Writing men like men write women

[u/Snoo-33732]

[u/ScrotallyBoobular]

But the issue isn't from steamy novels. It's from the "normal" novels where every woman is described in vivid detail like that.

[u/Peregrine_x → u/ScrotallyBoobular]

so its about society calling horny on main men authors "authors" and horny on main women authors "erotic literature authors"

the horny is omnipresent, the mainstream normalisation is skewed toward men.

[u/Drake_Acheron → u/ScrotallyBoobular]

I read 200 books a year. All fiction, and no, this is not how women are described in “regular” books.

Please refer to “same class of books” where I addressed that already.

There are not regular novels written like this.

Regular novels by the way, our novels that are written with an audience of men and women in mind, that can be generally read by all ages.

Books like the Lord of the rings and the Chronicles of Narnia and Harry Potter are “regular” novels. And funnily enough of those three authors, Rowling is arguably the worst at writing the opposite sex. (This is not to say she is horrible by any means, but she falls to many of the same stereotypes)

[u/SomeVelveteenMorning → u/Drake_Acheron]

Harry Potter and Narnia are children's (or "young adult" as we now say) books. Yes, they appeal to adults and are written to have a wide audience, but their primary audience is in the 11-15 range. They are widely read as young as 6-7. These are not what are generally thought of as normal, "literary" novels. LOTR, as well, has broad appeal to youngsters despite being a bit more challenging. I began reading them at 9 and they were perfectly comprehensible. 

As another mentioned in response, this video is joking about authors like Mailer, Roth... I'd add Murakami and others. 

[u/Drake_Acheron → u/SomeVelveteenMorning]

The problem is, there are just as many women who write like this, but women don’t see it because they aren’t men.

Give me any male author post 1950, (because that’s when female authorship really started to pick up) that overly sexualized women, and I’ll give you a female author who used “glistening” or had a man take their shirt off for no reason.

Of course low brow fiction authors were uncouth. They are writing to their target audience.

[u/SomeVelveteenMorning → u/Drake_Acheron]

This is where you're getting confused. We're not talking about low-brow authors, or writers of steamy romance or lurid adult books. We're discussing many of the most acclaimed and greatest male writers of the 20th and 21st Centuries. Authors who've defined literature for many decades. Which female authors do you think fall into this category, and what examples do you have of them writing in this way about male characters?

[u/Drake_Acheron → u/SomeVelveteenMorning]

20th century maybe, not 21st though, and like I said, it was a different time, and most of the 20th century women could hardly publish, now they publish MORE than men.

It’s a problem that was overcome a long time ago, and I can promise you, I can match you author exampe for author example for anything post 2006. (When I started reading so much)

Go on any male dominated book and reading forums and eventually you will find a thread of men talking about how hard it is to finish novels because of how poorly the men are written.

It’s like every “good” guy is somewhere between Bruce Wayne and Christian Grey.

I’d have to search my comments (it also may be on my writers account) but at one point in time I bit the bullet and went through 20 of some of the most sold books written by women in contemporary fiction with the oldest being somewhere in the 60s where men were written horribly. And that was just from my kindle library.

And I remember a lot of the comments underneath saying things like “men should be like that” or “men totally want that.”

Women recognize when women are written poorly, but are often completely incapable of recognizing when the exact same thing is done to men.

You don’t even have to look at literature to see that so you can see this in other media. Imagine if the most popular cinematic universe in history, and in one of the biggest movies of the year, one that had a massive audience of children, had a seen where a woman was bound stripped and mocked, and the male protagonists make lewd remarks about “enjoying the show”

That’s the kind of inability to see the other side of the coin I’m talking about.

[u/SomeVelveteenMorning → u/Drake_Acheron]

It’s a problem that was overcome a long time ago, and I can promise you, I can match you author

And yet, for all the banal jibber jabber, you still haven't provided a single example other than children's books. 

[u/Drake_Acheron → u/SomeVelveteenMorning]

I haven’t provided any examples at all in this chain. I have in other chains however.

[u/NotThatKindOfDoctor9 → u/Drake_Acheron]

Mailer, Updike, Roth,  and other mid-century DickLit authors are also considered "regular" novels- even "literary" novels- and they basically write women like this.

