Masculinity and femininity in fiction
Jul. 27th, 2016 06:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rainwatersparkOnce in a while, I'll see posts about authors writing masculinity/femininity in fiction. Sometimes it's the tired trope of "female authors can't write male characters authentically" (but, somehow, the reverse is usually not said about male authors?). Or, sometimes it's "straight female authors horribly mangle gay male characters." Like, the argument that straight women shouldn't fetishize gay men, the same way straight guys shouldn't fetishize lesbians, is understandable enough. However...
1. Is there any empirical data that most women who write about gay guys are, in fact, straight? I've seen fandom surveys that suggest that the majority of women who write/read slash fanfiction, at least, are actually LGBTQIAP+ (including lesbian women who write m/m slash fic). And I know of at least one confirmed example of a slash (original) fiction, with something resembling the seme/uke dynamic, written by a bisexual woman. I mean, if the point is that cis women generally are guilty of fetishizing gay men...that's a slightly different point than cis straight women alone fetishizing gay men.
2. One post I read talked about how most fiction about gay men written by (allegedly) straight women doesn't deal with the problems gay men face in navigating masculinity.
...I'm not questioning this, but, as someone who mostly reads and writes speculative fiction...oftentimes fantasy/sci-fi worlds try to break the mold by having a non-heteronormative environment. And I think this is a good thing, just like I think it's a good thing when spec fic has societies that aren't racist, or aren't sexist, etc.
The part about masculinity also suggests to me that the character(s) in question have to have internalized certain norms—the American norms of masculinity, in this case. But what if an author wants to write about a character who hasn't internalized these norms, or who rejects them? Or if an author just isn't interested in exploring constructs of gender that way? I mean, as a female writer, I am personally deeply uncomfortable with writing female characters who navigate femininity. What does this mean—that I, a female writer, cannot write an authentically female character, much less an authentically lesbian character?
I'm sure part of it is my own personal circumstance—I'm autistic, which probably has to do with why I've never assimilated stereotypical gender norms, and I may or may not be genderqueer. The result is that I have zero interest in navigating current-day American experiences with femininity and masculinity in writing because both have always seemed pointless to me.
1. Is there any empirical data that most women who write about gay guys are, in fact, straight? I've seen fandom surveys that suggest that the majority of women who write/read slash fanfiction, at least, are actually LGBTQIAP+ (including lesbian women who write m/m slash fic). And I know of at least one confirmed example of a slash (original) fiction, with something resembling the seme/uke dynamic, written by a bisexual woman. I mean, if the point is that cis women generally are guilty of fetishizing gay men...that's a slightly different point than cis straight women alone fetishizing gay men.
2. One post I read talked about how most fiction about gay men written by (allegedly) straight women doesn't deal with the problems gay men face in navigating masculinity.
...I'm not questioning this, but, as someone who mostly reads and writes speculative fiction...oftentimes fantasy/sci-fi worlds try to break the mold by having a non-heteronormative environment. And I think this is a good thing, just like I think it's a good thing when spec fic has societies that aren't racist, or aren't sexist, etc.
The part about masculinity also suggests to me that the character(s) in question have to have internalized certain norms—the American norms of masculinity, in this case. But what if an author wants to write about a character who hasn't internalized these norms, or who rejects them? Or if an author just isn't interested in exploring constructs of gender that way? I mean, as a female writer, I am personally deeply uncomfortable with writing female characters who navigate femininity. What does this mean—that I, a female writer, cannot write an authentically female character, much less an authentically lesbian character?
I'm sure part of it is my own personal circumstance—I'm autistic, which probably has to do with why I've never assimilated stereotypical gender norms, and I may or may not be genderqueer. The result is that I have zero interest in navigating current-day American experiences with femininity and masculinity in writing because both have always seemed pointless to me.
