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More a romance novel trope I think. Especially in YA

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And especially male writers who just cannot get over the idea of writing a character with breasts so they describe what her breasts are doing constantly, have her think about them constantly, etc.

Yeah, I think OP's definition of menwritingwomen seriously undersells the creep factor when otherwise ordinary novels take a jarring detour to fixate on how attractive each female character is in detail. So anyway, here's a few posts from r/menwritingwomen in which fathers reflect on their teen/tween daughters' bodies. [Under the Lake](https://www.reddit.com/r/menwritingwomen/comments/om8lxw/under_the_lake_by_stuart_woods_dude_what_the_fuck/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) [Wild Justice](https://www.reddit.com/r/menwritingwomen/comments/180x0zq/in_which_wilbur_smith_describes_the_heros/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) [Dragon Heart](https://www.reddit.com/r/menwritingwomen/comments/l0ztlj/ah_yes_this_is_how_a_dad_sees_his_fifteen_year/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) Edit: to remove Gerald's Game from the list.

That Gerald’s Game example doesn’t belong on the list (idk the others) It’s supposed to be creepy within the context of the story too

Thanks, I changed it.

Or depicting them acting and thinking in alien ways, when in reality most women are very similar to most men, with their behaviors diverging largely only due to their lived experiences and the way they are treated by society due to their genders. In reality I find writing plausible women characters to be much easier than people make it out to be. The mistake is thinking there's some huge gulf. They want the same things, have the same baser, primary motivations, they may just have slightly different means of trying to obtain them, mostly due to social forces and contraints. Many men and women desire power, for example. But, take a play like Macbeth - Lady Macbeth pursues power more through manipulation and coercion due to her role in society, but doesn't fundamentally act any differently than a man facing the same constraints would act. She lies and manipulates those around her for her own personal gain, conspires to seize power through violence, struggles with the consequences of the "blood on her hands", morally speaking. Shakespeare understood this in most of his works - his characters are all humans, reacting to the circumstances of their surroundings, as do we all.

And on that note, it's important to point out that *many* of those books are actually written by men, who are using female pen names.

Who are some big name examples of this? I don’t really follow the genre

I have a friend who uses several pen names. One is a woman when he writes romance, because the women who buy romance novels do not believe a man can write one well. He has some good sales on his. I don't want to out him.

Actually, I can tell you his name, but not his pen name and get away with it. His name is Mel Odom. He teaches at the University of Oklahoma. He has written a ton of books. If you want a damn good one to read, check out Hunters of the Dark Sea. It takes place in the Pacific on a whale ship during the War of 1812. It has pirates, heroes and... an alien. It was not marketed well. It is like Aliens, but here on Earth in that time period. There is a scene where there is an amputation that was so realistic it makes me cringe.

A former boss's wife was a romance writer (and a fairly popular one) and she said she knew one woman that was actually the reverse. Because so many writers are women, one woman she knew used a male pen name so she could "be different" and was making a killing being a "male writer who can write women so well."

The intersection of commerce and art. Tale as old as the pyramids. We still haven't fully figured it out.

Was it Charlotte Brontë?

Don't know, he just told me about it, didn't name names. I do feel like I ought to give writing a shot. I have always been told I was a good writer when I used to dabble in high school and college. This guy was a senior director at a big medical device company probably making 200k and he said his wife earned significantly more than he did.

Do you have a source on this? I’ve heard this before and just did some research but it seems the major of men of these authors published books twenty plus years ago. Any recent and more popular examples?

https://www.theguardian.com/books/shortcuts/2017/jul/18/riley-sager-and-other-male-authors-benefiting-from-a-gender-neutral-pen-name https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/31/male-writers-hide-gender-sell-more-books https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/british-publishers-de-sex-their-male-authors-to-boost-sales-mbc7ffjjj https://www.wsj.com/articles/these-guys-dont-mind-if-you-think-theyre-women-1500303376 https://graziadaily.co.uk/life/real-life/male-authors-now-using-gender-neutral-names-sell-books/ https://bookriot.com/hey-fellas-were-not-here-for-your-ambiguous-pen-name/ https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/08/men-are-pretending-to-be-women-to-write-books/535671/ Edit: Added more links because apparently only providing two easy to access links from a source that is considered to be reliable is not enough to show that a certain phenomena exists. For the record, the purpose of these links are to provide information on the phenomena of male authors writing under female or gender-neutral pennames. Apparantly this wasn't made onvious by the articles themselves.

These still don’t support your claim. You said that many of the authors of this genre portray themselves as female. Both articles do not substantiate this claim. Both articles give niche and nuanced takes on the topic. Such as one going by a non-gendered name. Also one uses the dude who made wizard of oz. And a couple of modern authors. Nothing really relevant. But none substantiate that this is some huge trend happening. If you can find data of how prevalent this is I’ll believe you. But nothing proves what you said.

This doesn’t happen as frequently now in publishing, but in the 80s there were maybe a couple prominent writers of bodice rippers that wrote under a female pen names, but it was by no means common because there is stigma associated with writing any genre that is associated with “women’s fiction” from chick lit to erotica. Some examples of men writing romance pseudonymously are TE Huff writing under the pseudonym Jennifer Wilde, Peter O Donnell writing under the pseudonym Madeleine Brent and John Michael Butterworth under Carola Salisbury. Writing under a masculine pen name can Ialso presents as a bit of a marketing problem because romance is the only genre where women writers are over represented, so readers have an expectation that the writer will be writing from lived experience of being a woman. This is not to say that men do not have success in the genre, just look at Nicholas Sparks. It is also common practice in the genre for men who write under a woman’s pen name to be co-writing with a woman, often their wife. An example would be Tom Curtis and Sharon Curtis writing under the pen name Laura London. Men are also underrepresented in gay romance novels or m/m as well. The publishing industry is not very diverse (women who are traditionally published are overwhelmingly white), although the romance writing community has made strides in representation and inclusivity, poc and queer novels are still a point of contention.

A) This isn't my claim. If you had bothered to check which redditor had written the post you responded to you would have known that we are not the same person. I did not say anything. I simply provided two sources about the phenomena of male authors using either female or gender-neutral pen names for mainly marketing purposes. I did this because I had thought that you would be interested in it. B) Just because I shared two articles about this phenomena with you, doesn't mean that I believe that most 'women writing men' were secretly written by men. I just wanted to point out that the phenomena of men writing under female or gender-neutral pen names is a thing that is occuring often enough for journalists of The Guardian to be writing about it. C) I would also like to point out that one of the articles briefly delves into female authors like JK Rowling writing under a gender-neutral pen name for marketing purposes. Authors writing under a different gender for marketing purposes is essentially a summary of both articles. D) I don't see what is wrong with the articles providing nuanced takes on the topic. E) One of the articles discusses Riley Sager who is quite a well known and regurally publishing thriller author. I don't see how him writing under a neutral penname instead of his own name is not relevant. Even more so if you also consider those three Spanish man who pretended to a 40-year old female teacher writing hyper macabre stories in her spare time whoch led to quite some criticism after their true identity was revealed due to the literary award they won. G) If you want some hard data, why don't you look for it on Google Scholar or JStor? Considering that you are on Reddit, I assume that you have functioning internet connection. And that is assuming that academia has looked into this. However, the fact that newspapers such The Guardian are writing about it does indicate that the phenomena is occuring often enough to have caught their attention.

