Do you think it's entirely possible for a man to write about a female character to their fullest and vice versa? Is there amount where an author can't quite intellectually grasp the totality of the lives experience of another gender?

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So for centuries authors have written both female and male characters extremely well.Shakepeare, Dickens, Eliot, Austen, Bronte sisters etc. etc.

however I think literature has become more gendered in audience with the advent of chick lit and hyper masculine novels like Jack Reacher with a host of aubiographies from ex SAS/boxer/sportsmen types. I don't actually think this a direction we should go in? I think it's a little worrying that in a typical high store there is now a divergence between 'male' and 'female' literature.

do you think modern authors are becoming a little more reluctant to write in depth characters from the opposite sex as presumably this is more of literary challenge? Is there sterling in modern society that it is authoritative to write about another lender's lives experience in much the same way as writing about a character from another ethnicity may not be construed by some as entirely ethical?

I do hope this isn't the case and authors in general do continue to write about other genders at a dee p emotional leve..

On a more pulpy note, I was always surprised about how well Dick Francis did, until I read they were written by Mrs!

@BadShepherd Wally Lamb’s She’s Come Undone is instantly what this thread made me think of, too!

I'm not sure how much it matters. I'm a woman, but I've met some other women who think so differently from me, I doubt I could write them well (not that I'm a published writer anyway.) Though that might just make the case that I can write some women and no men, rather than some women and some men. But I don't think any author could write everyone successfully, but as there will always be a finite number of characters, it probably doesn't matter, along as the ones they do write are plausible.

Is there sexism in the publishing industry? Why for example did JKR write under a pseudonym for her crime novels and used the name Jo to hide the fact the fact that she was a woman when she wrote Harry Potter as there was a belief boys may not have found a book about wizards written by a woman appealing (apprently)?

Do we take a view that an author is a good author regardless of sex and a good author should be able to write make and female characters equally well if talented!? This would mean we have a gender neutral approach to books where really you have no regard to an author's sex when picking up a book from a bookstore.

Or....do we accept women have been subject to different rules to men for considerable periods of history and even now there are gender divides apparent in a lot parts of society and it is important that a distinctive female voice is promoted in literature (even this means a little bit of positive bias in promoting female authors?)

Another thought.....If I as a white person were to write a book from a first person perspective of a black person would this in some sense be cultural appropriation?
some would argue it is a little inappropriate to write a book from the perspective of another ethnicity due to lack of authenticity and the possibility of competing against authors of colour who wish a platform to describe their lived experience?

in that context is writing as a female if male a little challenging in the 2020s? If make authors are writing female roles are they in danger of 'pushing out' female authors who possibly could do an equally good (or better) job of fully rounding those female characters?

Interesting thread. I agree about Terry Pratchett. I enjoyed Jasper Fforde's books when I was younger, especially Thursday Next, but when I re-read them recently I found the parts when she was pregnant completely unconvincing. It was really jarring. Although I did like the afterlife he gave Miss Havisham.

I have been thinking about this recently after I read Skagboys by Irvine Welsh. Now Welsh is not an author I particularly like and I'd put him in a category I call dicklit but the book, which I found overly long and disjointed, took me aback because he wrote the female characters really well. They were the most interesting part of the book. I was not expecting that. You can find gems in the most unexpected places.
Some male authors just can't do it and then the book is ruined for me.
Must be true of female authors as well.

If make authors are writing female roles are they in danger of 'pushing out' female authors who possibly could do an equally good (or better) job of fully rounding those female characters?

There's a long history of sexism in publishing (as with all other fields) - it's partly why the Women's Prize for Fiction was set up.

There may be issues around men pushing out female authors; I don't know what current figures are. But they wouldn't do an equally good or better job of fully rounding those female characters, because they would be different characters. Two women writers would come up with different female characters.

Most books are going to have a range of characters, both male and female. It would be very limiting for any author to be able to oy write about their own sex.

