“Sir, you’ve been staring at that crossword puzzle since we opened.
If you couldn’t solve it then, you can’t solve it now.”

He slammed the news paper down on the table, “Touché, good miss!” he yelled, stomping off.

Female Lynn sounds like an endearing spunky girl, deeply touched with toughness biult from her mother's death (No spoilers here, btw). Meanwhile, Male Lynn sounds a little jerky, troubled from his father's death.

And then Leon's intro, which, incidentily, also contains how dramatic a change changing LYNN'S gender produces too:

Orginal: Male Leon, Female Lynn

Spoiler: Example3A

“You know, miss, being angry never solved anyone’s problems.” A man with a fine British accent said from behind her. She turned around full prepared to punch the man for his unsolicited advice, but stopped dead upon seeing him. He stood about a half foot taller than her, he was looking down at her with eyes as red as a setting sun. His smile was the same blindingly white color as his hair. “Come, what could have such a lovely creature so infuriated?”

The girl blushed at the man’s manner of speech, so calm and quiet, unlike anything she had heard from her friends at home. He sounded like he honestly cared for her. “I… I…” she tripped on her words, unable to form a complete thought in her own head.

Modified: Female Leon, Male Lynn

Spoiler: 3B

“You know, master, being angry never solved anyone’s problems.” A woman with a fine British accent said from behind him. He turned around full prepared to punch the woman for her unsolicited advice, but stopped dead upon seeing her. She stood about a half foot taller than he did, she was looking down at him with eyes as red as a setting sun. Her smile was the same blindingly white color as her hair. “Come, what could have such a lovely creature so infuriated?”

The boy blushed at the woman’s manner of speech, so calm and quiet, unlike anything he had heard from her friends at home. She sounded like he honestly cared for him. “I… I…” he tripped on his words, unable to form a complete thought in his own head.

See how female Leon sounds a bit creepier? Not to mention how much more of a jerk Male Lynn seems for being a hare's breath away from punching a woman. He also sounds very awkward when confronted with Female Leon (who's name showed up in the next line of the story, btw)

Note: the only things I changed for this was Sylvia's name in male form. Nothing else changed besides Gender Pronouns, save one grammer fix, and a word additon to make it seem less awkward. And ignore any "SHe"s. I think I fixed most of them.








Anyway, I wanted to point out what a thrilling change the gender pronoun can make. For example, look at Pokemon Breeder Jack's Pokemon Crusade (Especialy the chapters with a heavy focus on the reaction between Jack and Megan, I think the main female is named) or Bay's Nothing Everything or even Destiny's Tricks. Everything looks very diffrent when you change the genders.


What I'm getting at here is Most protagonists that I've seen are males. What stops them from being females besides a bias in us thinking that they can't do it? Why not write her like she's male?

Anyway, I wanted to ask what everyone thinks about it. If you do it to your own fic, you notice such a double standard, like a female chareter doing things you'd /never/ let a male chareter do, and vice versa.

Do you think much about genders as you write? Does it affect the roles?


Holy crap, this is a long post, and if it's totaly wrong, go a head and close it.

 

[elyvorg]

Well, my main character's female, and she's one heck of a bigger jerk than the male supporting character ever will be.

But, to be honest, the gender issue never really crossed my mind. Being a girl is just part of my main character's personality in the same way any other aspect of her character is. If I were to change her to a guy, she'd be a totally different character - I don't just mean she'd come across as different (like, perhaps, it being more obvious how much of a jerk she is), but I mean I'd have to rethink the way she acts in all her situations because her whole personality would be different if she were a guy. Essentially, she'd be a totally new character.

Um. There be my two cents/pence/whatever currency you choose.

 

[Wandering Rhythmical Phoenix]

Well, what I'm saying is keeping the personality the same, even after the gender change. It results in a completly diffrenent charecter all together, true, but only because of the gender change. You don't look at using the examples I put up, Male Lynn the same was as Female Lynn in the third example, do you? Male Lynn seems like he'd punch out anyone, female Lynn seems like she's ready for self deffence. See what I'm saying?

Man, it's realy hard to get this out in words

 

[Dragonfree]

Well, of course you perceive the characters differently depending on their gender, because we assume that Pokémon world society works kind of like ours and has the same stereotypical gender roles. Because "Men shouldn't hit women" is an ingrained rule of our society, no matter how sexist one might think it, men who do hit women need to be considerably farther along the jerk-scale than women who hit men; thus we perceive the character differently.