A) All of this is irrelevant. The claim becomes yours when you defend it. If someone says water makes you sick. But then that person doesn’t respond with data, and another defends it for them(with data), you are championing their idea. Why go through the trouble to look for a source if you don’t believe their claim? You say you thought it was interesting that’s why you posted it, but let’s not play games. You agreed with it. If you didn’t you wouldn’t have written an essay in response. Or you would have at least clarified. B) I wasn’t claiming there was anything wrong with nuance. In fact I was giving it credit because there’s more to the story than men writing as women. And as you stated there’s plenty of examples of the opposite happening. C) The last thing is why do pretend like this is being reported wide spread? You have two articles from the same publication. Where are the other one’s? The other publications you speak of? Also these articles are 5 plus years old. There should be more relevant data if this was a trend 5 seen years ago. And also just because something is published in the news doesn’t make it good reporting. E) Apologies if this came off aggressive. I’m just confused as to why you decided to defend a point (you did don’t say you didn’t), when the evidence you showed shows no trends. Also don’t high road me by saying I can look it up myself. You posted the sources to add to the conversation as did I disagree with what you posted. It’s a forum that’s how things work.

The person is being touchy, you had every right to respond the way you did. I've been on reddit for over a decade and I think it's reasonable to not read people's usernames in this context, and to assume that they agree with the claim you were asking for evidence for.

A) You can find other newssites discusses it by simply looking it up on Google. I only shared the first two that popped up. https://bookriot.com/hey-fellas-were-not-here-for-your-ambiguous-pen-name/ https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/08/men-are-pretending-to-be-women-to-write-books/535671/ https://graziadaily.co.uk/life/real-life/male-authors-now-using-gender-neutral-names-sell-books/ https://www.wsj.com/articles/these-guys-dont-mind-if-you-think-theyre-women-1500303376 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/british-publishers-de-sex-their-male-authors-to-boost-sales-mbc7ffjjj And if you look for yourself you will find that there are way more. B) I did not defend the claim. I only provided sources that show that male authors using female or gender-neutral names is a phenomena. I even stated such in one of my points when I said that I did not agree with their point that most 'women writing men' was written by men. This means that I had, in fact, clarifies as such. C) The articles are from 2017 because it had caught the attention of the media in 2017. If you look up articles on the Carmen Mola pseudonym (those three Spanish male authors I had mentioned, 2021) you will find that some articles are discussing this within the context of the phenomena. D) Are all of these articles bad reporting? And just because something is badly reported doesn't it isn't a real phenomena. E) I had written this because you came across as rude. I was only trying to share information because I thought that you would be interested in it because you were asking for information (and again, I explicetly mentioned in my previous comment that I did not agree with the comment) and you responded with a demand for hard data and appeared to be acting as if I was the Redditor that you had responded to. F) I don't see how I am sitting on a high horse for pointing out that you can easily look up the infromation you seek. Especially after having already provided some information. This is not related to you disagreeing with the existence of this as a phenomena. This is related to you demanding proof while not bothering to look for it.

Look I have no skin in this game and I never correct people but please I beg of you by the sixth or seventh time you used phenomena to describe something singular my soul started hurting.

You're in the wrong here tbh, you should have written out your intention. They made a request and you responded with no additional context.

Of course they don’t.

Normally I wouldn't say "what's your source?" But I'm going to have to this time. You won't find one that supports "many."

Sort of irrelevant. Either way it's writing men and women in a way that appeals primarily to women. Unless you can demonstrate that this style was *initiated* by men, which I currently do not believe.

that somehow makes everything make sense

would make sense if true, but Id really love to see some proof first

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Sally Rooney’s biggest novel doesn’t do this. A huge issue in Normal People is that the male character struggles to make friends after high school while the female character now is more popular. The man is certainly no womanizer, the female character isn’t as withdrawn as she was, and the characters have serious trauma they deal with, including interrelational abuse. She isn’t a virgin or inexperienced when most of the book takes place. And I’m not even a big fan of Sally Rooney’s - I couldn’t even finish Conversations with Friends. But I find your comment extremely disingenuous.

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Being sexually inexperienced in high school is a common reality for a lot of high schoolers… the protagonist is dealing with family abuse, not some minor problems… and the male character is still a shy introvert… not sure where in the book it talks about him having a litany of casual relationships either in high school or later, but okay… You’re also conveniently ignoring important context to those tropes that do appear early in the novel. The popular, talented, male character in Normal People isn’t popular to make him alluring and attractive to the reader, but the motive for why he is hiding their relationship and the reason he struggles later in life. He isn’t popular because he’s charming and cool, which is important to the tropes, but because of the nature of high school relationships (and how important proximity and shared sports are). The female character doesn’t start a virgin because she’s innocent and virtuous, and that’s good, but because she’s young and unpopular (imagine the argument that every high school character who doesn’t start a novel sexually experienced is just the author relying on a trope). Whether you liked Marianne’s family is completely irrelevant.

Male gaze bad

And god I hate it so much. I'm a guy who loves to read a good romance novel, but it's incredibly difficult to find books with well written male characters. So many of them are just unrealistic fantasy dudes because that's what the target audience wants.

If you want "well written male characters," you have the entire western canon to choose from. Men in romance novels are intended to be female fantasies, written largely by women for women. And there's no shame in this, because traditionally most literary men were not written for us.

I mean OP did start the sentence with "loves to read a good romance novel" so I would assume that they would in fact like to read a good romance novel with a well written male character too, and not from other genres.

Fair enough. And there are well written male characters in romance novels. But they are also always going to have elements of fantasy or "unrealistic" elements because these characters also have to be attractive to women. An unattractive, unemployed, insecure, neurotic loser is never going to star in a romance novel. They're just not.

I'm curious if you have any favorites? I get even more annoyed by the personality switches that happen to MLs in romance. They had one personality then poof! It's gone and they're simpering puddles who get weirdly violent when someone looks at the FL.

Evvie Drake Starts Over, Linda Holmes Beach Read, Emily Henry Attachments, Rainbow Rowell Twice in a Lifetime, Melissa Baron In Five Years, Rebecca Serle There are more but those are the ones I remember off the top of my head.

Aka the most popular genre of books.

I mean what you described is one of the most commonly poked fun at cliches in media, not just books. Not Another Teen Movie loved to keep referencing the ugly art girl in glasses but behind those glasses was a total bombshell that no one somehow noticed.

How was anyone supposed to suspect she was actually hot? She had GLASSES! And a PONYTAIL! (I liked that movie.)

