does man writing differet from that of a woman?

[cacian]

Are you able to tell a woman's story from a man's one?

Please decide which is which in these two paragraphs then discuss.
Thanks!:)

paragraph one

on a sun bleached afternoon in the summer of 1985, my teenage tour of Europe grinds to a halt in a square on the outskirts of Rome. The bus back into town is twenty minutes late and shows no sign of appearing. Yet the delay does not bother me. Instead of pacing up and down the side-walk, or calling the bus company to lodge a complaint, I slip on my walkman, lie down on a bench and listen to Simon and Garfunkel sing about the joys of slowing down and making a moment last. Every detail of the scene is engraved on my memory: two small boys kick a soccer ball around a wall; branches scrape agaisnt the top of a stone wall; and old widow carries her vegetables home in a net bag.
Fast forward fifteen years, and everything has changed. The scene shifts to Rome's busy Fiomicino aeroport...



paragraph two

If you ask someone for a memory and they tell you a story, they are lying.
Me aged five, curled in a ball, behind a toy box hiding; scared the teacher will find me, knowing it's going to happen, trying to prepare myself- that's a memory.
Here's the story I turned it into: on my first dat at primary school, I was furious with my mother for leaving in a place I did not know, with strangers.
Running away was not an option, because I was a good kid -my parents were always telling me that-but on this occasion I objected so strongly to what had been inflicted on me that I decided to protest by absenting myself from Mrs Hill classroom as thoroughly as I dared. There was a large box full of toys in one corner of the room, and, when no one was looking, I put myself into the space between it the wall. I do not know how long I was there for, hiddne, listeninbg to the unappealing noises the children were making and Mrs Hills attempts to impose order, but it was not long enough for my deception to start feeling uncomfortable. I regretted hiding, and to show myself all of the sudden would be tantamount to confessing, and I had no desire to do anything so rash.

[castleteachings]

You're delving into a whole theoretic approach there: feminism. It is not always comprehensible whether the author of a text is male or female - if the author is successful in creating a voice for a character, either sex of that character should be made prevalent - yet certain features of feminist writing can be interpreted within a text.

[cacian]

You're delving into a whole theoretic approach there: feminism. It is not always comprehensible whether the author of a text is male or female - if the author is successful in creating a voice for a character, either sex of that character should be made prevalent - yet certain features of feminist writing can be interpreted within a text.

How do you mean by feminism?
This makes me think about masculinism but there is not one.

[castleteachings]

I'll be writing about feminism on my blog (http://castleteachings.blogspot.com/) soon, keep posted for information. I currently study feminism as a theoretic approach.

[Alexander III]

To be honest the only differnce I can see is that, the first story has horrible prose and the second stories prose is not horrible, in fact it is good.

[Mutie]

Going by stereotype I would say the first is man (technical and detailed) and the second woman (introspective, sensitive).

[cacian]

To be honest the only differnce I can see is that, the first story has horrible prose and the second stories prose is not horrible, in fact it is good.

can you tell which is which?
I am surprised at your comments because mine was exactly the opposite.
I think the second is hiddeously bad.


Going by stereotype I would say the first is man (technical and detailed) and the second woman (introspective, sensitive).
Humm...
why made you think the second one is sensitive although I am much prefering your first description of technical and detailed.:smile5:

[Mutie]

Well its all about the narrators emotion and fear.

[AuntShecky]

Do you mean male writers are different from female writers? How so? Why would it make any difference?

Why couldn't a male writer create a female narrator and/or chief character and vice versa? Nothing prevents one sex from working in genres primarily marketed toward the other--i.e. "chick" lit, novels with sports themes. And of course there's no law that says men can't read books about women and again, vice versa.

A couple of centuries back those lines were nearly impassable. Hence, female writers dropped their feminine-sounding names and took up male pseudonyms-- George Eliot, George Sand. Even in recent years a similar thing happened to the stunningly successful author of the Harry Potter series.
From Wikipedia:

Although she writes under the pen name "J. K. Rowling", pronounced like rolling (IPA ˈroʊlɪŋ),[15] her name when her first Harry Potter book was published was simply "Joanne Rowling". Fearing that the target audience of young boys might not want to read a book written by a woman, her publishers demanded that she use two initials, rather than her full name.

Finally, a couple of decades ago I noticed an acquaintance reading The Secret History, by Donna Tartt, whose publishers had awarded her an enormous advance, a practice almost unheard of for a first novel. My friend praised Tartt's writing skill, remarking that she was impressed that the author was able to depict accurately the chief character, a male. I responded that all writers worth their salt should have that imaginative ability.

