Writing from a different gender perspective

[Aludra]

It seemed to be before you entered it.  I just mean about the Robert Jordan women thing.  You know fan vs. antifan....nevermind.

I get what you meant.
Yeah I am passionate about things I like, and I don't like it when people refuse to *try* something before giving it a critical comment.  Just in general.
So let me read your stuff, and I'll be passionat about it, too!

The problem with all those characters, and the women in general in those books, is the ultra massive sense  of entitlement they carry around, and the fact they consider men to be beneath them.

Jordan claims he was aiming to write 'strong' women, and a culture that had it's gender revolution so long ago that it's not longer even relevant...but I think he was wide of the mark in both cases.

Egwene is all the things you mentioned...but she's also stuck up, and borderline misandrist.

There are multiple examples, but the biggest one I can see is that almost all the female channelers, at some point, use their power to impress upon someone (usually a man) that they are stronger.
That's abuse, right there....

I don't consider them strong women....I consider them sad stereotypes.

I can see how you'd think that.  But as a woman who is in an environment where chauvanism and "southern gentleness" are interchangable, the world RJ's women get to live is friggin' fun to visit. 
Like I said earlier, people are people, they're good AND bad.  And power, in reality, is always abused, even by people who don't do it with bad intentions. 

I'd say that Jordan is the only writer I've read who truly created his world so that females are the stronger sex or at the least equals.  They may feel entitled, but I have yet to meet a man who doesn't also think so.  May be my geographical location has something to do with that, or it may be generational.  Either way....  I honestly think that your complaints of women are directly relatable to my current complaints with our pseudo-gender-equal-society males.

[Shecky]

I can see how you'd think that.  But as a woman who is in an environment where chauvanism and "southern gentleness" are interchangable, the world RJ's women get to live is friggin' fun to visit. 
Like I said earlier, people are people, they're good AND bad.  And power, in reality, is always abused, even by people who don't do it with bad intentions. 

I'd say that Jordan is the only writer I've read who truly created his world so that females are the stronger sex or at the least equals.  They may feel entitled, but I have yet to meet a man who doesn't also think so.  May be my geographical location has something to do with that, or it may be generational.  Either way....  I honestly think that your complaints of women are directly relatable to my current complaints with our pseudo-gender-equal-society males.

I'm sorry; could you be more explicit with regards to the "interchangeability" between chauvinism and "southern gentleness", as well as your geographical location and "pseudo-gender-equal-society males"? You've left too much unsaid for me to determine what you're saying about whom.

[Starbeam]

She's in Dallas, Texas.  From that point, I can kinda see what she's getting at.

[DragonFire]

I can see how you'd think that.  But as a woman who is in an environment where chauvanism and "southern gentleness" are interchangable, the world RJ's women get to live is friggin' fun to visit. 

Really?
You WANT to be like that?
You want to be as closeminded and gender biased as the men who treat you that way?
Cause, in my opinion, that's what RJ's women are like.
Look at the scene in CoS, where Nyn and Elayne have to apologise to Mat, about the way they treated him in the Stone, when he busted them out.
Nyn throws a tantrum worthy of a freaking child to avoid apologising to a man....she hates apologising to women, too, but she does it without the massive display when she's forced to it.

The constant belittling of men, the constant anger when a man does anything that may possibly be misinterpreted(and consistently is) and then berating the men who actually do show up to pull their asses off the fire when they can't do it themselves.

And that's 'fun to visit'??

Like I said earlier, people are people, they're good AND bad.  And power, in reality, is always abused, even by people who don't do it with bad intentions. 

Agreed....but an entire gender all doing the same thing?
Come on...that's just not likely, is it?

I'd say that Jordan is the only writer I've read who truly created his world so that females are the stronger sex or at the least equals.

The females are 'stronger' only becasue the males can no longer channel....what they should be, what he set his world up to be, is equals...each contributing something different to society.

  They may feel entitled, but I have yet to meet a man who doesn't also think so.

Hey, let's not bring the real world into a discussion of a fictional world...cause I can give plenty of examples of abusive, entitled women in the real world too.
We were talking about how RJ portrayed women, NOT what men do in the real world.

