98 APRIL 2020 http://www.writers-online.co.ukI
have been wondering how many writers are subconscious
sexists. I don’t mean the deliberate nastiness of putting anyone
down because of gender, but in the sense of writing our
characters into gender confining boxes without even realising
we are doing so.
This is not something I would normally think about, but a writer
friend recently told me he was shocked to find he had pigeonholed
one of his characters and only saw what he’d done when his wife read
the story and challenged him on it.
My friend (who has asked to remain nameless, so I am going to call
him John) had crafted a story with a strong female lead. He thought
he’d really hit the right note by making her subordinate sidekick male.
The pair were on the trail of a seedy minor drug dealer, not realising
they were straying into much deeper waters. The minor dealer was
working for a very dangerous man indeed. So far so good. The female
called the shots and the man followed her commands. That is, until
she was caught by one of the goons who worked for the drug baron.
At this point, everything John had intended went out the window and
the old stereotypical pattern kicked in.
The helpless female needed to be rescued by her gallant male
partner. Not only that, but her gratitude caused her to look at him in
an entirely new light. He was her hero!
John’s wife threw the pages at him when she’d finished reading. ‘I
thought you were going to make the woman the strong character in
the story,’ she said. ‘But I did,’ said John, truly believing he had. It
was only when she made him read the final pages in isolation that he
realised he should have had the man captured and the woman carry
out the rescue. As John said, ‘I really didn’t intend to be that kind of
stereotypical writer, but that’s how my male brain took the story!’
To be fair, it’s not just a male trait. An author I worked with
years ago, a woman this time, had a tendency to make her female
characters run away, scream, cry, wail and shake, while all the male
characters were bold, brave, courageous and keen to protect their
families from flesh-eating monsters. I can remember asking her atthe time what she would have done if someone or something had
tried to eat her own children. Would she have run away and left
them to their fate? ‘Absolutely not,’ she replied. ‘I’d have picked
up anything I could find to use as a weapon and gone at them, no
matter what size, to protect my babies.’
I’m pleased to say she got the message and the women of her world
fought bravely alongside the menfolk – apart from one or two females
who were either cowards or collaborators, but as that applied to a few
of the men as well, that was fine.
Which brings me on to a male author whose book I worked
on. He created a fabulous fantasy world based on a matriarchal
society. However, when that society came under attack, all
the heroes with one exception, were male. The person sent to
find help was male. The leader of the group of mercenaries he
brought back to the village was male, as were all the fighters
under the prince’s command, bar one solitary female who was
so emotionally damaged she made mistakes that put the others
at risk. To be fair, in the final scenes she sacrificed herself to
save everyone else, but this was her only claim to courageous
behaviour. Surely, in a matriarchal society there would be
female warriors?
Why create such a society if you are still going to perpetrate gender
stereotypes within it?
So then I started thinking about my own writing. Was I also guilty
of subconscious gender bias? I was fairly certain I wasn’t. How could
I be when I’d created Detective Sergeant Cathy Connors? Known as
CC to her friends and those few colleagues she allows to get close
enough, she is a forceful character who doesn’t take nonsense from
anyone. She terrifies the local bad guys because of her martial arts
skills. She’s intelligent, funny, loud, outrageous in dress and attitude
and I love her to bits.
I was feeling really smug until it hit me that CC is the only strong
female I’ve created. My books are very much male dominated. Note to
self: stop being sexist!Writers often fall unwittingly into
creating gender stereotypes, says
Lorraine Mace, as she gives them- and herself – a dressing down
NOTES FROM THE MARGIN
Male
order