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I have a folder full of draft blog posts, and I go in and noodle around there sometimes, trying to figure out what I want to post next. My oldest draft post varies dramatically in length, because sometimes I go in and delete everything, sometimes I rewrite it until it's 10 or 15 pages long. It's from 2006 or so, and it's about the tendency of authors to use the words "masculine" and "feminine" as adjectives.
Well, I've decided to give it up for a bad job, and instead post my basic thoughts about it. Which are: Just stop it. That is some lazy-ass writing, and it makes your work boring, and I'm tired of reading it.
Masculine and feminine, more than almost any other words in novels, mean radically different things to different people. Often, they are used as "shorthand" words -- especially (though not only) in romance novels and action/adventure novels. These words usually (but not always) are meant to tell the reader that the cisgender male hero smells earthy, has a large, muscular body, and embodies some vague societal idea of "masculinity" that really doesn't mean anything in the context of a book that is usually about idealized versions of the norms inside the author's head. It also implies that no cis woman ever could possibly hope to achieve these qualities.
This is also seen a lot in m/m romances, to explain why men are gay. Because no woman ever can be muscular or smell earthy or really know how to give a great handjob, and no man ever could possibly not be or not know, right?
The word "femininity" is the same -- the cisgender female hero smells like a combination of citrus and the sky and "mystique," and regardless of how strong or short she may be, her limbs are slender and long and her skin is delicate, and she embodies a, frankly, much less vague but no less societal idea of "femininity." It is slightly more formed than "masculinity" because "everyone" knows what women are "supposed" to be like (thanks, magazines and tv!), but the details still exist mostly in the author's head.
And hey! Check out some f/f erotica, and see how no man could ever hope to touch her this way, how orgasms are completely different, how no man could ever truly understand a woman's body . . .
It may seem innocuous. It may seem ridiculous that this is something I focus on. But you know what? In the absence of the book itself defining the words masculine and feminine and securing those words in the context of its society, those words are ridiculous. (An interesting exercise: read some historical fiction by contemporary authors, and then books set in the same time period by authors who lived contemporaneously, and observe the masculine and feminine ideals.)
I'm also going to come right out and say that these words, beyond being lazy and boring, are hurtful. They encourage gender policing, and they are transphobic, and they erase people who are genderqueer and intersex from the narrative completely. They also erase the experiences of people who may be cisgender, but whose presentation, experience, or sense of self doesn’t fit into the hazy, yet totally controlling, ideas of "masculine" and "feminine." This doesn’t just mean that these words are bad writing, but that these words, used generally and without clarification, do tangible harm to real people.
When I do developmental/line edits, I often point out to writers where they use "masculine" and "feminine" and ask them to write instead what they really mean -- either to use better adjectives that get across exactly the ideas they're using these words as shorthand to represent, or to root these words in a context for the reader.
I challenge all authors to do this: go through your writing, find these words, figure out what you really mean, and write a more interesting, thoughtful book.
Note on commenting: I'm usually lax about policing comments, because the people who comment on my posts tend to be pretty great. Please keep up that trend. Hurtful, ignorant, and nasty bullshit should go somewhere else.
Well, I've decided to give it up for a bad job, and instead post my basic thoughts about it. Which are: Just stop it. That is some lazy-ass writing, and it makes your work boring, and I'm tired of reading it.
Masculine and feminine, more than almost any other words in novels, mean radically different things to different people. Often, they are used as "shorthand" words -- especially (though not only) in romance novels and action/adventure novels. These words usually (but not always) are meant to tell the reader that the cisgender male hero smells earthy, has a large, muscular body, and embodies some vague societal idea of "masculinity" that really doesn't mean anything in the context of a book that is usually about idealized versions of the norms inside the author's head. It also implies that no cis woman ever could possibly hope to achieve these qualities.
This is also seen a lot in m/m romances, to explain why men are gay. Because no woman ever can be muscular or smell earthy or really know how to give a great handjob, and no man ever could possibly not be or not know, right?
The word "femininity" is the same -- the cisgender female hero smells like a combination of citrus and the sky and "mystique," and regardless of how strong or short she may be, her limbs are slender and long and her skin is delicate, and she embodies a, frankly, much less vague but no less societal idea of "femininity." It is slightly more formed than "masculinity" because "everyone" knows what women are "supposed" to be like (thanks, magazines and tv!), but the details still exist mostly in the author's head.
And hey! Check out some f/f erotica, and see how no man could ever hope to touch her this way, how orgasms are completely different, how no man could ever truly understand a woman's body . . .
It may seem innocuous. It may seem ridiculous that this is something I focus on. But you know what? In the absence of the book itself defining the words masculine and feminine and securing those words in the context of its society, those words are ridiculous. (An interesting exercise: read some historical fiction by contemporary authors, and then books set in the same time period by authors who lived contemporaneously, and observe the masculine and feminine ideals.)
I'm also going to come right out and say that these words, beyond being lazy and boring, are hurtful. They encourage gender policing, and they are transphobic, and they erase people who are genderqueer and intersex from the narrative completely. They also erase the experiences of people who may be cisgender, but whose presentation, experience, or sense of self doesn’t fit into the hazy, yet totally controlling, ideas of "masculine" and "feminine." This doesn’t just mean that these words are bad writing, but that these words, used generally and without clarification, do tangible harm to real people.
When I do developmental/line edits, I often point out to writers where they use "masculine" and "feminine" and ask them to write instead what they really mean -- either to use better adjectives that get across exactly the ideas they're using these words as shorthand to represent, or to root these words in a context for the reader.
I challenge all authors to do this: go through your writing, find these words, figure out what you really mean, and write a more interesting, thoughtful book.
Note on commenting: I'm usually lax about policing comments, because the people who comment on my posts tend to be pretty great. Please keep up that trend. Hurtful, ignorant, and nasty bullshit should go somewhere else.
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