I remember being horrified when I heard that a lot of men won't/don't read books written by women. It was something that had never occurred to me.
I think publishing has got a lot more gender specific.
I bloody love Lee Child though.
Winston Graham (Poldark books, much better than the TV series) writes amazing women.

I was impressed with Richard Osman’s female characters.

Women read 50:50 male:female on average. Men read predominantly men. Men authors get paid more than female authors (that appears to be because some genres are better paid than others, within genres men don't necessarily get paid more). Books by men get reviewed more and win more prizes.

However, the publishing industry is now dominated by women and there's a lot of buzz about young female authors so things are changing.

I think some men write convincing women (I was pleasantly surprised by the women in War and Peace because I always think of Tolstoy as being a very masculine author) and some are terrible (love Peter Carey's writing but his female protagonist in The Chemistry of Tears was shockingly unbelievable, on the very first page she described herself as an 'oddly elegant tall woman'. Said no woman about herself ever.

I'm assuming that Hilary Mantel was pretty good at writing Thomas Cromwell considering how well respected those books are. TBH I'd suspect that a decent female writer will be able to write a convincing man because the reason some male writers don't is because of ingrained sexism and they don't think of women as wholely human whereas women are brought up to listen to and respect men and view them as the default human.

Michel Faber, who wrote The Crimson Petal and the White and Under the Skin, writes women very well.

George Eliot did both well. Which is interesting.

Men authors get paid more than female authors (that appears to be because some genres are better paid than others, within genres men don't necessarily get paid more).

I think the idea of genres is important as a lot of the characters (both male and female) are often pretty poor outside the main roles. If your reading romance the female characters are important but not so much if it's a war story based on soldiers. I read a lot of sci-fi and a lot of romance, in both outside the main roles they're mainly place holders for the plot.

I read The Woman Who Walked Into Doors as a teen and was genuinely surprised that the author wasn’t a woman (Roddy Doyle) but I’d put him in the minority of authors who can do that.

Has anyone read Will Dean’s The Last Thing to Burn? Written from a female perspective and describes some grim experiences (rape, childbirth with no hospital care or real pain relief) extraordinarily convincingly from that perspective. I have no idea how he did it.

Stephen King not always great at writing women but there was a moment in one of his novels - it might have been Cujo - where he was describing a woman’s thoughts about her life as she washed up and I thought: you’ve absolutely nailed the female perspective there. Completely understood it.

I'm female, and I'm not entirely convinced TM Logan is male, even though there's a picture and a description of a man called "Tim" in the back of all his books. When he writes from a female perspective it feels pretty plausible and I just forget I'm reading a male author.

The single best fictional description of childbirth I've read is in Red Plenty by Francis Spufford.

Writing well is extremely difficult. I don't think any writer should be restricted from trying any character they like. If it doesn't work, it's because writing is so hard rather than because it's impossible to do.

Just thought of another one. Vikram Seth does a wonderful heroine in Lata.

I feel Patrick Gale writes women well.
Nick Hornby and Jonathan Coe - both writers I like a lot- tend to write rather sensible women imo.

@Gremlinsateit , you're saying Dick Francis didn't write his books. 😯

can't quite intellectually grasp the totality of the lives experience of another gender

I don't especially want that from novels or characters I read. I'm not that interested in their experience of being this-that-other gender. I suspect deep-dive on gender topic would bore me. then again, I'm not into 'deep' books at all. Life is too short.

Also, I don't seem to have a lot in common with many women MNers. Especially when some MNers go on about their gendered experiences. I'm mostly incurious even about their experiences. .. we aren't looking for same thing in book characters, probably.

Oh yes, he was quite open about it. Mary Francis was at least a major contributor. He said cheerfully that he had the name to sell more books so that’s why they were published in his name, and he would have been happy to have her name on them.

Shock to Dick Francis. Although it explains a lot!

I think Douglas Kennedy represents women convincingly- The Pursuit of Happiness and A Special Relationship.

I haven't read it in a while, but I remember thinking at the time that Arthur Golden did a great job with the majority female characters in Memoirs of a Geisha. The men in that story were really secondary, and not as fleshed out in comparison.