X WHY? Part III: FEMALE POV

by Leigh Lundin

It’s a psychological suspense story. Teased by her sister and other girls, beset by a lack of self-esteem, she opts for mammoplasty without the knowledge of her husband, is drawn into an affair, and becomes embroiled in a murder plot.

A few weeks ago, James suggested I write an article or two about getting inside the head of the opposite sex. When I began writing, I didn’t know we were expected to write from the viewpoint of our own gender; I picked the viewpoint that seemed most interesting at the time.

My friend Carol arranged a summer workshop for me taught by Rollins College instructor, Philip Golabuk. He liked my writing enough that at the end of the summer, he invited me to audit his Rollins’ writing course and I signed up with a writing group under another instructor, Mrs. Conte.

One day, my instructor read from a story called False Front about a woman with low self-esteem who becomes involved with a diabolical plot. She asked the class to guess the writer.

One by one, students guessed and eliminated girl after girl until, nearing the last of the female students, they turned to me and said, "LEIGH!" To my surprise and pleasure, both instructors complimented an ability to understand a woman’s viewpoint which they insisted was considered exceptionally difficult.

I hadn’t understood that writing from inside a woman’s head was supposed to be hard. However, when I acted on James’ suggestion to take on a couple of articles on the topic, I hadn’t realized how difficult explaining it could be. Writing from the viewpoint of the opposite sex is a lot like method acting. You have to become the other person.

I’ve come up with essentials that writers need to possess and embrace, but I have to thank several friends and readers for helping to consolidate these thoughts. I’ve mentioned before being kind and giving the opposite sex the benefit of the doubt. Following are what I consider a few other requisites men need to write from a woman’s viewpoint.

* Admiration

You must genuinely like the opposite sex. I do not refer to heterosexuality; that’s not the same thing. You have to truly love and admire the opposite gender.

You like their voices, you like the uniquely feminine things they do, you appreciate what makes them different from you. The annoying aspects you accept as being a part of what makes the opposite sex fascinating and you shrug off irritations as being unimportant in the greater scheme of the universe.

* Listening

You have to listen on more than one level, the text, the context, and the subtext. Women don’t insist you agree with them, but you have to listen. You can’t hear your voice in her head; you have to hear her voice in yours.

After a while, you begin to understand that while women say one thing on the surface, other currents take place out of sight but not out of hearing. A discussion of another woman’s dress can be an entire trial and judgment of something happening in someone’s life. This is alien to men who speak more directly, perhaps an indication why men don’t get hints.

Women are more dramatic in speech and gestures, but most of all I love watching black women who, when called upon, can turn a conversation into a variety show. Each sentence is a jewel of entertainment, each word of "Oh, no she didn’t," packs more inflection and impact than an LMN Oxygen movie. One morning in a black church is worth a week’s study at Toastmasters.

(That said, be careful of patois. White authors might be tempted to write, "I be watching you,", using the pure (and grammatically correct) form of ‘be’. If you listen carefully to ghetto talk (which mutates constantly), you’ll hear the opposite, ‘be’ and its variants are often omitted, "I watching you.") My recommendation is if you don’t spend time in the ‘hood, don’t try to fake it.

Likewise, if you don’t spend time with women, don’t try to fake it.

* Insight

You have to be able to see inside other people. If you can’t get inside their heads, regardless of gender, you’ll be writing about yourself. That’s okay– action/adventure writers do it all the time, but it won’t help you understand the opposite sex.

I’ve been fortunate to have flashes of insight and I credit listening rather than brilliance. Insight has two components, active and passive. We can actively study a person and, like the detectives we seek to write about, we can deduce and surmise. However, I believe that we subconsciously pick up clues that we have to be receptive to. If we tune into our inner mind, we may find it’s receiving signals from the other person.

* Limitations

No matter how hard you work and practice, you’ll not be able to render all characters well.

Know your limitations and if you need to exceed them, ask for help. I suspect the most difficult to understand are described in the previous article, a "man’s man" and a "woman’s woman", defined as people who don’t socialize outside their own gender.

Well into adulthood, I remember with shock an insight while talking with a macho guy I’d known for the previous three years. He was sitting on his Harley as we spoke, and perched on the back was a dainty blonde, his latest stripper girlfriend. In the midst of the conversation, it suddenly struck me that this guy doesn’t like women! My immediate follow-up thought was neither of them knows it!