As it happens, my fic has pretty reversed gender roles for the main characters - the boys are friendly and nice and not that fond of battling, one of them being the sensitive Pokémon-should-be-your-friends type, while the girl is a borderline-abusive competitive trainer and a sore loser. If the boys were girls, they would probably annoy the feminist in me; I'm not sure changing the girl into a boy would do much since she's still portrayed as ruthless and cruel and people shouldn't be cheering her on to begin with.

 

[Ledian_X]

"But, mommy I wanna play football!"
"Sorry Sally, you can only be a cheerleader."

That was my first thought when I saw this topic. Sexist? You betcha. My actual feeling on the subject? Nope. Don't like it at all.

Pokemon or non pokemon, gender roles in stories change depending on the time in which the story took place. If this was say the 1950s, then Misty would reluctantly be in an ankle length gown and in high heels while she vaccuumed Cerulean gym. Not very politically correct nowadays, is it? Nope. Which is why writing styles have thankfully changed over the years and Misty can really be the tomboyish mermaid we all know and love. Even though she's a drawing some guy drew...

Today however is a different story. We percieve genders really based on how we were brought up. You might not think it, but your parents or whoever raised you has a profound inflience on how you view the opposite sex and how you write them. This is why so many sex offenders do what they do. It's psychological after seeing this stuff or having it done to you. After all, hen you are young, your brain's like a sponge. You take in what you see and it shapes you whether you realize it or not.

Percieving characters based on genders really amounts to what you see/read. One of the main characters in my story is a lady and she co leads the team with a guy. I show her as a strong, competant leader. But, she does have flaws and tragedy in her past. Hey, we all got something. She's still written as strong because growing up, I was bombarded with strong women in cartoons, comics and in real life.

As a guy, I tend to write women as strong. I just don't feel right writing them like some damsel in distress. Just doesn't really work nowadays. For guys, I tend to think of them as equals to the women. Granted us guys are different in a lot of ways, I still manage to to write them as equals and try not to slip into the "HERE I COME TO SAVE THE DAAAAY!" mentality.

Phoenix, has some good examples actually on how to write people or pokemon. I say gender really shouldn't matter all that much when you wwite. Granted, men and women are wired differently, it's more about how the character's brought up that makes he or she act a certain way. You shouldn't write nowadays like some lady is Donna Reed. (God I am showing my age.)

Instead, you can write strong ladies and get away with iit today. Same for not so manly guys. Sure they won't be playing football for the Pats but now it's okay. Like elyvorg, gender issues don't cross my mind and I just write and avoid stereotypes like the plague because we're in 2008, Marty. Not 1955.

Keeping the personality the same with each gender doesn't really matter now. Ladies can be just as fierce as guys as seen in Alien movies and WWE for example. Even though the latter's fake, they still train hard and can take on guys from time to time.

I see what you're saying Phoenix. You have a point but I try to avoid that because well...I know some ladies who'd punch in self defense too. What I do is write them as equals. There's no time to be really girly when lives are at stake. Like female soldiers in the US military. You can do what you did in the examples and try not to go overboard.

LX

 

[Bay]

Haha, funny you should mention gender roles in my fics. XD

In "Destiny's Tricks," yeah things would be totally different if Destiny, Duku, and Damon have reversed gender roles. Well, their personalities would be the same but things like male Destiny squeeling would be weird to some and trying to fall in love with female Duku would make the readers think male Destiny is creepy. XD;

"Nothing, Everything," though is a different story. In fact, in the original version I actually had Jenny as a male character named Drake, and I say the character interactions in the orginal version and this posted version is different. XD In this version, there were a couple things I had her do you don't see woman do a lot.

Spoiler: spoiler

In the later chapters Jenny's going to punch one of the main characters--twice. =O

If I were to have the genders reversed in NE, I assume the readers would react a bit more differently to some scenes. XD

I really don't think much of the gender roles. I moreso think of their personalities. However, I too think my characters will be perceived differently if their gender is different. I guess you can say my character chose their gender themselves. XD

 

[Ysavvryl]

The perception does still exist, even if you'd like to deny it. If you put a male character into too much of a female role, he'll come off as very strange, like Bay pointed out. Same with the reverse. It's not entirely sexist. Sexist would be if you say the too-female male is a bad character only for that reason.