Oh, and incidentally, have you ever read The Book of J., edited by Harold Bloom? That book argues --successfully, I believe -- that the author of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament-- patriarchal point of view and all-- was actually written by a female author.

So, I fear I have to dispute your premise that there is a fundamental difference between male and female writers.

[kiki1982]

I would say one if a woman and two is a man.

I may be wrong though. I once did such a test and got about 50% right.

I think major tests have been done before and the conclusion was that you could not really see apart from when it was a blatantly female topic for example. Say, Austen subject matter. And then still, with these new men...

In view of popular critic arguing that the writer of Jane Eyre, currer Bell was definitely a man, I would say that it is pretty difficult to judge... :D

Oh, yes, and I would go with Alexander (again we agree!) that prose one was bad and prose two was much, much better.

[PeterL]

For the first piece, the Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!

For the second piece, the Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: female!

http://bookblog.net/gender/analysis.php
The other site didn't open.

[AlysonofBathe]

So, I fear I have to dispute your premise that there is a fundamental difference between male and female writers.

Thank you. I was going to go into a long-winded rant and get myself all steamed up, but you've said exactly what I was planning to, and done it far more eloquently than I would have.

Cheers,
Alyson

[/dev/null]

So, I fear I have to dispute your premise that there is a fundamental difference between male and female writers.

Don't you think there is a fundamental difference between any two given writers?

[YesNo]

My guess is the first paragraph is by a female and the second by a male.

[cacian]

Don't you think there is a fundamental difference between any two given writers?

I personally think there is and I am a woman.
Many people will argue against but I am happy with my decision.


To be honest the only differnce I can see is that, the first story has horrible prose and the second stories prose is not horrible, in fact it is good.

I find the first prose quite liberating for there is a certain freedom of expression and feelings about the prose and in fact the writer himself.
The idea of listening to music and observing one surroundingn such as children, nature and people, indicate a certain contentment and intelligence about and within the writer.


The second paragraph starts with accusative words such as lying.
There is an agressive almost agitated tone about the writer.
Another word is furious which indicate anger and lack of awarness of one natural surrounding.
Hidding is mentioned twice almost as if running away from themselves.
The accusative aggressive tone again when the expression
that is a memory. I felt like saying no that isn't and no not everyone lies.
Another word is 'listening to' which for a five year old makes it a little creepy because not only the writer is hiding but also spying if you like
So all in all I find this piece quite disturbing/off putting and lacking in integrity.

[PeterL]

There is a fundamental difference between the writing of men and the writing of women. There has been a fair amount of research into word usage and sentence structure. Theresults o that research has been put into some online things that guess the sex of the writer, ad the guesses are right most of the time. There are men whose writing is like a woman's writing and vice versa.

[kiki1982]

So, Peter, when you posted that 'the Gender Genie thinks...' is that the solution to the mystery. In that case I got it wrong again!

I agree, there has been a lot of research done about this, mainly when feminist theory was fashionable (196°-1980s I suppose).

[cacian]

So, Peter, when you posted that 'the Gender Genie thinks...' is that the solution to the mystery. In that case I got it wrong again!

I agree, there has been a lot of research done about this, mainly when feminist theory was fashionable (196°-1980s I suppose).

what is the feminist theory about if I may ask?:smile5:

[kiki1982]

Motivated from the idea that women are essentially equal to men, but from there exploring how women dealt with their gender roles in the past and how they rejected them (that was feminist theorists' main motivation if I have understood it well). Also maybe how male power subjected them and how they tried to find a way around it.

And what changes women brought to the concept 'literature' and 'novel'.

If you as me some of it is a bit over-exaggerated (if somehting like that were to exist).

For more explanation, please go to Wikipedia. It's a good starting point.

[AuntShecky]

If you want to make the generalization that female writers are different from male writers, I suppose you could find plenty of data that would support that position.

The problem is that fundamental changes in social attitudes in regard to women and their roles only began in the last half of the twentieth century; in the beginning decades of the current century, it is hoped that such progress will continue, but it is far from worldwide. For instance, much of the feminist movement has thus far begun to take hold only in industrialized nations while in other countries women are subjected to discrimination, if not worse. Even in the country wherein I reside, there have been recent rollbacks in which a woman's freedom to choose her own destiny are under threat.