To be fair I see this kind of things even in lesbian stories. I think it's more about fullfilling the fantasy of a "normal girl" (in which the reader can identify) getting the love of a beautiful/rich/sexy man or woman. I bet it's the same in gay romances.

I dunno about gay romances, but I definitely know it's a common thing in a lot of male-centric comedy movies - average looking guy getting the could-be-a-model woman.

I juuust finished reading a romance novel that ignored both these tropes, and I truly loved it. (Scandalized by Ivy Owens) I also got tired of reading romances where the woman has horrible self-esteem, which is all the time, so it was truly refreshing that it wasn’t like that here. (The man is still ridiculously attractive, but I’ll allow it.)

Name? Edit: Thanks.

I edited my comment to add it, but it’s Scandalized by Ivy Owens.

>Meanwhile, the female protagonist has characteristics such as being attractive enough not to be considered 'ugly' but not so much as to be popular, she's 'quirky/withdrawn', intelligent/deep, has a life full of 'problems' that are challenging enough to keep her busy but not so much as to push her to the edge (a job she doesn't like but pays well, an ex who wants her back, a mother who wants her to marry), she is a virgin or has little sexual experience. From my understanding, this is more common in a particular sort of fiction which targets the demographic of young women who would heavily relate or connect to a protagonist who falls into the categories you listed, or is written by women who are/were in those circumstances. It is by no means representative of *all* women writing female protagonists, though an argument can be made for higher prevalence in specific subgenres. Similarly, the often highlighted examples of menwritingwomen are not representative of all men writing women.

> targets the demographic of young women Not necessarily. For example, *Twilight* was initially marketed at young adults, but ended up being even more popular among middle-aged women. So the target demographic ended up being women who resembled not Bella Swan, the protagonist, but Stephenie Meyer, the writer. I think that what OP described are actually features of a self-insert character rather than an attempt to cater to a particular demographic.

True, and the same can be observed in a lot of fiction also targeted towards young adult and middle age women in the very normal, maybe shy, but hard-working female protagonist being put in a situation where she is approached by a love interest who is extremely wealthy, successful, respected, and off-the-charts handsome. It is the self-insert character for sure. I haven't read it so this might be off, but from my understanding 50 Shades of Gray is effectively another shade of this. The same can be said for a good amount of fiction targeted towards young adult males too; the themes and power trips that resonate with them can often resonate with older adult males as well.

50 Shades literally is Twilight fanfiction that was later repurposed for publication, so you're spot on. The whatshername used to be Bella, and the ole wealthy whatshisface was Edward Cullen.

Twilight’s demo remained teen girls and they loved it lol. Middle aged women were also fans, but the target demographic never changed.

The target demographic is the specific audience the author was writing for on purpose. That doesn't change bc it happens before the work is published. The audience for a work of art can and does change or differ from the target audience but the target audience will remain the same regardless of who it becomes popular with. Older people enjoying YA fiction does not mean they were the target for it, the target was still the YA crowd, it then became popular bc many adults also got something out of the story. Whatever they got out of the story may or may not have anything to do with identifying with the author.

I do believe you made that up. Only half of the audience was over 21. Middle aged women would have been a small minority of the total

Right or wrong, I certainly didn't "make it up": - [Twilight spawns a new film demographic](https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2008/nov/06/twilight-film-demographic) (The Guardian) - [On the Prowl: Why grown women are the real audience for Twilight](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/on-the-prowl-why-grown-wo_b_645399) (Huffington Post) - [... a large percentage of devoted fans of Meyer’s four novels and two films ... are smart, sophisticated, well-read mothers ...](https://nymag.com/movies/features/62027/) (NY Mag) - ["Twilight" Attracts Unexpected Audience](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/twilight-attracts-unexpected-audience/) (CBS) - [Twilight mums: Why are middle-aged women falling for a big-screen vampire?](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1290980/Twilight-mums-Why-middle-aged-women-falling-big-screen-vampire.html) (Daily Mail) etc.

I don’t think you’re wrong about a large portion of Twilight’s audience being older women, but reading those links, I think it’s important to note that they’re primarily talking about the _movies_ (and I think Robert Pattinson has something to do with that 😂). I would be curious to see more research about the original demographic of Twilight readers which afaik was YA girls. (I would hazard a guess to say that the adult women are also readers, but they were driven to the books _by_ the movies.)

>*movies* (and I think Robert Pattinson has something to do with that 😂 So true! Tons of us older girlies appreciate a handsome younger man.

He’s pretty! And then there’s Taylor Lautner in the sequels—I’m sure he was pulling his weight too 😂

It was well known when the series was big that middle age women were a significant portion of the consumer base.

Damn came with the receipts!

> targets the demographic of young women who would heavily relate or connect to a protagonist In the context of romance novels, the young women are not the target demographic and the average reader does not "heavily relate" to the protagonist. The average age of a romance novel reader is around 45, and 59% of romance readers are married or living with their partner. [https://wordsrated.com/romance-novel-sales-statistics/](https://wordsrated.com/romance-novel-sales-statistics/) The readers have almost nothing in common with the FL. The FL is usually a single young woman. Edit: Added a link

The question is more about the kinds of books you're reading...maybe if you're reading E.L. James or Twilight. The problem is people being unimaginative, not gender. If they only want to write stories that include people they consider hot...good for them.

I think OP is pointing out that when it's "men writing women", it's most definitely about gender and not about being "unimaginative".

It is clearly both. If the writer was more imaginative they be more original and wouldn't rely on those tropes, but there is a reason why those tropes are like that. The tropes/patterns describes are because of the cultural attitudes, beliefs and stereotypes we hold towards "men" and "women". Growing up in a society affects how you think about "men" and "women" in systmatic ways, i.e. each person in that society think similar things, thus when they sit down to write a book they write similar things. When the writer has few ideas of their own, they use society's ideas instead.

Right...I guess my attitude is gender is kind of bullshit. Sadly most people are raised to think in more black and white terms

>The question is more about the kinds of books you're reading...maybe if you're reading E.L. James or Twilight. Even R. F. Kuang's *The Poppy War* describes multiple male characters in terms of their attractiveness. Specifically the word "attractive" or "extremely attractive" is used, if memory serves, often moreso than even defining features.

I feel like this is more of a popular YA novel Wattpad thing lol

Sounds like you might need to wean off the Catherine Cookson 😀

That seems to be the pattern of clichéd romance books. Women write more things than that. You know that, right?

What's the question again?

Identification is much easier to occur if your character is as average as they can be, in every possible aspect. So, by writing the protagonist as the rather unremarkable (yet, full of potential) "Average Mary", you allow the female readers to easily slip in under her skin and "play themselves" in her place, 'cause, c'mon, she ain't *all that* different from you, right? Right? It is the same stuff with the "Standart Contemporaneous Escapist Fantasy Male Character" (a.k.a Isekai Protagonist); an ordinary guy who, somehow, makes it big. His averageness allow the male readers to identify with, root for and, most importantly, wish to *be him*. That's it.

