I was talking to a guy at work the other day. We were discussing books that we liked. I had told him about these books that I like to read by J.D. Robb, who is actually Nora Roberts. He told me that his wife loves Nora Roberts books and that he tried to read one of her books, but it was too girly. I told him that these books were very different from her other books. The heroine in these books is a tough, no nonsense cop. That they are not romance in novels. So then he says, "Oh, she's trying to write like a man." I did not say anything. I was not really surprised by the statement. But the more I think about it the more pissed off I get.
What the hell does that mean? If I don't write some stupid claptrap about romance or buying shoes, then I am writing like a man? I am not ashamed to admit that I read the occasional book like "Bridget Jones Diary". They are funny and cute and easy to read. But I've read a lot of stupid shit by men too. So let me tell you that WHEN I get published if I hear some jackass talk about book being written "like a man", I'm going to blow his ears back.
What a jackhole. Don't worry about neaderthals like that guy. I've heard it said, more than once, that Henry James could write women better than any man of his generation. I have heard (and agree) that George Eliot (a woman) could write the male perspective without skipping a beat. I think that writing, while it can be highly gendered, is also one of those arts that can truly be genderless -- like painting. You don't look at a painting and go "Oh yeah, that is clearly a woman painting that man." Writing is like that. The writer can hide behind the page just as easily as a painter can behind the canvas.
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