Thothmuffin

This entry is regarding CP's post on transauthsexuals.

I think that a lot of women, especially SFF authors, write male characters rather than female ones because, for some reason, male characters seem to have more of a "blank slate" as far as believability and personality goes. Maybe this means women have a lot more socio-psycho-cultural baggage than men. Perhaps it stems from the still-too-common view of "normalcy" that defines women by their difference from men. Male bodies and minds are viewed as a sort of "control" because they are optimized, streamlined, less complicated, what have you.

More likely the blank slate effect is a product of the fact that most SFF authors (especially fantasy authors) are writing in worlds where men have the greatest mobility, power, and capacity for adventure. When SFF tries to make a more gender-equal society, the women often end up being mannish, because the authors try to bring female characters closer to "the norm." Regardless of whether art is reflecting the author's or the character's society here, women characters seem to be harder to make rounded on the page, no matter if written by male or female authors.

And I don't think most female authors, especially non-slash ones, pick male characters because they feel freed by not having to portray them "correctly," but perversely choose males because it's easier to make readers believe in a SFF man, and every author wants to be believed. SFF has a history of male language and character norms that is very easy to tap into and spin off from; I'd argue that its norms for women are much less comfortable to work with for modern authors with any kind of sensibility, male or female. I wonder if your dad would think that male authors writing female characters is weird? Thoughts on that in general?

So what's a gender-conscious SFF writer to do? I feel a horrible pressure to write stories about interesting, dynamic, human women whose psyches are rounded and believable, but looking back over most of my work, I'd have to say I've failed the few times I've half-heartedly attempted it. I am no less susceptible to the "blank-template" effect than any other author; maybe more susceptible, since I'm largely a product of what I've read, and most of my SFF background is ruthlessly masculine.

Maybe slash writers are writing androgynous/genderqueer men as a way to question and subvert the blank template effect. But they run the risk of falling into their own gendered codes just as bad as any of the stereotypes female fantasy characters have to get over before becoming believable. Take for example the slash classics such as the Tortured Hero, Androgynous Exotic, Slave Boy, Manly Rapist, etc etc.

Gender queering isn't enough without a real core of believable humanity, and that's why the male-dominance in the Lowachee books never struck me as odd. Hers is a rough world, peopled by characters who have perfect reason to be who and what they are in that world.

How boring and limiting it would be if female authors could only write about female characters, and males about males. The goal should not be to make characters seem androgynous/gender-neutral, but for the author itself to occupy a place that transcends and flows between gendered ideas, appropriating whatever is necessary to make a character resonate sympathetically and humanely with the readers.

Like actors, authors do not have the luxury of retaining their identities if they wish to create good art. They can draw on their personal experience and perception, indeed they must, but art that is really resonant must be so much more than author roleplaying or wish-fulfillment. It must speak to universal human commonalities. To do that, an author must be not appear to be trans-anything, but pan-everything: all knowing, all encompassing, the deity of the book.

CP, you can compare your own thoughts on Lowachee vs. Robbins here (I hope I'm not misquoting you, correct me if I'm wrong). You like Lowachee's men because their masculinity, even if atypical or queered, is always unconscious and believeable; you dislike Robbins' women because they're so conscious of the strangeness of their femaleness and femininity. Robbins is trans, Lowachee is pan.

For anyone who wants a recent fantasy series with a feminine, believable, fabulous woman main character, you must must must pick up Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel books. In Terre D'Ange, she creates a world that embraces sexual difference without subjugating one sex to the other, and the main character Phedre is relentlessly female and human at the same time.