Anyone else find men in writing groups annoying?

[CornflakeMum]

Just that really. I'm doing an undergrad online creative writing course and also belong to a local writers group.
In both cases I find the men in the group (all bar one, who is lovely) to be really obnoxious in the way they talk/write to the other writers (mostly female) and when they give feedback.
Although we've all been given guidelines about how to give constructive feedback, it's as if it doesn't apply to them. They act as if they are the teacher/leader of the group, when in fact, we're all equals. At least one of them in my online group ends his feedback with patronising comments such as "this is not a bad effort, keep trying, I'm sure you'll get there..."

Am I just unlucky, or is this widespread?

It’s not just you.

If I had the time I would start a women-only writing group.

Yes!

I blocked someone for the patronising comments thing.

Glad it's not just me. I just find it really weird. It's as if they're massively insecure and the only way they can get past it is by belittling the other writers.
Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to receive genuine feedback on my writing, but it's all the unnecessary put-downs that get my back up.

So for example, my online course in an international one, with English as the working language (no requirement for specific US or British English). My group know I'm British and I write in UK English, yet there's this one guy who insists on changing all my spelling to US and will make comments like "I don't know what this is, and nor will anyone else" next to words like 'motorway'!
Some of his 'advice' is just plain wrong too e.g. "your text should be justified both left and right, for neatness..."

I can't decide whether to send him a direct message or just ignore him. Grrr...

Ignore him. Block him if you can

I don't think it is insecurity. I think it's entitlement.

Just blank those comments. Decide to only communicate with students who offer constructive feedback. Give feedback only to those who offer you criticism you can work with.
If the course depends on you feeding back to everyone, just hand out similar non-committal generalities to them.

If you have time you could challenge him:
'This is standard UK English. All readers who have read widely will know this term and be comfortable with these spellings. I highly recommend you widen your reading list and thus your vocabulary.' You'll get there!

Yes I found this, too. Worst, though, was the fact there was a guy and a woman in the group who lived together. They didn't tell any of us this. When they would turn against one of the group it was absolutely horrific - they'd clearly pulled us to pieces in private and really went for it in public. If either of them were criticised the other would act as though their puppy was being murdered.

Neither is published now, by the way.

Im lucky in mine we have an equal mix of men and women and they are all lovely. In fact its the women who can be really horrible. The men tend to be really funny and kind with feedback in my experience.

There's one man in mine who always finds a way to criticise my comments on other writers' work. His comments have the theme of 'ignore that (female) idiot, she doesn't know what she's talking about'. He never comments on my pieces of writing though. The wanker.

Hahaha I had this too ‘it’s form that’s important, not story’

That's really annoying of them. Thing is, despite the fact that they seem to make an effort in criticising you, many of them might have made these same errors themselves.

I can't recall there being issues in the creative writing class at school, but I have found that internet writing forums dominated by male writers are horrible.

People there tend to be pretentious and layer on the purple prose as thickly as possible, while having terribly boring plots. It is like they all try to show off how clever they are, and nothing else.

In forums where there's more female writers, people seem much more interested in whether something is actually interesting to read.

Men also tend to think their first novel will be a bestseller, whereas women are much more realistic and publish their works, fanfic or otherwise, for free on the internet to get some feedback first.

I find men tend to be more assertive in their comments so women will say 'I like this piece but you could improve the dialogue by taking a look at this' and men will say 'you need to make them say X and Y or it won't work'. As if you are bound to work with their suggestions!

Not to say women never do this, but over the last 20 years of being in online writing forums, I have seen this a lot.

I've had a guy critique a flash piece I wrote (1k) and say 'this needs to be a 5k story and then it will work'.

I mean saying 'I think this story might work better with more room to breathe' is one thing, but turning a 1k story into 5k should come from the writer.

I also find British spelling 'critiquing' absolutely infuriating.

Pah!

i think age has something to do with it. I've been in writing groups with mostly middle-aged (ish) men and they were like this. But my latest was an online forum and the men were mostly younger (30 and under) and they weren't like this at all. So maybe there is hope for the future!

Yes, I've noticed this a bit too in my online course! All the men (and some of them are young, I'm afraid!) will make sweeping statements such as "publishers aren't interested in domestic fiction any more" or "first person unreliable female narrators are no longer of any interest" as if they somehow have a crystal ball into every single publishing house.
Meanwhile, female writers are more likely to say something constructive like "I think you might need to add an extra dimension, as this style has been done a lot recently" etc.

I used to teach cw and unfortunately, this sense of entitlement and grandiosity is a microcosm of what goes on in our culture at large. It's incredible how many times I'd be reading really pisspoor stories about middle aged men who were surrounded by young nubile women who find their 'frightening intelligence both threatening and madly attractive'. When I gently pointed out that in one case, the writer's point of view was all over the place and their grammar needed attention (ie was shit) he then wrote a story about a 'bitter middle-aged woman!' He then had the nerve to send me his crap novel and was affronted when I didn't offer to 'fix' it and 'get it published'.

Alas, it's all about fear. Male egos can be very very fragile and some see constructive criticism as an attack.

I once had to workshop a story from a middle-aged man which was supposedly written from the perspective of a teenage girl discussing tampons, at length and in detail, with her 14 year old friend . It was just gross (and awfully written).