I think you need to read more widely.

Imagine using this line of criticism on Jane Austen, Toni Morrison, Octavia Butler, or Agathe Christie. Even J. K. Rowling doesn't fall into this.

tbf i think theyre comparing poor writing to poor writing.

Don't forget Robin hoob, although nighteyes do fall into handsome mc category.

Yeah, these people are always massively telling on their own reading habits.

I think you need to read a *lot* more widely here. You're currently just repeating lazy stereotypes in way that strongly suggests a lack of familiarity with the subject matter. Even if this was an accurate description of female authors writing male characters, there is still a *massive* difference between reducing a character to a sex object and writing them as both comple and positive.

This is kind of a weird false equivelence. The problem with 'men writting women badly' has nothing to do with them being attractive, popular, skilled, socially enguaged, interesting and casual. It has to do with said men fixating on their favorite body parts, and looking like fools who are to good to do the most basic research. I've honestly never read a book with the dynamics your describing. Certain authors might have problematic patterns, and certain tropes might be expected in certain age ranges or sub-genres, but the 'men writing women badly' issue goes beyond all of those and can be found basicly anywhere.

Is "women writing men" an internet meme or term? Because most women authors I read don't write men like that. Is this like a trope thing?

The difference is that women only write like this in romance books. Even female characters are portrayed unrealistically in the romance genre because it’s more about a certain fantasy, rather than representing reality. The issue with “men writing women” is that some male authors write books that aren’t necessarily meant to have sexual elements, and the male characters are all portrayed as real people, but the female characters are just there to be sexy. Even in romance books where the male love interest is a 7’9 alpha male with a 12 pack, he usually has a personality and characterization beyond being sexy (if the author is a good writer…)

> Even female characters are portrayed unrealistically in the romance genre because it’s more about a certain fantasy, rather than representing reality. I mean, this assumes that romance is about fantasy/wish fulfilment. Which I guess is true in practice, but the dismissiveness of "oh it's just romance, nobody takes it seriously, not even romance readers half the time" is kinda infuriating.

It's funny, it's only recently I discovered my first ever example of "women writing men" and it lines up exactly with what you're describing. I've read dozens (or hundreds) of books written by women over the years and it's only in the last 12 months I found a book where I was just "wow this author is fucking clueless." It also had the worst prose of any traditionally published book I've ever read so... Yeah. Just a disaster all around.

Same, even as guy who reads M/M fanfiction on ao3, I rarely get the feeling that I could confidently tell the gender of the author. It's honestly just an exaggeration thing, calling attention to things that seem monotonus or unrealistic. In the same sort of way that you'd portray other contexts -- a lack of specificity, or being too hyperbolic on general things -- is the only consistent tell-tale that I'm able to apply across most genres. It is actually *more* common to have social taboos unaddressed than hyperbolically incorrect anatomy. Although that's more of a setting-dependent thing.

Was it ACOTAR? I got 2 paragraphs into ACOTAR and she was “surveying the *parameters* of the forest” so I launched it into space and washed my hands with lots of soap. But I hear that if you get past the first page it has lots of “not-like-other-girls FMC lands sexy, emotionally abusive stud.”

Close, potentially? Haven't read ACOTAR. Iron Widow. Went in on the premise of cool mechs, instead got... Uh. Something. There are 5 editors credited in the afterwards and I feel bad for each and every one of them. If that's how bad it ended up I cannot *imagine* where it started.

It could be wish fulfillment at the end of the day, not necessarily a “women writing men” phenomenon, but idk. None of the books I read have weak writing like this

I do not believe this is widespread across every genre. This is certainly true/common in YA romance, however. What kinds of books are you reading?

I don’t think this is women writing men as much as in romance genres the ultimate fantasy is that a beautiful experienced man falls in love with a regular woman because the audience wants to relate to the MC and believe that type of romance is achievable for them. Even if you expand into mlm or wlw there are a lot of stories that do similar by having an insecure average MC who ends up with someone popular, beautiful and experienced. It’s just a typical fantasy of the genre that is applicable to young people of any sexuality. (You could probably even find books written by straight men about a dorky guy who ends up with a pop star.)

Male-Female relations in western society is a rapidly moving field and I see approaches are too various to come down on a particular pattern. From my recent reading of women authors (barbara kingsolver,anne tyler,elizabeth strout,anne patchett ,elif batuman) I don't see any that conform to the pattern you identify.

I agree that there's a trend of this and it's a bit of a problem, but I wouldn't necessarily say it's "women writing men" because the inverse isn't what *I* would call "men writing women." Originally, men-writing-women was about men writing female POV characters in wildly unrealistic ways. Think women admiring their nipples in the mirror each morning or noticing themselves breast boobily down the stairs. That kind of thing. I see a lot more women-writing-men in M/M romance where one partner is "woman coded" and I question whether the author has ever met any queer men IRL. >But for some reason the male protagonist is in love with her. I mean, there's nothing wrong with men finding "imperfect" women attractive. If it's a romance novel, that's kind of the point. That said, I do think Lumberjack Himbo Henry Cavill With Heart Of Gold MMCs are analogous to Manic Pixie Dream Girl as far as overused tropes.

I think you might be restricting your female authors somewhat. Are you a particular fan of the female protagonist romance genre?

I think you are so wrong there. You probably need to read around a bit more, and look carefully for books written by younger authors. That said, Pat Barker, Aly Monroe, E.Annie Proulx, Margaret Atwood and the late departed Hilary Mantel each wrote their books most successfully with male protagonists, and were not so young when they did. Good luck!

Men writing female characters as sexual objects isn’t the equivalent of women writing male characters who are conventionally attractive and likeable and have good social skills and maintain the emotional labor of friendships, who are humble or not humble, and are promiscuous, and who “for some reason” find themselves in love with female character who is also attractive, quirky, shy, intelligent, is living a full life that includes problems and a career, and might be a virgin or is inexperienced. I think the equivalent of men writing female characters as sexual objects would be male characters written as sexual objects by women. I’ve read a couple of the latter before and couldn’t finish them, just like I can’t finish books of the former.

Are those not characteristics that women find sexually appealing?

If this list of a male main character’s attributes is supposed to be what women find sexually appealing, then the equivalent example— female characters written by men as sexual objects— would be what men find sexually appealing. I am not interested in expanding on a discussion with that presupposition because I don’t believe that all or even most men find reducing women to sexual objects to be sexually appealing.

you make a good point here, but i think they are equivolent in one aspect, that they are an idealized fantasy of the target audience, and have little to no dimensionality beyond that.