  May be my geographical location has something to do with that, or it may be generational.  Either way....  I honestly think that your complaints of women are directly relatable to my current complaints with our pseudo-gender-equal-society males.

fictional women.
In  a fiction book.
NOT real world.

[belial.1980]

Thanks everyone for your input. So it looks like the crux of the issue is that any character, male or female, should have:

1) Motivation to do what they do.
2) Consistency.

LIke I sad before, I really don't think in terms of "this character is a man/woman so he/she will think and act this way..." I try to delve into what's important to this character and give them a reason to be in the story. From there I try to add color with quirks, character traits, unique expressions or idioms, etc.  to add flavor. Or sometimes I do the reverse, starting off with the inital image then digging deeper and finding out what they're like inside.

This question seemed to stir a pretty decent buzz LOL. Any other thoughts?

[Kid Longshot]

I only have one thought on this subject. I hope I don't ever bring any gender-based biases I might have into my writing. I don't want to be one of those people who portrays one gender or the other unrealistically within the story world.

[Shecky]

She's in Dallas, Texas.  From that point, I can kinda see what she's getting at.

Grew up and lived most of my life in the south, and I don't see it short of prejudiced stereotype.

[Son of an Ogre]

I know I'm coming into this post late, but I wanted to (since this thread is relevant to what I'm currently working on myself as a writer) put in my two cents as it were. First off, it's true that if you're a male author and you're story's main protagonist is a woman that you have to think like your subject. How do you do that? I believe it's simple (and it's already been said). You think of a woman you know from real life or from, say the movies--you follow that. But, really we're all people regardless of sex. So, for me, since my main character in my latest endeavor is a woman (and I'm a man)... I have an example in mind and go from there. But, I also go by what I want the character to say--or, rather, what they're trying to coax me into saying about them. Most of what I've learned is that you have to forget about the sex of your character when you're first writing them... then ask yourself questions later, and get opinions from others. That's what I've done for my latest project.

[BLB253]

I'm a newbie here, but this subject is something I've been dealing with when it comes to my stories that I work on. All my life I've gravitated to the female character, be it in movies, books and even video games (Chun Li IS my character of choice in Street Fighter). However, I've come to the opinion that well all are truely a product of our history and environment. What's helped me immensely in my recent writing is "45 Master Characters" by Victoria Lynn Schmidt. If you take what she suggest and look at the archtypes present in mankind's myths, you'll find that alot of the characters we come up with are off-shoots of these. Like what was said before about finding out the motivation behind why the character does something; fused with these archtypes, it's possible to get a better understanding of why the opposite sex might do something or might not do something.

If this has been mentioned already then please disregard, I'm at work and don't have the time to read this entire thread, sorry.

Just my 2 cents. Take it or leave it.

[KarlTenBrew]

I think of it as being somewhat like method acting.  Instead of focusing on gender, what are the character's motivations?  What is his history/backstory, and how does it color his reactions?  Is he bright, naive, socially inept, a control freak?  Does he act impulsively, or think every situation through first?  What is his "voice"?  How does his physicality determine his actions?  What props does he habitiually use?  Also, I try not to base my primary characters on specific actors, as I feel it will be too limiting (though I did it with a supporting player who's only in two scenes; he's modelled after Jack Black.)

(BTW, I've used "he" here as I'm female, in case anyone's wondering.)

This.  Very-very much this.  Then I go back and first ask myself about any obvious discrepancies (you know: obvious out-of-character-act is obvious type stuff).  Then I get my mother and sister (or available willing female reader) to read the specific passage relating her words and actions, and ask the simple question: "Do you know anyone like this?  If so, are they all or overwhelmingly women?"  I find that is not just a good way to edit out the trash, but get literary feedback in the form of unintentional character critique!

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

This.  Very-very much this.  Then I go back and first ask myself about any obvious discrepancies (you know: obvious out-of-character-act is obvious type stuff).  Then I get my mother and sister (or available willing female reader) to read the specific passage relating her words and actions, and ask the simple question: "Do you know anyone like this?  If so, are they all or overwhelmingly women?" 

