Calling all women

[Lalwendë]

I agree that the story is the most important factor in any book. Yet maybe Fordim's female students don't even relate to the story? The Hobbit is primarily an adventure story, and many of those which have been published do seem geared towards men and do centre around male characters. As shown on this thread, some female readers do find they connect more easily to a book which features female characters.

But as I've already pointed out, not all women need that connection. I've been thinking of which books I have read which might be said to relate exclusively to men. American Psycho is about a man, and though it does have female characters these are used by the male character to define himself and his propensity for extreme violence; it is not always a comfortable read for a woman as women are objects in this book, to be collected like his designer goods.

Yet I was not alienated by this; is it because women also have a capacity for violence, or is it that I sought some kind of secret knowledge about men from the book? I've also read a fair few books by men about 'thugs' which I've found fascinating; I am no thug nor do I have even the slightest liking for them, so there has been little to 'relate to' in such books. But I did want to get an insight into what goes through the minds of such people. I'm sure there are as many men who do not want to know such things as there are women who do not. Why are these 'books for men' if they are simply about society?

I was talking yesterday about Rogue Male, which I read for O Level. This could be said to be a traditional male book in every way as it is about an assassin, a former hunter, who goes into hiding. It does not feature any women as far as I can remember. But I enjoyed it, and many women are avid readers of thrillers of all kinds. Obviously here the element of story is vital. Again, I know of several women who are enormous fans of Patrick O'Brien's novels (Master & Commander was based on these) despite them being about naval warfare. So adventure is clearly also important to women readers.

There are even films which on the surface look like men's films, e.g. Top Gun, with the bit of romance added in to please wives and girlfriends of men wanting to watch the film; am I the only woman who'd fast forward all the soppy bits to get to the shots of the jet fighters? It seems like every thriller or action film just has to have a five minute gratuitous romance bit added in and I wonder if it really is put there to keep the women in the cinema or if it's actually there so the blokes can look at Kirsten Dunst? I don't care about that, I just want to see the car chase.

So what I'm getting at is in this day and age, there possibly isn't much substance in saying something is a book 'for boys'. Girls aren't restricted to maintaining an appearance of being 'girly' any longer and have a wider opportunity of experience so they are more likely to accept or even relate to a male character.

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

It seems like every thriller or action film just has to have a five minute gratuitous romance bit added in and I wonder if it really is put there to keep the women in the cinema or if it's actually there so the blokes can look at Kirsten Dunst?

It seems to me that, nowadays, female characters in "action films" are no longer included just for the gratuitous romance. In the past, I believe that certainly was the case. But the tendency nowadays is for the female character to be strong-willed and independent. She is generally a primary character in her own right, and not simply a "romantic accesory" for the male lead. Compare, for example, the female characters in Bond films today with those of the '60s and '70s. And I suspect that this phenomenon has developed as women's "purchasing power" has increased. Rather than relying on their husbands' or parents' purchasing decisions, as was largely (although not exclusively) the case in times past, they now have the means to make their own purchasing decisions. Films have responded to this, no doubt in consequence of extensive market research.

Funnily enough, Jackson's initial instinct (no doubt in line with this trend) was to have Arwen as a much more active character. Yet the reaction of fans prompted him (guided, I believe, by Liv Tyler) to give her a much more passive role in the final cut.

[Bêthberry]

One area that has not been guided by purchasing power or market research is the experience of high school teachers, who report a very interesting finding.

When high school students write poetry, a fair percentage of the female students can write from a male POV, creating a poem whose speaker is a male, imagining his character and getting into his POV. However, teachers report that male students almost never write poems with a female speaker or create/imagine female characters. Interesting, no? And, to keep this on topic, Tolkien's letter to his son Michael, Letter # 43, presents Tolkien's ideas concerning the relation of the sexes.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by SpM

It seems to me that, nowadays, female characters in "action films" are no longer included just for the gratuitous romance. In the past, I believe that certainly was the case. But the tendency nowadays is for the female character to be strong-willed and independent. She is generally a primary character in her own right, and not simply a "romantic accesory" for the male lead. Compare, for example, the female characters in Bond films today with those of the '60s and '70s. And I suspect that this phenomenon has developed as women's "purchasing power" has increased. Rather than relying on their husbands' or parents' purchasing decisions, as was largely (although not exclusively) the case in times past, they now have the means to make their own purchasing decisions. Films have responded to this, no doubt in consequence of extensive market research.

