H/T Tim. This risible bollocks.
As a critic and a writer, I am curious to know what male authors who are feminists can do to address misogyny. How can men write honestly about the bad behaviour of men, without it being a busman’s holiday for female readers?
Where to start? My approach has been to start with the germ of a story in my head. I allow it to flourish for a while and then, when both it and I are ready, I sit down at the keyboard and the words just flow. I do some editing, put it away and come back to it later with fresh eyes and do a bit more. Eventually, when I’m happy with it, I send it off to Leggy and he publishes it.
Misogyny? Oh, I was supposed to be writing about that? Oh, bugger, I missed the memo. Oddly, many of my leading characters are female. Ransom follows the tribulations of Stephanie Ross as she turns amateur sleuth and I regularly write about Pascale Hervé. The Morning Cloud stories follow a female half-Comanche gunslinger. Oh, but, I suppose that makes me guilty of cultural appropriation…
But I can’t say for sure how male authors successfully avoid perpetrating misogyny. I’d like to learn, though, and I’d like it to be an open discussion.
How about we write about what takes our fancy and readers either read or not according to their tastes? Or is that too simple? There is nothing to discuss here. Really there isn’t. No writer has an obligation to follow the Grauniad’s self-flagellating self-loathing political agenda when sitting down to write.
But the idea of highlighting examples and challenging writers, so that the overall quality of their work improves is something that could work, opening up the discourse rather than shutting it down. Other than that, I’m open to ideas.
If you want to suggest how I might improve my storytelling, then fine. If you want to berate me for not following the feminist agenda then you can take a hike. I write primarily to please me, not you, and not to fulfil your vacuous political agenda.
Twat!
What a McAloon!!
The Guardian is a gift that keeps on giving. Its output is getting ever more shrill and so ridiculous that it borders on comedy.
“Can male writers avoid misogyny?” is the headline.
To which the obvious Guardian answer is that if any male writers do apparently avoid “misogyny” the word will be continuously re-defined until they don’t.
Must all authors then become ‘feminists’ to avoid misogyny? Whatever those words are supposed to mean this week.
From the position of misanthropy this fatuous Guardianista notion becomes purely academic.