So until rather recently, much of the literature produced by female authors has reflected their limited roles (which is not to imply that the talent or quality of writing is essentially different than that of males.) Therefore, a woman writer might be likely to express such themes as security, human relationships, harmony, and similar so-called "feminine" concerns. Some, including the late Christopher Hitchens, emphasized these womanly concerns as having a "civilizing" effect, yet at the same time Hitchens was not alone in believing that women are generally not as funny as men. Attempting to be "funny" more or less requires a "distancing," an aloof sort of attitude, and it certainly mandates taking a risk. Some other critics may believe that women are more risk-averse, as they might believe that they have more to lose by going against accepted norms. Sometimes, as in "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, it can drive a woman nuts.

According to some of the previous replies above, there is evidently an online tool or app able to determine the gender of an author, based on the style and word choices. This strikes me as a generalization, and a rather superficial one at that, but it's probably easy: for instance, women have been traditionally taught to be detail-oriented; perhaps there is some "hard-wiring" via evolution for this tendency: keeping track of the children, insuring there is enough food supply in the cave, a constant wary eye out for predators, etc. As translated into so-called "feminine" writing, passages might have "lists." But list-making isn't the sole property of female writers-- how about the ancient writer whose virile writing is never disputed--Homer, with long descriptive passages which are essentially lists or "catalogues"?

That women are pegged as "detail-oriented" -- not seeing for forest for the trees, maybe?--did not escape the notice of Virginia Woolf, often dubbed "the writer's writer." Critics assailed Woolf's micro-managing character, Mrs. Dalloway, for misdirecting her energy and efforts, pronouncing Mrs. D. as "trivial." Readers have to wonder whether V. Woolf, with her inner-directed prose, wondered about the same thing, though the excellence of her prose belies such concern, if indeed it was ever really there. Because of the centuries of suppression, women are often thought to suffer self-esteem issues more than men seem to do--seem. A basic problem that covers almost every other area of one's life must spill over into creative efforts as well. Thus I really believe that it's more likely that a lack of confidence would be found in a female writer rather than a male writer. Again, I know there are plenty of exceptions.

I remember reading somewhere that female writers (in general) are less likely to choose world-shaking themes. Think of the highly successful Margaret Mitchell's sole book which uses the Civil War as a mere backdrop to what is essentially a love story. Yet we can think of plenty of cases of female authors, such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, who take on the Big Story-- though Jane Smiley went a little overboard by pronouncing Stowe as "a better writer"
than Twain (cf. a ponderous essay (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59356) in this forum.)

It strikes me as a little odd-- and I've got a little guilt that I'm a traitor to my gender-- to think that in my own preferences of authors more male authors show up than female ones. When I have been inspired to say, "Wow, I wish I could write like that!" the authors were Saul Bellow, Updike, the late David Foster Wallace, Ethan Canin's "The Emperor of the Air," Richard Powers et al. I seldom get that feeling after reading works by female authors. Why? I hope it's just a coincidence.

Of course, no matter the gender of the author, the best works show big events and their effects on the lives of specific characters, with the former not as a desultory setting and the latter, as real people, not malleable puppets.

And as far as point of view, good authors should have the ability to depict the thoughts and actions of characters of both genders. It is no accident that Eliot chose Ovid's transsexual character, Tiresias, as one of the voices in "The Waste Land."

One quality of the work of F. Scott Fitzgerald's life, richly illustrated by his (male) characters, is the desire for "nobility." Such a desire can be detected in other male authors, such as Bellow's Augie March: "I want. . ." Generally women authors aren't concerned with that kind of desire --to be as good as, or even better, than others through personal achievement, in order to reach the point of admiration. This isn't to say that women authors and their characters don't want to achieve nobility. First they have to achieve equality, and a little r-e-s-p-e-c-t.

[PeterL]

So, Peter, when you posted that 'the Gender Genie thinks...' is that the solution to the mystery. In that case I got it wrong again!

I agree, there has been a lot of research done about this, mainly when feminist theory was fashionable (196°-1980s I suppose).

Actually, the best research has been more recent,bcause there are better computers.

Scroll down to the article on this page: http://www.hackerfactor.com/GenderGuesser.php

If you are interested, then try searching for some of the phrases mentioned.

[Darcy88]

The language centre of the brain is larger in women. That's why girls typically outdo boys in languages and writing in school. How this affects women's actual style or method of writing I don't have a clue.

[JCamilo]

I read, i wasnt much interessed, a study that showed some difference between women and men, such as men with a bigger tendency to reffer to things and objects as things and women as beings (therefore using he or she, while the men used it). Considering not all languages have different pronous for such sittuation like english does, I didnt paid much attention to it.