I was kinda surprised when, in my one shot thread, some readers were surprised that I made the Gible a female. It's possible, right? They just hadn't thought of a young dragon who evolves ultimately into Garchomp as a girl. I will admit, part of that was because in short stories, it's easier to have a male and female instead of two males or two females. Less pronoun confusion, you see.

I often swap character gender roles when brainstorming, just to see what happens. It can help.

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

Honestly, in none of those examples did I experience a change of perception save for having the British man become a woman, and then I didn't see "her" as creepier. For some reason I saw her as more exotic.

I'm also probably one of the only women (at least it seems) who'll admit that I see nothing wrong with a man hitting a woman in a situation where she either deserves it, where a man would have gotten hit for the same reason, or anything like that. To change a character's reaction and not hit a woman where he'd hit a man is sexist in and of itself--equality takes the lumps with the good, and if someone would hit a man for being a jerk, they ought to hit a woman for being the same jerk. It's when he hits her for *being* a woman that's wrong, but that's a seperate issue.

Ledian X, you think there weren't spunky firebrands in the media in the '50s? They weren't all June Cleavers, you know. Also, a lot of sex offenders have nothing to do with gender roles. Say, exposing yourself in the park has nothing to do with media influence.

Anyway, when I write, I write about *characters*, not about men and women. Their gender rarely plays into it unless it's key to the plot (such as if I were to write about Akari). Like when I wrote Take--I kill off four characters in that and three of them are female. Some people would call that "fridging", but I call it "they were in the line of fire and bullets don't care what you've got between your legs".

I think the character I write about most who'd be most affected in perception if their gender were to have been different would be Vicious. Even Giovanni wouldn't change *that* much if he'd been a woman (although, between him and his mother, it would raise questions about the leadership of the Rockets...although them being related at *all* already does that).

 

[Ledian_X]

I have a female garchomp. It is possible for them to be female. The ratio's 50-50 for each gender. The only exclusively male or female pokemon are on the site. For example Hitmontop's is always male and chansey's always female. People need to look at the game before committing themselves to a storry.

And yes, the perceptions still exist. But, nowadays you see female roles where she's basically taking charge and more recently with Hilary Clinton running for president. Sure she didn't get the nod but she did prove a point, did she not? And ya your example would be too sexist.

Nowadays you have to be careful in how you write each gender so you don't offend someone. Some people can be offended if a girl proposes to a guy even though it's been known to happen in fiction. So, what does that say about gender roles?

LX

Edit: BJ, I didn't grow up in the 50s so I never watched Leave it to Beaver. I know there were spunk ladies back then. Just was giving the general example. And I got what you're saying =D.

 

[The Big Al]

*ponders*

Most of my original characters could have just their genders reversed with little problem. Granted its a group where the "strongman" is female and the brains are a twin brother/sister duo. Though, like everyone, they do some things that are considered more natural for one gender than the other. But they could be easily rewritten and aren't integral to the character.

The only role I created that could be considered gender specific would be Nicole as her actual character would have to be rewritten to be male. And through her Lee and Otto are male.

I won't start on canon characters since they've already been created and developed by the writers.

 

[Kohdok]

This conversation reminds me of why I like Zatch Bell so much: it defies a lot of stereotypes, making women just as likely to be knights in shining armor as damsels in distress.

Eh, Gender doesn't really affect the personality of my characters much, though I must admit the genders of a couple of them aren't interchangeable, like the girl who is proud of being female (Thinking being told she should have "shame" is sexism, and probably is). The main character could get a gender swap without anyone batting an eye, however.

Heh. I'm gonna be tossing around a male Nurse Joy (First name Leon) in my comic at some point, and he'll be an eternal contrarion to the Nurse Joy paradigm. He's not only male, but he's tall, kinda buff, a little cold, and prefers his Gardevoir over Chansey as a Nurse's aid. But that has more to do with his personality than his gender, though his gender got him tossed into the middle of nowhere (Men have an easier time breaking into women's professions? Not in this case!)

Then again, it can be kinda fun tossing some stereotypes around. I do it to make fun of them usually. The comical character in my comic that I have planned is your typical teenage male: He's cocky and a bit of a perv. Then again, he's also a bit of a wimp.

A lot of what I like to see, though, is someone trapped in a stereotype and then finding the courage to defy it at a critical moment.

 

[Wandering Rhythmical Phoenix]

HOly guakamoli, I was expecting long replies, but now, like, essays. Ok, I was, but not as many.

Well, of course you perceive the characters differently depending on their gender, because we assume that Pokémon world society works kind of like ours and has the same stereotypical gender roles.