There are still not that many 'Ripley' figures about though, and when there is a strong female character then she is notable, which suggests that it is still not necessarily the norm for such characters. I do have to say that having a strong and unique female lead attracted me in to the cinema to watch Kill Bill, as I'd not been all that interested in Tarantino films before; I loved the idea that she was a mother and an assassin.

It has often crossed my mind whether Jackson made Arwen more strong as a character purely to appeal to the female audience who might not respond to someone who spent their time weaving - the subtleties of the significance of weaving is one of those ideas that just would not have transferred to film! The odd thing about the films is that even though they did give Arwen an active role, it is still a film which has very few female roles, like the books. This does not seem to have kept women and girls away from the cinemas; in fact I seem to notice even more female fans of Tolkien than ever before! It has to be something deeper than the Legolas effect.

Originally Posted by Bethberry

When high school students write poetry, a fair percentage of the female students can write from a male POV, creating a poem whose speaker is a male, imagining his character and getting into his POV. However, teachers report that male students almost never write poems with a female speaker or create/imagine female characters.

Possibly it has to do with the youth of the writer - young men do tend to write more about being a young man, not having that much experience of women! While young women tend to write about idealised men/boys when they create a male character. That's just from my experience of teaching writing.

That could be a very interesting topic for a teacher/tutor - how well does Tolkien write from a female point of view? Not much use for examining The Hobbit, but if Fordim decides to teach LotR he has a ready made topic with a gender slant.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

Possibly it has to do with the youth of the writer - young men do tend to write more about being a young man, not having that much experience of women! While young women tend to write about idealised men/boys when they create a male character. That's just from my experience of teaching writing.

That could be a very interesting topic for a teacher/tutor - how well does Tolkien write from a female point of view? Not much use for examining The Hobbit, but if Fordim decides to teach LotR he has a ready made topic with a gender slant.

That's a fascinating observation, Lal, for it suggests that male students write merely out of 'historical accuracy' while female students are the truly creative writers.

On the other hand, and not to disparage your experience (I wasn't aware you are a teacher, Lal, or had taught at any rate), the research and the writing I have seen does not suggest that female students write "idealised men/boys" with they write from a male POV (at least in North America). Far from it.

It is still the case that most literature students see is literature which foregrounds male protagonists. Thus female students read more about male characters than male students read about female characters. And it is still very challenging for teachers to get male students to read literature with female protagonists. Thus, there is still the norm or ethos that the important stories and the most privileged forms of literature deal with male POV.

I still think that a classroom of bright female students, when given a syllabus such as Professor Hedgethistle has apparently organised, will at some point decide to have a bit of sport with the curriculum. Unless of course our esteemed BarrowDowns "pullster" is indeed pulling our legs.

[Lalaith]

I don't care about that, I just want to see the car chase.

Of course, but it would be nice if there were girls doing the driving for a change, rather than squealing in the backseat.

Going back to a point I made earlier, the interesting and unusual thing about Ripley is not that she is a strong female lead character, but that she is one without a "love interest". (At least, if she did have one it was so peripheral that I've forgotten about it.) It is very hard indeed to think of a female heroine who doesn't have some kind of love story attached to her, because women in film and fiction are generally portrayed in the context of their relationship to men.

The reason why we have so many "boys books" like the Hobbit, which don't feature women at all, is that it is easy to imagine men doing exciting interesting things worthy of being written about, entirely independent of women: wars, adventures, and so on.

"Girls books" (other than the school books I mentioned earlier) always have boys in them, because women on their own are not seen as having particularly interesting lives. Single-sex female environments are always 'enclosed' - convents, schools, harems, prisons. When such environments are portrayed in film or literature, it is usually related to a male influence/intruder and the women's reaction to this.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

I still think that a classroom of bright female students, when given a syllabus such as Professor Hedgethistle has apparently organised, will at some point decide to have a bit of sport with the curriculum. Unless of course our esteemed BarrowDowns "pullster" is indeed pulling our legs.

A bit of sport indeed...

To report back: we had a look at Peter Pan and it did much better than TI. The students liked it in part because there were women (girls) in it, which gave me the opening I needed to address these issues head on. I asked them about the roles accorded the women/girls in PP and let the book do the rest: mothers, wives, hangers-on, dependents etc. They pretty quickly began to think how unhappy it was to be a woman or girl in that world. And then they began to confront Peter himself and far from finding him a charming boy, they thought him selfish, cruel, and idiotic. Some even began to think more favourably of Jim Hawkins who at least grew up a bit in the course of the story.