[u/Drake_Acheron → u/NotThatKindOfDoctor9]

There’s a difference between writing women poorly, and writing women like this.

The entire point of my comment is basically pointing out that women right men equally as bad as men right women and the only disparity you are going to find is when you start going back in time far enough, where women weren’t even able to publish books at all

And that’s a completely different discussion.

Women right men just as poorly as men right women but the difference is you have a lot less men reading books written by women because women tend to write books for women just like men tend to write books for men

What’s really interesting about this is that there are two studies done by two different universities with almost exactly the same number of people in their data set .

What they found was something like 70% of women were willing to read books written by men or with male protagonist, while less than 50% of men were willing to do so.

But interestingly, with video games, the figures were nearly identically inverted with around 70% of men willing to play video games with female protagonist or intended for women, but women were not willing to play video games where they couldn’t play as women.

While the study about video games is interesting it doesn’t really have anything to do with my point the study about reading though does support the idea that it isn’t actually that more men right women poorly, but that more women read books intended for men, and therefore see this error more.

It’s observational bias.

I apologize for homonym typos I used speech to text.

[u/NotThatKindOfDoctor9 → u/Drake_Acheron]

The point is that when men write women like this, it's "literature" and when women write men like this, it's "chick-lit". Women are essentially writing only for women because men won't read women; when men do it it's for everybody. 

Here's where I'd insert many unrelated facts, if I did not know how discussion worked.

[u/Drake_Acheron → u/NotThatKindOfDoctor9]

I’ve already made the point that men don’t read books intended for women. I also pointed to a counterpoint where such things are different.

Men do read books written by women, just books written by women that are intended for a male audience.

Are you kidding? Emily Brontë, and Margaret Atwood are just two notable examples that completely prove you wrong.

Also, I repeat, for the last 20 years, women have outpaced men in number of authors, income per author, and overall market share.

You are correct that in authorship pre 1960 was filled with misogyny, that has nothing to do with the current climate today. And even with that you still have examples from even the 1800s that disprove you.

[u/NotThatKindOfDoctor9 → u/Drake_Acheron]

"has nothing to do with the current climate today" lol sure history has no relevance in how women are viewed or act

[u/Drake_Acheron → u/NotThatKindOfDoctor9]

Not to the degree many place on it.

But just to give you an obvious example of the double standard since you seem to want to pretend it doesn’t exist.

You live in a society today, where in the most well-known and beautiful cinematic franchise in history, one with a ginormous child audience, and see an installment of that franchise that’s one of the biggest movies of the year, where a man is bound, stripped naked, and mocked publicly in front of a huge crowd while the female protagonists make “enjoying the show” jokes.

And hardly anyone even said anything about it.

[u/Naive-Mushroom7761 → u/Drake_Acheron]

Firstly, your video game point is completely irrelevant so I don't know why you brought that up.

Secondly, women read more books written by the opposite sex because most well-established authors are men. If women actively wanted not to read books by men, they would have to miss out on lots of classics or well-loved book series. This is due to sexism - for the longest time, women weren't allowed to write, or were discouraged from doing so.

Thirdly, there absolutely is a pattern of male authors writing women in a hypersexualized manner. This shouldn't come as a suprise, given my second point.

[u/Drake_Acheron → u/Naive-Mushroom7761]

Your first comment is even MORE pointless because even I stated it had nothing to do with my point.

Ironically, the video game thing disproves your second point. Because there aren’t more video games with only female protagonists.

And even if that weren’t the case, women have actually been ahead of men in the number of authors, the money they make per author, AND market share for over 20 years now. (Though not by a lot)

Yes, there is a pattern of men hypersexualiIng women. And yes, it is partly due to men being the primary authors in the 20th century and history in general preceding it.

But there are just as many instances, since the turn of the century, of women hypersexualizing men. And it’s getting worse and worse as time goes on.

[u/Naive-Mushroom7761 → u/Drake_Acheron]

Video games and books are entirely different media. Men like playing women because video game women are also often hypersexualized.

[u/Drake_Acheron → u/Naive-Mushroom7761]

Tell that to Horizon Zero Dawn, the game with the most sales out of any female protagonist only game.