Here, this is what I was trying to say. Well, I was trying to base it more in a generalized scence than just Pokemon, but the only other example of my writing I could use on my computer was a fic where a male chareter would be wearing a Japanese school girl uniform.

Phoenix, has some good examples actually on how to write people or pokemon. I say gender really shouldn't matter all that much when you wwite. Granted, men and women are wired differently, it's more about how the character's brought up that makes he or she act a certain way. You shouldn't write nowadays like some lady is Donna Reed. (God I am showing my age.)

I don't ever think of gender as I write save a few details, like a girl getting hit in the crotch isn't as funny as a guy getting hit there. I only relized how diffrent changing genders made a person seem.

As a guy, I tend to write women as strong. I just don't feel right writing them like some damsel in distress. Just doesn't really work nowadays

Actualy, this is what I'm talking about. By only wanting to write a certian way, you're narrowing the window of what you write. Just because you only want to wirte girls a specific way, does that mean they can only be that way?

Like elyvorg, gender issues don't cross my mind and I just write and avoid stereotypes like the plague because we're in 2008, Marty. Not 1955.

But isn't in that same light, "Strong spunky girl" a sterotype in and of itself?

I see what you're saying Phoenix. You have a point but I try to avoid that because well...I know some ladies who'd punch in self defense too. What I do is write them as equals. There's no time to be really girly when lives are at stake. Like female soldiers in the US military. You can do what you did in the examples and try not to go overboard.

I think it's because I grew up around girls who are rather tomboyish that I write girls like that so easily without thinking about it. The examples only happened because my friend told me to do it, other wise, I would have never thought about it. I don't see any reason not to treat women as equils, in fact, I know girls who are alot better than me at well everything.

Haha, funny you should mention gender roles in my fics. XD

I just grabbed a few fics I've been reading, and those were the first two that came to mind, haha!

In "Destiny's Tricks," yeah things would be totally different if Destiny, Duku, and Damon have reversed gender roles. Well, their personalities would be the same but things like male Destiny squeeling would be weird to some and trying to fall in love with female Duku would make the readers think male Destiny is creepy.

That's what I found when I reworked things. Kyle, a careing guy, when he becomes a girl fits a sterotype. Admitatly, he's gay, so he's already out of the norm for male chareters anyway, and Female Kyle didn't seem any diffrent than any other female charecter, and I found a change in minor details to make somthning strange. Wow, I don't know where I was going with that, but thinks work in reveres with gender reveresed, like you said, with the falling in love, you rarely think of the male lead falling for a female, it's normaly the other way around. Ok, there's my point.

I was kinda surprised when, in my one shot thread, some readers were surprised that I made the Gible a female. It's possible, right? They just hadn't thought of a young dragon who evolves ultimately into Garchomp as a girl. I will admit, part of that was because in short stories, it's easier to have a male and female instead of two males or two females. Less pronoun confusion, you see.

Right, that's actulay what I was thinkig of, with the gible. You have preassigned ideals for a man, and when a woman takes it, it feels off to you. Heck, isn't Cynthia's Garchomp male?

Honestly, in none of those examples did I experience a change of perception save for having the British man become a woman, and then I didn't see "her" as creepier. For some reason I saw her as more exotic.

Hm, I guess my idea of creepy came from "Adult woman hitting on a teenage boy" not that "adult man hitting on a teenage girl" is any less creepy.

To change a character's reaction and not hit a woman where he'd hit a man is sexist in and of itself--equality takes the lumps with the good, and if someone would hit a man for being a jerk, they ought to hit a woman for being the same jerk. It's when he hits her for *being* a woman that's wrong, but that's a seperate issue.

Here. This is what I was thinking with this too. I don't see anything wrong with Male Lynn going to hit Female Leon, but others do just because of the preprogramed ideals.

Anyway, when I write, I write about *characters*, not about men and women.

True, vut this is what this is all about. a CHARACTER can be taken completly diffrent on their GENDER. The way some one feels about a character can change based on the addition or subtraction of an "s" in front of an "he". It can change from some one you can relate to, someone you sympathize for, someone you can't stand, or someone you wanna get behind based on that.

Actualy, Gabbiani, you seem to be focusing more on Female Leon than Male Lynn, who rubs off as EXTREAMLY masoginstic, abusing a waitress and about to punch out some obviously female stranger on the street.