And that's when I sprang! I pointed out how pleasant it had been in TI to see a boy become a man not through the sexual or romantic dominance of a woman/girl. Jim doesn't assert his manhood by becoming powerful over a woman, which is the opposite of Peter, of course, who is doomed to remain a boy forever because he refuses sex/romance. The women began to think how much better it is to have a boy mature who is not dependent for that upon asserting himself over and above women.

And so I have cunningly laid the ground work for The Hobbit, in which we have a male story of male growth that once again is not about the conquest of the female. In fact, in a lot of ways its very much about a male adventure of male growth that leads toward the female (his home/womb/domestic space beneath the earth at the end).

Of course, this all goes only for those few students who had both done all the reading (about half of them) and thought it through carefully (about half of those) -- thankfully, that one quarter did a lot of good stuff for the benefit of the rest.
]

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Bethberry

On the other hand, and not to disparage your experience (I wasn't aware you are a teacher, Lal, or had taught at any rate), the research and the writing I have seen does not suggest that female students write "idealised men/boys" with they write from a male POV (at least in North America). Far from it.

The keyword is that I was a teacher, and I'm not alone on the 'Downs... Bear in mind that I taught teenagers, so the creation of idealised male characters was perhaps not so surprising; girls develop an interest in the opposite sex much sooner and go through the 'idealising' stage much earlier. Though the Byronic figure can linger in the female imagination for many years!

Originally Posted by Lalaith

Single-sex female environments are always 'enclosed' - convents, schools, harems, prisons. When such environments are portrayed in film or literature, it is usually related to a male influence/intruder and the women's reaction to this.

I have a rather bizarre example of a female centred TV show, set in an enclosed environment which was almost entirely about the women's relationships with one another - the defunct Australian soap Prisoner Cell Block H ! I remember this achieved a high level of cult popularity when I was a student and the blokes all loved it, despite it being an unremittingly grim look at life in a women's prison (with no dolly birds )! It would begin with them laughing at a certain character with an unfortunate nickname and then they'd be hooked on it, presumably because they enjoyed the tales of the women's lives.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

I seem to notice even more female fans of Tolkien than ever before! It has to be something deeper than the Legolas effect.

Nah. We were recently discussing Tolkien's work in my comp class in comparison to The Saga of the Volsungs. My class has perhaps ten girls and five or six guys in it. Only one guy was in class this day (not counting the head of the writing department who was sitting in that morning), so my unofficial stats are based entirely on girls.

Two students had read the LotR. Only I had read the Silm (though the head of the department enthusiastically raised his hand when I jokingly asked that question to my classmates). Maybe six of us had seen the movies, and five of those six had been lured there by Orlando Bloom (or, in one case, peer pressure to see... Orlando Bloom).

If the girls in my dorm get to talking about movies, we can talk at length about the artistic merit of Finding Neverland. We can discuss the historical importance of Schindler's List. We can go on about the incredible animation of Finding Nemo, or the books that The Princess Diaries movies are based on. One mention of The Lord of the Rings and you will hear a widespread sigh over how gorgeous Orlando Bloom is. "But the story..." I say. "Who cares?" they respond. "Orlando Bloom is hot."

Originally Posted by Lalaith

Of course, but it would be nice if there were girls doing the driving for a change, rather than squealing in the backseat

True. As long as they have well-developed characters that don't rely alone on "she's a female kicking butt". My favorite girl-power movie's got to be Mulan. I mean... she's got character development, the plot is good, she works really hard, almost fails, and then KABANG! she succeeds and all of China is bowing to her. Mulan rocks. And that Lee Chang... No, seriously though, I agree totally with Lalaith that more movies and books need female leads. They just need to be strong leads that don't rely on gender alone to captivate an audience. Eowyn is an excellent character, though not really a lead, because you actually feel for her. You see her grow and change, becoming a strong, independent woman, instead of a care-taker niece. She knows what is important to her, is willing to give her life for it, and she succeeds and lives happily ever after. Go Eowyn.

I said my next comment once already, though I'll say it again: if women are so upset by the distinct lack of women in literature, they should go out and fix the problem. Do we really expect it to suddenly fix itself? Are we going to sit back and demand that men write books about women? After we sit around and laugh about how men are so clueless about us? Yeah right. Professor Hedgethistle, if your ladies are so upset by the lack of girl books, challenge them to go write their own. Every good female author of good female adventure stories I've come across has been quoted as saying something along the lines of "I write what I want to read."