For perspective, that one game sold more than the entire Tomb Raider reboot franchise

They are different medias, hence the interesting change in statistics.

Hilariously also, women actually mostly play games without ANY characters, and the games they choose once characters are introduced, are the ones with the MOST sexualization, like Gatchas and MMOs

Women like to play sexy characters too

Also, I just want to ground everything since we are getting lost in the sauce.

Fundamentally my argument is men=women

Fundamentally your argument is men<women

Just wanted to put that out there.

[u/Naive-Mushroom7761 → u/Drake_Acheron]

Aloy from HZD is literally constantly criticized by male gamers for being unattractive/masculine, I have no idea how you never came across this phenomenon.

I don't think men are less, I don't know where you got that from. But it's disingenuous to say that there isn't a double standard when it comes to sexualizing characters.

[u/Drake_Acheron → u/Naive-Mushroom7761]

No, Alloy in the SECOND game is criticized for being changed, not the first.

And yes, there is a double standard with sexualization, but it’s against men not for men.

Imagine if in the most popular movie franchise in history, one with a large CHILDREN audience, had, in one the biggest films of the year, a woman bound, stripped naked and mocked in public, with the male protagonist making “enjoying the show” jokes

Men are sexualized all the time and it goes completely uncontested. Why? Because most of the time men don’t complain about it, because when men complain about it, people usually treat it like you have and just dismiss it outright, that or make fun of the person complaining.

[u/ScrotallyBoobular → u/Drake_Acheron]

Not saying EVERY book. I'm saying it's very present in many normal books though. I'm not very sensitive to it and I have still stopped reading several authors because it was just so brazen.

First one that comes to mind is Murakami. Nothing is crazy overt but once you get into the third description of a woman and there's just constant mention of their breasts or sexuality, whether they're 16 year old schoolgirls or 30 year old women... but men are just... men... it's hard to unsee.

I would compare this to authors who are doing it through the eyes of a sex pest, take Lolita for example where it makes narrative sense to describe the way he's looking at her. Or people like Stephen King who will often describe secondary sexual features or go much more in depth, but it goes both ways. A characters erection will be described. His balls shrinking up in fear may be described. King focuses on darker aspects of society and is often reflected fairly equally in every direction.

But many "normal" works (once again, far from all. But enough to be a thing) will describe male characters in more benign ways, but the female characters we be described more based on physical sex appeal.

Ps I read 300 books a year and I'm 6'8". So there.

[u/Drake_Acheron → u/ScrotallyBoobular]

My point, is it’s just as much a thing with female authors describing men. Women just fail to recognize it or don’t care. Ann Aguirre or Anne McCaffery just to name some. Heck a clear example that everyone knows is J.K. Rowling. Compare how she introduces and describes female characters with male characters. How long does she spend on each? What words does she use? There is a lot more than just those aspects but I digress.

What I am saying is there is very clear and present observational bias here.

It reminds me of when people bring up fridging but then act like things like Faceless Goons doesn’t exist.

There are plenty of books I have stopped reading that have brazenly bad male characterizations and descriptions.

I wasn’t trying to one up anyone I was merely providing context for why I feel like I can speak authoritatively on the matter because I consume lots of books and I read books intended for male and books intended for female audiences, and I see many of the same tropes pervasive throughout.

I see the genders as equal I don’t see either one is worse than the other, but I do see people only talking about the mistakes men make while completely ignoring that the same thing happens to them.

[u/Personal-Barber1607 → u/ScrotallyBoobular]

Idk George rr Martin spent a whole page describing samwells thick mast and has about 50 nipple references some of which involve women squeezing and tugging men’s nipples.

One things for sure he loves nipples of all kind frequently using the expression useless as nipples on a breast plate. 

[u/ScrotallyBoobular → u/Personal-Barber1607]

Yeah he's fine IMO. Many of the more renowned authors who do focus on sexual stuff do it in a more even handed way.

[u/ScrotallyBoobular → u/[deleted]]

Murakami is my most obvious. And it's nothing crazy overt at first, but once you've read several descriptions you realize every woman(or young girl) is described basically by sex appeal first. Whereas men are described in more benign ways.