Nowadays you have to be careful in how you write each gender so you don't offend someone. Some people can be offended if a girl proposes to a guy even though it's been known to happen in fiction. So, what does that say about gender roles?

You write what you want, or you cator to what others want to see, thats the way I see gender roles in fiction now.

Most of my original characters could have just their genders reversed with little problem. Granted its a group where the "strongman" is female and the brains are a twin brother/sister duo. Though, like everyone, they do some things that are considered more natural for one gender than the other. But they could be easily rewritten and aren't integral to the character.

The only role I created that could be considered gender specific would be Nicole as her actual character would have to be rewritten to be male. And through her Lee and Otto are male.

That's part of what I noticed, most characters can be gender changed with no problems, save a few detail changes (outfits, certian actions). Nothing prevents roles from being changed outside of what you, the writer, wants.

Eh, Gender doesn't really affect the personality of my characters much, though I must admit the genders of a couple of them aren't interchangeable, like the girl who is proud of being female (Thinking being told she should have "shame" is sexism, and probably is). The main character could get a gender swap without anyone batting an eye, however.

Right, like, Sylvia and Lydia in my fic won't work if you change them (Men can't throw sex appeal around as easily as women), but others work even with a gender switch.

I like what I'm seeing here. You guys are pretty much just clarifying my extreamly poorly worded opening, but its clear that nothing keeps chareters in a set gender besides what the writer wants.

I'll close this post with this: It doesn't mater whats in the pants, it's whats in the head that defines the character

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

Kohdok, I should think it would be extremely hard for ANYONE who's not a typical Joy to break into that field. At least we've seen male police officers in that world even with Jenny, but we haven't seen any male pokemon nurses or non-Joy female nurses.
Also I'm not sure that being told to have shame would be sexist in and of itself. It would probably depend on the motives behind telling her that.

Actualy, Gabbiani, you seem to be focusing more on Female Leon than Male Lynn, who rubs off as EXTREAMLY masoginstic, abusing a waitress and about to punch out some obviously female stranger on the street.

I wasn't even thinking of the specific characters, more of your comments about them. And even then, just snapping at two women doesn't necessarily make him misogynistic; it only would if he snaps at them *because* they're women, wheras this struck me as more of two people that ****** him off and oh yeah they just happen to be women.

(also, hitting on? All I saw was the stranger refering to the character as "lovely", which isn't necessarily hitting on)

 

[Wandering Rhythmical Phoenix]

I wasn't even thinking of the specific characters, more of your comments about them. And even then, just snapping at two women doesn't necessarily make him misogynistic; it only would if he snaps at them *because* they're women, wheras this struck me as more of two people that ****** him off and oh yeah they just happen to be women.

(also, hitting on? All I saw was the stranger refering to the character as "lovely", which isn't necessarily hitting on)

Well, true, in the context of the story, Lynn is inexplicably mad at any and all waiters. However, in this, he showed a certin harshness when adressing her (And later in the story, an even harsher scean where he'd throw a waitress). I guess I'm looking at it in the light of "An unprovoked act of violnce on another person being perceived as diffrent when the gender is diffrent"

Oh, yeah, I forgot it was a clip on the story where the full parts of Leon don't come out. He often hits on the female cast members and offers them (and often gets them to ) go to dinner with him and stuff. He's aplayboy.

 

[Literate]

male Destiny squeeling would be weird to some and trying to fall in love with female Duku would make the readers think male Destiny is creepy. XD;

Quoted for awesomeness. XDD It'd be amusing to watch. -though admittedly never read it ;_;-

I have no qualms really. Although I tend to write male characters with a overconfident mindset, there could easily be a female of the same sort. In each role, there's a male part and a female part, meaning, something like a female bully and a male bully would operate in the same way. But male bullies tend to be more "agressive."

If you just apply the natural differences between males and females, I doubt there'd be a problem with portraying them. Granted, you can't just switch the name, but switching gender in certain roles do kick things up a bit.

(I should know. XP I write things that are usually out of role.)

 

[Diddy]

I can see what everyone is saying, and I agree on the most part, changing the gender of people makes scenes a lot different than usual.

But what I wanted to say was that, you could combat these gender roles but wheres the line when you consider combatting stereotypes and positive discrimination.

How can you positively discriminate you say, bit of an oxymoron you say? Think of it like this, some american universities have quotas on how many ethnic minorities they should have enrolled at any time. You have two candidates, one white and highly qualified for the place, one hindu who could get in but barely and your one below quota. The hindu gets the place, is it fair, no, someone got something because they are of an ethnic persuasion that they didn't deserve.