While I expect women to sniff out hidden hostility before I could, I’d find it a problem to get inside that character’s head and I doubt the average woman could either. Any insights into the forces that shaped his psyche would be pure speculation.

Likewise, guys are either mystified or bemused when women express hostility toward them. That probably stems from our ability to see other guys as jerks but not ourselves. You won’t be able to please every woman, but instead of going out of your way to craft a character you don’t understand, take your issues up in counseling.

I’ll stretch my limitations to the snapping point with a tentative observation about lesbians: In real life, most are more open to men who are open to them. If your plot demands such a character, they’re simply women who act in most situations like any other woman. If you’re not Patricia Cornwell, be matter-of-fact and move on.

* Respect

For all of the above, you need to respect, not respect as defined by a man, but respect as judged by a woman. That’s one of those subtleties that I find hard to define, but know when I hear it.

As mentioned earlier, women (in general) don’t demand that a man agree with them, but they insist upon honesty and respect. Women want a man to have (I don’t like this expression, but it’s the one that comes to mind) gonads. If you don’t, not only will women not respect you, they often interpret tentativeness as condescension. Other males recognize it as fear, but either way, such a man’s cooked.

Women want you to defend them when necessary, but be prepared to defend yourself. If you cave in, women see that as weak. Don’t mistake self-honesty with weakness– If you’re wrong, admit it like a man. That’s respect.

Finally, you can tease and you can be opinionated, but if you ever ridicule, you’re dead.

Faux Treatment

Fran Rizer wrote me that most male writers see women as one extreme or the other, utter sweetness or bitches. Fortunately, my characters fall into other dimensions, but this can be a common trap men are susceptible to, at least if writing for an adult market. I’ll add two other mistakes that I see male writers make as shortcuts to defining a major female character.

* Don’t Need a Man

Several male writers see their key to success crafting a stereotype woman who is angry toward men. Although this character has recurred often in the past 30 years, male writers keep rebirthing protagonists who exude hostility as if their market consists solely of angry, resentful women.

Besides making the character single faceted, the stereotype can leave a lingering unpleasantness about a story. What are you really saying about your character, that no matter how justified, at heart she’s a man-hating bitch? What does that offer the public? What does it say about the author?

We’ve probably hummed angry or bitter songs, but the tunes we remember are the love songs. For the health of the human soul, we ultimately need to turn away from rage and bitterness. Perhaps a male-hostile character is critical to your plot, but if her anger’s gratuitous, give it careful thought.

Male authors are as guilty of misunderstanding feminists as feminists are of misunderstanding men. There’s a conspiracy of silence among men on this topic. You won’t see men rolling their eyes, but in the back of their eye sockets, muscles are fighting for control.

Most men fail to realize that most ‘feminists’ are far from a single en bloc belief (if indeed, they ever were). These days we have neo-feminsts and post-feminists, many who share more in common with men than they do their mothers and grandmothers. I can’t remember if it was Naomi Wolfe who said that once we used to blame men, but we discovered Mother Nature has a lot more to account for.

Feminists usually fall outside the ken of men, so male writers should practice care putting thoughts in their heads. In any case, the wisest words Henry Kissinger ever spoke were "Nobody will ever win the Battle of the Sexes. There’s too much fraternizing with the enemy."

* Fashionistas

Let’s face it, men know less about fashion than flatworms know about quantum physics. That’s okay; if you have the essentials covered above, that’s not a bad place to be. Even a lot of women can be fashion-challenged when it falls outside the range of their wear.

I’ve read the first two books of a popular thriller writer who started a series featuring women protagonists. One of the flaws is that he stops the story to give a fashion update. This stems, I believe, from his lack of comfort writing from a woman’s viewpoint, inserting a ‘commercial’ to remind the readers (and himself) that his character’s really a woman.

My fashion sense extends to jeans and leather, but I know my limitations. I have two self-imposed rules. (a) Introduce fashion only when it’s germane to the story, and (b) Ask for help, which women are happy to give.

Rarely do I mention designers or fashion at all, but once in a while it’s important to the plot. A writing friend and I cast a 28ish, professional girl-on-the-go who worked in midtown Manhattan. She abruptly found herself back on the dating scene and we needed to dress her. Since my partner on the project and I were clueless, we asked for help.