Which is perfectly good if you want to write a plausible contemporary Western female character.  And of much more limited use for a medieval nun or a seventeenth-century Japanese noble, let alone the social context of a different world altogether.

[KarlTenBrew]

Which is perfectly good if you want to write a plausible contemporary Western female character.  And of much more limited use for a medieval nun or a seventeenth-century Japanese noble, let alone the social context of a different world altogether.

Not so.  I didn't ask if it was them, or their circle of friends.  I asked about anyone they knew.  Having lived across the nation (in both senses), having family across the nation (again, both senses), and with my sister being particularly exposed to foreign cultures in her course of study, it gives me a very wide range of PoV analysis.  It also lets me get a grip on whether the character is how I want them and not only analyze them as a person, but analyze them as a person from their culture and specific experiences.

Is it perfect?  No.  But I read enough (fiction and non) that at the very least, I'd have to ask a contemporary of the culture you're asking about to find breaks in plausibility.  Speaking of which, let me know how I can contact any you find.  Even without a far-ranging sister, it's not all that hard to find someone who has been outside of your community this millenium, and develop a web of potential contacts and questions.

Additionally: people have not changed as much as we like to think.  The same things motivate and inspire us as they have for thousands of years.  Seventeenth century nun?  From a noble house, an orphan, someone who was simply an extra mouth to feed?  How attractive is she, and how interested in men?  How ambitious?  What is her driving goal [most pious, hardest worker, etc.]?  Answering these questions fills in much of the character.  Japanese noble?  Princess, eldest woman of a clan, trophy wife, respected wife?  Again, asking about their specific circumstances and their hopes and dreams is the core of method acting, not stereotypes.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Is it perfect?  No.  But I read enough (fiction and non) that at the very least, I'd have to ask a contemporary of the culture you're asking about to find breaks in plausibility.  Speaking of which, let me know how I can contact any you find.

Read the documents they leave.

Additionally: people have not changed as much as we like to think.

I disagree here, entirely.

I mean, I wince every time I see an American author writing about Europe today who doesn't understand that a hundred miles is a long distance and a hundred years is a short time,
and that's just a contemporary difference but it peremeates almost everything.

  Again, asking about their specific circumstances and their hopes and dreams is the core of method acting, not stereotypes.

Only so long as one gets out of using contemporary axioms to guide that, at which an awful lot of people fail badly.

[nerd1]

I don't consider them strong women....I consider them sad stereotypes.

Not to reanimate a WoT thread, but just to put my 2 cents in. I always found the WoT to have a nice interplay between the male and female characters, that reminded me of my grandparents and all of their sagely and gently condescending (on the other genders) advice.

I actually hated most of the female characters POVs for a number of the books, but thought that this was merely a result of being in the protagonist's POV so often (and the female characters all attempt to "fix" or "better" him so often).

The one exception was the Tuon character, whom I thought was intersting and smartly written. This character was one of the few that was strong and focused, and I felt that the character already knew her place in that world, and thus had focus and strength.

In the book just released (The Gathering Storm), I actually enjoyed the Egwene POV a lot.... this same clarity of the pervious Tuon POV came through....and though it was written by Sanderson, RJ's wife remained the main editor, and (RJ's words) driving force. This was a vast improvement on the previous books, where the female POVs all were aimed at showing women tricking (or pulling, or kicking, or convincing) the male characters to the right thing. Maybe it was just a matter of timing, that the main female characters were not fully fleshed out until more towards the end...when their role in that world was more clear to them (see the Matt character for the same issues/resolution)

[KarlTenBrew]

I disagree here, entirely.

I mean, I wince every time I see an American author writing about Europe today who doesn't understand that a hundred miles is a long distance and a hundred years is a short time,
and that's just a contemporary difference but it peremeates almost everything.

Only so long as one gets out of using contemporary axioms to guide that, at which an awful lot of people fail badly.

Because a lot of people fail badly at thinking things through all the way, which is certainly not a new trait.  It's just as cringe worthy to see a British or Japanese writer who's never left the country talk about travel in America.  A good writer in this sense either avoids what this kind of dichotomy, talks extensively with an expert / researches, or has a co-writer editor capable of handling such things.  This is indicative of how people don't change, not how they do.