A professor could be picking members for his class, one place left. better qualified male, Highley attractive, less qualified female. Professor picks eye candy. Again, its the same as above, female gets picked because she's better looking and it looks better for him going against this 'man's world' mentality.

One more example and I'll conclude I promise.

Blair's Babes, a collection of female MP's in british government picked because of pressure against the lack of females in parliament. Is that fair against better qualified male candidates?

I say this because however nice as bigging up women and giving them better places in life, there is always someone possibly better qualified for the job who didn't get it becuase they are in the majority. I'm not speaking out of bitterness, I'm speaking with facts and evidence. I'm all for some aspects of feminism and equality for all, its when the scales are tipped slightly in their favour, be them female of of ethnic minority, that is when it annoys me.

One more essay for ya WRP. I'll expext my mark within a few days.

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

And then you get into the debate about Affirmitave Action. I think it's a necessary evil for the time being, but only until we get to a point where people have equal access to things like education and can thereby enter into the work/political world on equal footing. Then we can give it the boot and say good riddance.

But in writing about other worlds, those worlds may not have the same discriminations ours does (or even if they do in parts, maybe not in the part you're writing about). They may have complete gender equality...and discriminate against people with red hair or something.

 

[Wandering Rhythmical Phoenix]

Diddy:
I could quote stuff, but I'm not.
/EXACTLY/ what I'm getting at here.

I'm not exactly what I'm going to say here. You got my itnital point, that's for sure, and brought up more points. I didn't think this would become a heated debate on feminism /at all/. But you bring up the point (I think) that men and women have roles they play because people want them to, and then roles played simply because they're men and women, and changing the genders changes the way the roles are done... or somthing

A+

And I'm now in love with this topic

 

[Libie]

my characters are waay too deeply ingrained for me to even imagine them having another gender... the mere thought gives me a headache xD they're rebelling against it right now :x i suppose my female protagonist (emmy) is tough on the outside, less caring towards her pokemon than the male protagonist (will). will is also better at reading emotions and things than emmy will ever be xD so i guess that means i didn't really give in to the stereotypes too much, even though emmy is blond

 

[Praxiteles]

Uh, Wandering Rhythmical Phoenix, you brought up an issue of gender roles in a human community. Of course it'd escalate into a feminist debate.

The gender of a character certainly changes how we see it. This being so, genders don't affect writing a character as much as they do reading it (or, generally, formulating someone as opposed to perceiving him/her/it). When writers conceive a character, it's the mind they handle, and a girl may be trained in behaviour and personality to be mellower than a more thrusting boy by whichever social influence you want to name, but at the fundamentals all minds are the same. Examine the thoughts of a male and female and you will see the same logical processes, the same intuition, only a possible difference in the proportion of the two and a different idea of how to react to situations. These tendencies are like clothes for the mind; it wears them like clothes, only as styles taken up according to preference: beneath them is raw thought and whatever experience the story wishes to feed them (and this experience, you probably know, is the most democratic chooser in history). On the other hand, when we see people or characters, it's about impossible to understand everything about them from their perspective by observing only behaviour, because it's impossible to enter their perspective in the first place. We latch onto whatever details we see about them--sex is probably one of the first--and try to form an impression in our minds, a rough-and-ready one because we haven't ever been them, or created them, or had the strange substitute for being them that is writing in their POV. We draw heavily from stereotypes; we can't help it; and ideas about males and females is such a basic one that we forget to let go of it even after we get to know the person rather well.

Personal ideas: I've never held any truck with gender systems, probably because of the reasons writers don't, and will be equally predisposed to manhandling a girl as to showing general politeness to a boy, or vice versa (ie none unless I'm in a bad/good--use as applicable--mood). I will be surprised if I see someone else doing the former, but this is because I don't expect people to do anything other than society's dictations. I still saw something of the changes in perception you pointed out, however; it probably has to do with stereotypes. In the waiter example I placed the girl Lynn as the average 'headstrong' tomboy, while the waiter was one of those whom you wonder about and debate whether they're in a servile job position just as a quick break from something more like company managing or dictatorship; I saw Leon as the average headstrong boy, which is even simpler, and the waitress as the average stern oldish woman who enjoys terrorizing children in old nurseries and keeping a matriarchal regime over her tribe of married children. Most of these stereotypes, like most all stereotypes, are gender specific. That seems in order.