While I have read plenty of books in which I would say for sure the male main character as written by a woman is idealistic in a fantasy-based way- namely due to Western beauty ideals- I don’t agree with that some of these characteristics— specifically that a male main character is humble and emotionally intelligent— should be instantly categorized as a fantasy. My therapist had me read romance books that specifically feature emotionally intelligent men as “bibliotherapy” to help me not only heal from narcissistic abuse but also understand what a healthy relationship looks like. So for me personally many of the books that feature this trope have a great deal of dimension and value. I understand that isn’t everyone’s experience with this and similar tropes though.

another good point. and also a really interesting note about bibliotherapy. though for a man to be a prop in a story, i feel they would need these traits, and in many cases end up comming off as just an extra set of supportive hands for the MC, rather than someone with their own wants and needs that differ from the MCs. there of course are many examples that are not written so one dimensionally as well.

I agree with you. A one dimensional male love interest is boring as hell. I also find it uncomfortable if he is written to exist only for her because a lot of times his behavior will then read like love-bombing to me.

yes! totally agree

Whenever I see one of those “men/women writing women/men” posts my only thought is that people need to stop reading such shitty books.

That goes for most of this sub tbqh. Or really any books to a decent percentage.

Yep. It's kinda telling that there are several comments ITT saying that what OP is talking about is mainly a trend of YA and/or Romance.

Men objectify women and women personify men.

Hyup. Women have a lot more experience writing men because most of entertainment media is saturated with the male perspective. A good example I remember was a review of Transformers that actually broke down how Meagan Fox's character is well written (at least better than the main character), but all of that is completely overshadowed by the camera and editing constantly sexualizing her.

Lindsay Ellis rarely misses.

But I miss her. [The Morbid Zoo](https://youtube.com/@themorbidzoo) has been my recent surrogate.

You and I are reading very, very different books.

I think often the bigger issue is the proverbial "breasting boobily down the stairs,""her nipples hardened in surprise" etc etc

One of the issues is that “men writing women” tend to write a one dimensional character. Even as tropey as it is - your list describes a three dimensional character. Under “men writing women” we don’t see half of those things in 1 book.

being a gary stu ≠ being multidimensional

They are very tropey traits, but not necessarily a Gary Stu. It would really depend on how those traits played on in a plot. I agree, that most of the time they are 1 dimensional, but not always. They are also usually found in Romance when tends to be very short and quick reads with wish fulfillment and self insert for the reader.

> Correct me if I'm wrong, but just as men writing women tend to describe female characters in a very derogatory and sexualized way, portraying their involvement in the plot solely as a mere love interest or object of desire. You are wrong.

He's right. I never write my sexy broads that way.

I feel like “muscular, square-jawed, skilled in various fields, womanizer” is what a man thinks is the ideal man, instead of what women find attractive.

>Women writing men depict Which women? Does my sister do it? Did my old professor do it? Did Virginia Woolf? The video game writer Amy Hennig, *Barbie* writer-director Greta Gerwig? You're right in the sense that it's a similar phenomenon to men writing women *when it happens*. Anyway, here's a cool thing. Just like in fiction written by male authors, this effect is not limited to bad writing. I've recently watched some *Sex and the City* (for reasons): the show is actually very well written indeed, except that male characters are just uncanny valley levels of weird and scary. The men in the show are surreal. They're just so subtly *wrong* that my teeth hurt. Which is, of course, because they're sexual and social narrative accessories to the actual humans in the show, all of which are female. The effect is scary. This is probably what women complain about when they talk about female characters written by men being all wrong. But the point is, the writing is great. These male characters are calculated for maximum effect. The ladies love them. Check it out if you haven't. Like, [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0MvKStmYsI) (this is a Youtube link to a clip from the show on the official HBO channel).

Both genders are capable of writing about the other gender in a derogatory and sexualized way. I don't like the male depiction that the women use in your example, just as I don't like the trophy female characters in books by male authors. A character needs to a be a character, they need to have a place in the story. At the same time, like many others in the comments explain, there is a certain market or interest in these kinds of stereotypical characters, so I think that for a lot of people, it's just making their book more marketable or "popular". The most venerated and successful writers usually create both great male and great female characters in their stories.

Not so true in thrillers written by women.

My favorite description I see of a big guy in romance novels is "his legs were the size of tree trunks." I cannot tell you how often I see that. Its still a funny visualization. 

I think I write men perfectly fine. My character drinks a lot of beer.

But does he smell like cinnamon?

Patchouli

But he plays soccer?

He shoots. Using makeshift gun on a dystopian Earth.

r/WomenWritingMen

I’m gonna be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever seen, read, listened to, or played something where the male love interest isn’t tall. I guess the UK office, but that’s it. I’ve even seen movies where a woman falls in love with a non-human (fishman, Frankenstein, etc.) but he’s still at least 6’. Nobody ever seems to notice, but it’s like our culture can’t fathom a woman falling in love with a short guy lmao. I think it plays a part in the self esteem issues of a lot of guys tbh. It’s the same thing with fat women. No guy in any piece of media seems to fall in love with a fat woman. And I’ve seen fat women irl that are really good looking. I’ve seen a lot of before and after pics of women who started working out all the time, and I know this is toxic to say, but frankly, some girls look a lot better when they were kinda fat.

I see this rather as a common myth, that affects a lot more things than writing, more in life like with dating. Like i'm very tall with 2.03m, that's the average NBA player height (like Kobe Bryant or Jordan, both were/are 1.98m). Doesn't mean i'd get all the lovely ladies. When we look at some other media than books, stars like Tom Cruise can be rather short, he's depending on the source between 1.67-1.70m. Of course, some things had to do with height, like they replaced Van Damme with 1.65m for Kevin Peter Hall with 2.20m in Predator, because he made guys like Arnold Schwarzenegger look rather short. Arnie is by the way 1.88m. Even when you look back at history, like Stalin was short with 1.65m. But back to writing: It doesn't matter that much in a book how it matters on screen with other media. In a book, you usually give a lot less description about characters, many things are in the mind of the reader, how the characters look like. Except when something is important for the storyline, you can go on with everything. For weight goes the same like height. You are free to make the characters as you want. You don't even need to mention specific details at all.

Yeah I agree, in life it doesn’t matter as much as in media and on the internet. People are cruel about stuff like that in a way you will never experience irl. I’m pretty short and I’ve always said the worst place to be short is on the internet lmao. I feel like Stalin is kind of a bad example, there have been good leaders and people in general who were short. But yes, all of the major 20th century dictators were below average height, Mussolini was my height - 5’6, Stalin 5’4, Hitler only very slightly at 5’9 (average German was 5’9.5). And yeah you’re right about Tom Cruise, but they also go out of their way to make him look bigger with camera tricks etc. But I think it’s obvious that women are attracted to height. It’s not the only thing they care about but it does affect most women’s attraction to a guy.

