Sigh. I tend to believe in human (rather than gender) nature,
myself, but nothing is Long-Discarded in Scientific Circles
while there is still evidence for it, because science is not
about making us feel better, however much we want it to.
Likewise, even when one watches one's children and others
behave in certain ways, that doesn't mean that those
behaviors are innate, rather than learned...boys may be more
rambunctious than girls, but I have to wonder how much of
that is brought about by all kinds of factors...I remember
well a decade back (to also delve into anecdotes) watching a
young father on a city bus rough-housing with his infant
son...the boy looked puzzled, but Dad was laughing while he
physically teased him, so it must be ok. A steady diet of
that kind of thing (and I strongly suspect he wouldn't have
done that with a daughter...and scientific studies have shown
that people told that a baby is a girl will act differently
toward it than if they are told it's a boy) along with G I
JOE cartoons and such teach boys, urgently learning how to be
human, that they as Young Men are expected to be a certain
way.
Lots of boys are quite so much, and lots of girls are
moreso...let's not pretend that their are leakproof boxes in
our society and species, despite a certain set of hard wishes
for more differences between sexes than between a range in
folk of both sexes.
I like a lot of Paretsky and Muller, and don't think they
"write like men"...by definition, any writing they do is
exactly, but not exclusively, writing like women. Ditto such
two-fisted women writers as Leigh Brackett and "Craig Rice."
To insist otherwise is indeed to regress to very primitive
beliefs in literary behaviorism, a line of thought which is
deeply flawed and very harmful, because so convenient for
some. As it has always been.
TM
-----Original Message----- From: Mario Taboada [mailto:
matrxtech@yahoo.com]
Now, I absolutely believe that there is a human nature, and
within it a male and a female nature, and that you can give
girls trucks and boys dolls but their natures will not be
altered. I've never given my boys toy weapons, but they make
their own, that's what their nature wants. My wife gave them
some dolls and they've always used them as targets.
The legacy of the sex wars is bad in that it marked a
regression to very primitive (and long-discarded in
scientific circles) beliefs in behaviorism. They would claim
that men and women have potentially interchangeable natures,
and that both can go anywhere they want in any endeavor,
given the right environment and opportunity. I think this
thinking is deeply flawed and very harmful
(because superficially attractive).
In summary, men are men and women are women, not at all
similar psychologically, and yes, some genres appeal mainly
to men and others mainly to women. What Jim pointed out is
close to a truism, I think. That he would take some flak for
it was also to be expected.
Lastly, my two favorite female mystery writers, Teri White
and Billie Sue Mosiman, do not write like men. They write
extremely well and their stories interest me. That's all I
care about. Grafton, Paretsky and Muller don't interest me
quite so much.
-- # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 24 Aug 2001 EDT