Discussion Main / MostWritersAreMale

Shall we get rid of "most writers are adults/humans/etc" then, as well?

This is a trope about how guys write things that appeal to them as guys, and use things that they as guys know and can relate to. And much like "Most writers are adults" and "Most writers are human", there are limitations found in most media because the people creating them don't actually KNOW how to accurately portray their subject matter. In this case: females.

If we can get rid of the "political charge" while maintaining the trope page, that would be ideal. Though I don't know how since there are people who will make anything involving gender an issue.

Thinking on it: Not technically a "trope", more like Trivia. But it has all the same reason to be here as all the other "Most writers are..." entries.

I think that's different, since most writers ARE human. As in, all of them are, and this is why most stories revolve around humans. But "most writers are male", well, that's not exactly a universally accepted statement. There's plenty of female writers out there. Is there some sort of statistic to back that up, and why does it matter? Additionally, the scope of this statement isn't defined. Most WHAT authors are male? Most American writers? Most modern writers? Most writers ever? How do you determine this?

Like I said, this page seems to be politicized, and I'm obviously not the only one who thinks so, going by the comments below.

I think you're right, it's important to define terms and back up claims with evidence. Although, I would have thought that all TV tropes articles fall within the general scope of TV tropes: all fiction with an unspoken emphasis on popular western, US-centric media. Do we have to question the scope of every trope now?

Most commercially produced mainstream media is written by men. I'd like to know why you say there are "plenty" of female writers, do you mean there are many or enough? Can you back up that assertion with some numbers? And these things *are* easilly determined, the information about the gender of writers and authors is easilly available and plenty of industry and academic sources are working with and extrapolating the data.

Yes, there are an increasing amount of female writers, however books written by women are less represented in mainstream or literary fiction and more represented in cult/niches such as romance, fandom and so called "womens fiction". Though there are more female authors around now than in the past, the books they write don't get the same amount of interest and kudos as books by men. See these charts showing the genders of authors reviewed by a number of publications in 2011. These publications tend to review serious, literary or at least not 'niche' books and it's clear that female authors are greatly under represented: http://www.vidaweb.org/the-2011-count

If you want figures for TV and Film try this link: http://blogs.indiewire.com/womenandhollywood/2011_Hollywood_writers_report_women_make_up_24_of_all_writers a 2011 report showing that overall, only 24% of female writers are female.

As for why does it matter, I'm not sure that's relevant to this trope page - Most Writers are Male is an observation, not a judgement or a call for change or a polemic against men, despite what some of the commenters here seem to be reading into it. It does matter, of course. I just don't think this trope is concerned with making suggestions for more accurate represntation of women in the field of writing.

There is an overhwelming bias toward the Male Gaze and an assumption that audiences are male as amply illustrated by the Men are Generic Women are Special trope.

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics aside, I agree with most of the above post. Except for the last part. It's not an observation. It should be an observation, and while it's not a polemic against men, it's used as one, particularly on this website. If it were a simple statement of fact, I doubt anyone would take issue with it, but it's essentially used as a justification for declaring that All Men Are Perverts — even the ones who aren't. I don't think the page should be removed, but if someone were to take out the snark, I wouldn't miss it for a second.

This is not the only trope, there's a lot of them with pet theories on why some media don't have a lot of girls in them. Men must do it for evil and selfish reasons or they must be stupid.

""for skilled writers, their gender will not affect their ability to write a cast with well-developed female characters as well as male characters"" <- You mean stuff like this right?

For whoever wrote that: How about being affected by writing female characters in it by simply being unpopular? How are you going to get women in your cast if you don't have any cash and none of them are part of your circle of friends nor want to be? Doesn't everyone's writing career start out with home-footage in the living room with your friends?

I really really doubt writing down a well-rounded female protagonist requires more skill than a male one. Even a Marty Stu can do that. All he has to do is to Gender Flip Marty and pretend he was never a guy in the first place.

Agreed. It's basically a roll of the eyes and a knowing, weary sigh, pretending to be a trope. The entire point of the page, starting with the quote at the top, seems to be that male writers are geeky pervs who only write to a) get fictional revenge on women who didn't date them in high school or b) to indulge their fantasies of dating said women, while female writers only care about shipping. There's about one line put there to note that there are "exceptions," as if the above were the accepted norm — or remotely true. How has this page not been given the axe yet? Unfortunate Implications doesn't even cover the half of it.

EDIT: Another thing I've noticed — a lot of the examples on pages that are supposedly prevalent because Most Writers Are Male are written by women.

It's pretty bad when someone who has had issues with misandry can see that this is sexist. I do agree that, to a given extent, there is a little bit of truth to this (let's face it, there aren't as many people bitching about the trope name of Most Fanfic Writers Are Girls); However, not all of it is true. It's fair to say that too often people will make a big deal about gender, saying "OMG! Her genitals/chromosomes are different, therefore, she is of a different species to whom I cannot personally relate!"

Again, there's a tiny bit of truth here; Most movies feature male leads and the camera is more likely to show me fanservice of boobies than a Shirtless Scene (and of course, most wouldn't assume said scene is meant for fanservice). But not all of it is true.

Oh, and to the latest poster above me; I find that rather amusing how a lot of female writers are apparently "male".

@ Soupdragon: "I really really doubt writing down a well-rounded female protagonist requires more skill than a male one." But who is saying that anyway? The line you quoted: "for skilled writers, their gender will not affect their ability to write a cast with well-developed female characters as well as male characters" is saying that a skilled can write characters of either gender, not that one gender takes more skill to write. I don't know where you'regetting that impression. And your example of an amateur filming their friends as actors and not being able to write for women because they have no female actors to play their roles is bogus. It has no bearing on mainstream studio-produced movies who have plenty of opportunity to cast women and no such restrictions. Yet they still choose to write less roles for women as they do for men. This trope is dealing with a pervasive issue across the whole of mainstream media, are you really saying that most media is being prevented by circumstance from casting women? Or trying to counter that with ONE example? And a Mary Sue or Marty Stu does not = well rounded character. Where did you get that idea?

Well, we're to assume that said writers are either heterosexual males or perhaps lesbians. Or bisexual.