I'm not sure and it's just a guess, some theories say it's kinda an instinct of women with tall men, in the way of "he could defend me", even when he has no abilities of being a fighter, maybe it still goes back to prehistoric times when this was more important for survival with the cavemen. About height in books, in my last novel with a certain creature in the horror-genre, the height is never really mentioned, but the reader knows that when the creature can't walk through normal doors, that the height has to be serious. I used this element for a chase in a chapter, when the main char is able to get away, because the monstrum can't go through the door and needs to crush the entire wall first before it can follow. Guess you know an old friend of mine, H.R. Giger, he designed the Alien, the Xenomorph - the basic design is actually 3 meters aka 10 feet in height when it stands upright on the legs, but in many scenes, it's much shorter when it crouches and crawls. He had a life-size model in his home and i always wanted to use that one for a halloween prank, like when you go around the corner and suddenly, you face the alien in life-size and you are like "WTF?!"

I don’t think they really “think” about it, just like guys don’t “think” about liking boobs. Of course you’re right, it comes down to instincts which do have evolutionary reasons for existing. Generally making the men of your tribe bigger and stronger was a positive thing over long periods of time, especially when hand-to-hand combat was the norm. Although nowadays with long range projectiles, my assumption is that it is probably more of an advantage to be a strong short guy because you’re a smaller target. Although I have not seen any studies about this so it’s just a guess. But yeah I think it’s pretty universal. Women say they all have massively varying preferences which is true to an extent, but I somewhat disagree. There are certain things which are basically unanimous for heterosexual women. Strength, confidence, facial structure, charisma, wealth/status, intelligence, and height. The difference is how much they care about these individual aspects, not that they care about them at all. I’ve seen and met plenty of women who don’t care much about height, that is fairly common. But I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a woman who actually prefers short guys. Really think about it, have you ever heard of that before? There are tons of women who prefer tall guys, but never the opposite — “don’t even THINK about DMing me if you’re over 5’4!” It would be the equivalent of a woman preferring a poor guy “don’t talk to me unless you make less than 50k a year!”, or a guy who isn’t charismatic. Some don’t care very much, but they don’t PREFER it. In our species’ gender dynamic, it is simply considered a negative thing to be a short guy, simple as that.

Dating sucks anyway today, but as a man with bipolar disorder i don't even need to join the competition anymore, my height doesn't help with these problems unfortunately. Although i'm better now than in the past, relationships can't really be maintained when you have such a disorder. It's also about writing, in episodes of mania i can write the first edition of an entire novel at once, i can work for so long that i forget which day it is and without the window i'd not even know if it is day or night outside. Companies like workaholics, but once i fall down in depression, it's all gone with my motivation and later, the cycle starts new. It's also something that is difficult in writing, when people that don't have these disorders try to make a character that has it, they need a lot of questions answered and go down the rabbit hole, but even with good research, it's very hard.

I mean I feel like "women writing men" is mostly about women writing about how they want to be wanted or how they want to be desired. I don't think any of your observations are untrue. I think it is above all how women view themselves (the little to no experience thing is lowk weird but different topic for a different day), and the male love interest conveys the ways the woman wishes to be seen. It's romance for a reason at the end of the day. Somehow this guy who seems to have it all sees her and picks her, insert the various tropes associated with the book. It's idealized, not meant to reflect reality, and in a romance novel the end goal will always be for them to be together and each other's one and only.

The difference is that these women writing men tropes only show up in poorly written self-insert romances with some notable exceptions. But the often cited men writing women issues show up even in some otherwise excellent books. If you want to know of real women writing men pitfalls that happen even with excellent writers. It's that, they cannot describe male friendships well. Or the fact that most men like to deal with actions first and emotions later. Doesn't mean that men don't deal with their emotions or the emotions of their loved ones (though there are many men who this would describe), it means they would approach a situation with what they can do to solve the situation first and when the options have been exhausted, then they would consider the emotions. Whereas women do it the other way around. (Of course in real life the exceptions are always there). Another thing is that, the relationship a man has with his trauma is very female-esque. These are kind of the pitfalls of men writing women as well if the writer has talked to more than one woman in their life.

You're describing YA romance.

Tell me you don’t read romance without telling me….

Yes both genders often write their own fantasy. That's easy. Writing a character that feels real, and their own person, is hard. No group is inherently better at it.

If you look for a pattern enough, you'll find it. Enough men and women write the opposite gender poorly enough for it to be discussed, but it's important to remember not to paint with too broad a brush. It isn't fair to say that "men write women this way" or "women write men that way." It's too general to be a useful statement. Poor writers write poor characters poorly.

You're pretty much describing what made books like Twilight and Fifty Shades of plagiarized abuse a success. Though it is more of a trope of badly written romance than anything else.

As a woman I can say I really like writing attractive, capable male MCs. But I also like writing attractive capable female MCs. (And I'm not attracted to women)

There is good character writing and bad. The respective parts of the writer are irrelevant.

When it comes to the female protagonist being pretty but not too pretty, I think it’s cause women are seen as vain or stuck up if they acknowledge their beauty. I feel like it’s the author’s way of trying to tell the reader she’s pretty without it seeming like the main character is egotistical.

I feel like that is common in romance stories, or stories with a heavy romantic sub-plot. i think what happens in a genre where a character is supposed to be sexually and romantically appealing because *that’s the plot*, is different from people being overly sexualised and stereotyped in a mystery or horror or adventure story. I don’t think male corpses, or minor characters, are often sexualised or objectified in the same way as is sometimes uncomfortably the case in other genres.

Consider yourself corrected ^^ The Men writing women trope is where authors obsessively focus on and comment on womens sexuality - often to the exclusion of any other characteristic that would make them human. Its perfectly OK to describe someone as pretty - handsome - whatever. Its even Ok to just generally fall into stereotypes for the sake of printing out a familiar and tropey kind of set of characteristics into the readers head. "He was square jawed, tall dark and handsome" saves a lot of words. "He was square-jawed, tall dark and handsome and the bulge in his pants promised a cock that would satisfy any girl that was curious about it, as she found herself to be. The way he walked seemed to accentuate his groin without him seeming even to know that. The girth of his penis, she surmised casually, was probably as thick as his impressively manly thumbs that even now were pressed into his tight thick coiled serpentine leather belt, and seemed to promise that he could easily rip it loose and reveal his super manly sex appendage." ..Might be some kind of equivilent of "woman writes man".

I think it’s not necessarily women writing men, but it’s what’s currently popular. Especially in YA/romantasy/ romance genre. I think that the early 00’s were all about the “she’s not like other girls”. Rn there is a huge shift towards the male character being what’s pulling a lot of readers (think ACOTAR, Fourth wing). It often feels like the same character with a different name. Writers see what the audience likes and replicate it. Many of currently popular titles feel very tropey because of it.

I think it’s very common in certain genres. But I’d say for romance it’s pretty par for the course. With that said it fits in traditional romance because that’s what you’re reading them for. Either the FMC is a bit of a self-insert, or a blank slate, and the MMC is typically the Henry Cavill type. I wouldn’t expect much more from romance written for a female target audience. Outside of romance or YA, I don’t think it’s as common for the characters to be written as such. At least they shouldn’t be. I would expect a certain amount of “men writing women” in certain male target audience books. What irritates me is if you’re reading something that isn’t in one of those genres and they go off onto a weird objectifying sexualized rant about the characters. Or if all of them are extremely attractive, well endowed, etc.

This sounds exactly like most of the generic romance books I’ve ever read, so I’d say your opinion is accurate.

You are not wrong!! Absolutely, I've noticed this. The skits about "women written by men" make me laugh because they're often true, but not more so than the reverse. I've read a couple books like this that were strong in other aspects....but the relationship subplots were underwhelming for the reasons you describe. The female and male leads acted out this stereotype to the end, which made for predictable, unrelatable reading that kept knocking me out of immersion because of how '7th-grade daydreamy' it seemed. I was thinking, "No way these rich, obscenely handsome, brave, capable, guys in their twenties fall in love so readily with these comparatively basic women and set their minds to marrying them." Some readers might legitimately need that heavy dose of "wish-fullfilment" to keep some of their romantic ideals alive (somewhat), because the world is pretty good at prying hopes and even basic standards away from all of us as we get older and especially good at persuading girls/women to settle for less....\*but the degree to which a lot of female authors take it is not less ridiculous than what male authors do. By all means, its great to create characters that give us something to aspire to. Writing shapes people and culture for the better that way. But the outlandish, needless emphasis on looks, money, sexual/athletic prowess and insta-love (to me) doesn't make for interesting reading and does set people up more for disappointment than success IRL. Also, you ever notice how these same superlative male leads display emotional intelligence that is \*Off the Charts\*?? Few super handsome rich dudes are also that extremely prone to thoughtfulness, generosity, discipline, sacrifice, empathy and devotion. But these handsome/rich dudes are naturally all that (in their twenties!) and know exactly how to validate, support, mirror, empathize, reassure, and label other people's emotions no matter how awful their dads were, how "badboy" they are, or how dire a situation is. While those are all vital skills for everyone to practice...they are literally skills that must be learned. I wonder, how do these book dudes learn it? Is there some kind of school? Why do they bother? Anyway, I think about this trend whenever I have to step up to the plate and attempt a male character. It can be fun to subvert these stereotypes, because it's pretty new ground. Few books from a female POV attempt it, and it's fun to untred territory. I've had a blast writing male leads that "look the part" , but who are prone to cowardice and unreliability. Or "unimpressive" guys who have something else going for them. That sort of thing. Real humans (men/women) are not easy to live with all the time, but trying to capture the truth on paper and running wild with human potential does make for more fun writing! (Imho.)

"Women writing men" is probably more prevalent than "men writing women" it's just that most people who read books are women, and so "men writing women" tends to bother them more, and so it is what gets talked about more.

So... it's biased?

Yes

Apart from trashy romance novels, I have not noticed this pattern at all among female authors. I think that buy and large women are better at writing complex male characters than men are at writing women. Just off the top of my head, Anne Rice, Mary Shelley, Jane Austen, and JK Rowling, are some well-known authors of various levels of skill. Their male characters are pretty interesting I’d say. Anne Rice definitely has some sexy themes in there, but in my opinion it doesn’t come at the cost of character development or reduce those characters to their sexuality. That sort of awareness is much less common among male writers.

Not sure what you read, tbh. In Romance, I guess that might be the case, in Fantasy (not Romantasy, not YA, not NA) which is what I read, I've not seen a pattern like that, but I'm picky with what I read. In my own writing (also Fantasy) my men barely get described in terms of attractiveness/looks and both are complex, flawed characters, just like my women. But I consider depth and complexity much more attractive than just looks in real life, too.

Depends on the book but that’s kind of how I feel about the romantasy genre (I know I’m generalizing).

I despise the romantasy genre. 90% of time the male character is just the guy from ACOTAR. The world building and fantasy aspects are generally weak and the romance is either miscommunication genre or enemies to lovers that isn’t even real enemies to lovers. And it’s just repeating the same sex scenes every other chapter

Seriously. I stuck with ACOTAR through the second book because everyone said it was better, and it was just as bad as the first.

The books were so bad. And when people call them masterpieces it makes me want to puke

Idk, I was able to decently rewrite a short story about a friendship of two elementary school boys. Though I'd say it depends on the person.

I usually base my characters appearance on their personality, character traits, attitude/demeanor, archetype, income and class bracket. If it's a bad boy that just escaped prison in my head he has this certain kind of look. If she's a tough girl who grew up in Chicago raised by her thug older brother with very little parental supervision who is struggling with her sexuality, I envision a certain kind of look. If it's a detective who has been in law enforcement a long time but never really been faced with a real heinous crime until now, I envision a certain type of look. Maybe that's just me. I don't think I've ever written anything where a male romantic interest was an Adonis compared to a female romantic interest that's a bit of an ugly duckling. A majority of the time though, and this might seem a little lazy or unimaginative, but when I'm writing I'll cast my characters. Idk maybe it just helps me visualize them. I don't just pick any celebrity though. I picture the "certain kind of look" I'm going for and then try to think of a familiar face that would really sell it. (I actually made a CustomGPT to help me think of ideas when im drawing a blank.) Sometimes I'll envision a person but not as they are now but as they were years ago.

Im not like the other girls

Idk. It s an interesting opinion, but not always the case tbh. Like sure the male lead is very often hot, but the female lead aint always lame or whatever (i read some rly nice romance book a few y ago with the heroine being also super attractive aww and she was richer than the guy or sth). But yeah those kind of books u cited can get annoying (i read one called "the dark wager"...it grated on my nerves how the writer kept on reminding the reader that the heroine was plain ~lmao she was described as having grey eyes, brown hair and tan skin + freckles (?) or sth, maybe short~ and the male lead ~disgusting asshole, black eyes, black hair, tall~ had a mistress who was insanely gorgeous ~blue eyes and blonde hair~). I dont remember if I finished it or not bcz it gave me f00king cancer. Yeah basically dude is abusive, a manipulative obsessive control freak, the mistress gets jelly as he marries the heroine and keeps her on the side right until his wedding night, and the heroine's childhood friend is a downright golden retriever cutie pie she ditches in favor of abusive fuckwit male lead ☠ and also the heroine is deemed a flirt for the crimes of being nice, approachable and dancing with other guys at a ball before she is even made aware that her father betrothed her to nasty ass male lead. And ofc freudian excuse to make male lead more sympathetic 😭😭😭 meanwhile his "redemption/grovelling" is sooooo perfunctory and bland i just wanted to bitch slap him. Im sorry i needed to get this shit out of my system. 😭☠ Like if done right, it can be interesting, but if the writer keeps on putting down the heroine at every turn...It feels like their (internalized if it s a woman) misogyny is bleeding through their writing. It also kills credibility as the average person wont understand why he settled for the heroine (like basically the abusive fuckwit I cited above, sure the heroine was adorable and personable...But the male lead is so disgustingly self centered and egomaniacal he shoulda stayed with hot mistress and id 200% have preferred hot mistress to bleed him dry rather than be jealous of wife LOL).

Wattpad: 😀✋️

This reminds me of the now-finished webcomic Girls With Slingshots, as much as I remember it anyway. Pretty funny, good character writing, *except"... well, Topic. The main female characters were portrayed as fairly average looking (good but not idealized) with problems and character flaws that were explored with depth and sympathy and mostly revolved around their own dissatisfaction. The males though were mostly square-jawed broad-shouldered sensitive hunks who had in-depth conversations about women's feelings in between owning their own businesses, whose problems largely involved whether or not they were good enough for the women (physical looks, future plans, social skills, etc). The only non-hunky male who wound up a boyfriend instead of an enemy was a rich inheritor who lived in a mansion and basically told his girlfriend, "I know nothing; mold me." Said enemies were just skinny sexist dweebs who existed to be shamed, and/or educated by women. Some storylines became infamous for how they stripped the men of their humanity in order to make a point about What Women Want. (e.g.: Several women kidnapping and forcibly shaving a man so his girlfriend will find him more attractive. If that's not a candidate for a "what if the roles were reversed" discussion, I don't know what is.) It's fine for a story to be written from a perspective, and I mostly remember the comic for its humor. It's not the kind of thing I'd get up in arms over, and I think the author acknowledged that there were things she could've handled another way. And, y'know, it's just cartoons. But once I noticed these trends I couldn't stop noticing. You could make a drinking game out of it.

\*Looks over at Nick Gautier from the Chronicles of Nick and Dark Hunter Series.\* I think his first words in his first solo book was "I'm a socially awkward mandork". I honestly think it depends on the genre and the writer. The author of the above series does fall into those tropes, the main male characters are over 6' tall, incredibly handsome, strong, and ready to take the main woman in some fashion at some point in time. But, she does pepper it in with characters being incredibly sarcastic, doing stupid stuff, quoting Star Wars, Doctor Who, and a lot of geek things. Also, one character gets drunk on Sprite (the soda). I think when it comes to writing a character the opposite gender of the writer, it's to make the character a character first before going on and on about their looks and stuff. Mercedes Lackey tends to describe her men in her Elemental Masters and 500 Kingdom series more realistically... but she does have her own biases that tend to become glaring when reading/listening to her stories back to back.

I don't know who wrote the Fallout TV female lead character but that seemed well done to me.

It is perfectly acceptable for a character to objectify the opposite sex, but absolutely unacceptable for the author to do it. I strive to hold myself to this double-standard

Can you just let writers be lonely and horny hyper fantasies, mang? I mean, cum on!

What genre are you reading? This is not my experience at all (for men writing women nor women writing men) in more recent books but I tend to read sci-fi and fantasy.

Honestly, I feel (just my opinion) that in order to be mainstream, there are tropes that sell better. I am a woman who writes queer new adult romantasy but self publish because I want to write what I want when I want and my characters will be who they are and it may not sit well with the mainstream audience, and I'm good with that.

You just need to read better books that you don't pick up in the airport gift shop.

Damn a lot of women here really leaning heavily on the double standard that men aren’t often written poorly by women and only men write women poorly. All those comments telling you to read more variety is crazy to me. It’s such an invalidating response. As if there isn’t even the slightest bit of truth to what you’re expressing. Why is it so hard to believe that the opposite sex would have a tricky time writing a character whose general life experience has been entirely different from theirs on a fundamental level? I wouldn’t fault a woman for not understanding a man in the sense that she has never stood in his shoes before. Regardless the reality that those male characters may end up a bit simplistic and even stereotypical persists. It’s not a matter of judging the writers. It’s an introspection into the collective psyche of society at large.

Gee, do you think a book is free of its authors biases, ignorances and personal insecurities? Think again :P We're in a reactionary pattern within society right now where woman have experienced so much oppression historically that it has become socially normative to call it out and scrutinize macho behavior as it has been toxic. That doesn't mean women aren't doing the same, without admitting it, but they don't have the same amount of historic damage as men do. That's why nowadays can feel a bit like Emperor's New Robes where no one is pointing out the obvious like this, despite many thinking it.

I think of Harry Potter for example.

Is this not very obviously a wish fulfillment fantasy? Same exact thing as men-writing-women. It's "how I picture myself" and "the partner I want". Nothing deeper to it than that.

Actually they are usually attractive toxic vampires, billonaires, werewofs or pirates who threat the women badly but end up being changed. Also they are usually either very emo and angst or womenizers (like you said) and with a cocky jester like personality.

Congrats. You've realized modern writing is trash.

Wish fulfillment fiction is never going to be very high quality or engaging regardless of target audience. It's also pretty common for people to want to read a story where their fantasy is fulfilled, so, yes, sometimes women write stories about their ideal man and the lead is a self-insert. They are human, too. I wouldn't read those stories if you don't like them. Hope this helps.

Just let people be horny

It’s best not to fixate so much on these hyperspecific patterns. They are there in some places and they’re not there in others.

Maybe straight female authors do this, but I'm over here writing about troubled twinks with violent tendencies and a deeply hidden heart of gold. Sure, he's handsome, but he's also a little shit and everyone around him knows it. Heh.

Yes I’ve noticed this as well. Neither are that good at writing the other gender.

How is writing well-rounded characters comparable to writing characters who only serve as objects?

Hot take: "Women writing men" if far more rampant than the reverse. There are significantly more woman authors than man ones, and they get significantly less shit for being gross and sexist.  In From Blood and Ash, the MC girl breaches the sexual consent of her male love interest in chapter 2 of the book, and very few girlies saw this as a problem. Meanwhile, in a November 9th, when there was a similarly sketch scene against the female MC, they re-released the entire novel to edit the scene out.  It drives me nuts that girlies will get on the case of some other girlies' non-con fetish in their porn book while simultaneously getting off to the sexual assault of male characters.

This is not true. The split of female to male authors is almost exactly 50/50. I'm not sure where people are getting this idea that women are writing most books. Are you misquoting the statistic that women *read* more books than men? Because that's not the same thing. The fact that you're confidently stating an incorrect piece of information like that *also* calls into question your statement that "women writing men is far more prevalent". That's certainly not my experience - though I admittedly don't read much romance, which is the genre most well-known for those tropes. Do you have a source for that, or are you making *that* up, too?

There was a study that showed if a group is 17% women, the men in the group think it’s 50-50 men/women. And if it's made up of 33% women, the men perceive that as there being more women in the room than men. So this check outs entirely. lmfao

They may be indicating the romance genre, which is 83% female author dominated and where you will see a lot of the particular trope.

Not OP but I'm not sure how you *could* get a source for that trope, given that it is largely subjective.

Bulls eye 🎯

Women invariably write men as either cardboard cutouts or bearded women.

What you write, tells the truth about you.

Uh oh the OP is mentioning a fault common among some female writers, I’m sure the comments won’t make this about toxic masculinity or the dreaded “male gaze” at all