In a second story, we had a woman who was quietly wealthy, but found herself in a formal situation in which she wanted to show off both herself and her daughter. Again, we needed help.

On my bookshelf is Costume by my aunt, Rachel Kemper, formerly a professor at Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan. It’s great as a historical reference, but fashion changes monthly and I needed something current. FIT is a potential resourse, but I belong to a couple of list servers for writers. I asked for fashion help and received responses, most notably by author Sharon Wildwind. (I love her name.)

I gave Sharon the details, mentioning the women’s positions, their ages, their budgets, their goals, the season– the essentials you sketch about your character. Sharon asked a few questions I hadn’t thought of, and then she returned brilliant recommendations, including unexpected suggestions I had no idea existed.

Sharon did us proud and the best part was the fashion moved the plot forward, rather than stopping the story for superfluous details.

Women Are Verbal, Men Are Visual

Long ago, I learned that the notion woman aren’t visual is a myth. I’m sure women tell us that so we won’t feel so bad about their better communication skills.

Women are visual and they notice fine detail. Period. In the 1980s, feminists argued that differences between the genders were cultural, not physiological or psycho-organic. However, research indicates that most gender-based preferences appear to have a deep, biological background. For example, recent research has verified that girls really do prefer lavender and pink.

Anya Hurlbert and Yazhu Ling speculate color preferences date back to the division of labor in hunter-gatherer societies. "The female, as gatherer, had to pick reddish fruits against green leafy backgrounds, therefore a preference for red against green may have benefited their food gathering and thus gained them evolutionary advantage. Evolution may also drive females to prefer redder faces." Noting that across racial boundaries, male faces are more florid than female’s, she goes on to say, "A reddish face often [implies] good health; this may be a good cue to help the females to select mates."

Women and Stress

Scientific American published a new article three years ago on the differences between male and female brains. I’ve always been fascinated by differences between the genders, so I devoured the story. Neurons’ characteristics differ between the sexes, and evidence suggests sex chromosomes acting on single cells play a fundamental rôle in establishing differences between male and female brains.

This article concluded that men handle short-term stress well and women not so well. However, when it comes to long-term stress, the reverse is true. After an initial setback, women rebound and strengthen. Over time, however, men erode under stress. Brain scans show males suffer physical brain damage, metaphorically curling into a mental fetal position. Long term stress is daunting for men.

More boys are diagnosed with autism and ADD while more girls are diagnosed with depression. Scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center are working to understand these sex differences. Details such as these may influence your stories.

Directions – Where are We?

Women often joke about men not liking to ask for directions. My hypothesis is twofold, that men don’t mind exploring and they resist putting themselves in the hands of others, which seeking directions entails. Humor aside, studies demonstrate that men seem to have a built-in GPS chip and are better at spatial mapping than women. Research shows that men map on a mental grid system, whereas women rely on landmarks and, scientific papers have shown, women remember the location of food sources (groceries, restaurants) better than males. Mental mapping is one of the most significant differences between the genders. In your writing, this means that while a man may drive 2.4 kilometers and head north, your female character will drive to Ruby Tuesday’s and turn right.

Psychologists believe there are other differences, that men are more ‘left brain’ and women are ‘right brain’. Supposedly, testosterone in the womb builds math and mechanical skills.

Differences must be understood in context. While one gender may perform better in one skill or another, if we graph the similarities, there’s typically better than a 90% overlap, directional ability excepted.

Leadership

As much as women speak of nice guys and criticize men, women cannot stand wusses. Men hear mixed messages, some emasculating, many complaining that there are no manly men. If you peek into women’s fiction, you’ll find that women love alpha males and strong male rôle models. Two hundred years after Lord Byron, romance editors demand Byronic heroes because their readers demand it.

Dr. Phil speaks of a husband’s leadership within the family, which clearly strikes a chord in his female audience. Women still want a man to be a man.

Pay attention to what you say; wording is critical. Men’s starker communication skills might not detect the difference, but to a woman, there’s all the difference in the world between their mandate to a man "Be a leader," and the male who hears "Be the boss."

As a male author, if you write the one sentence, you’re a hero. Write the other, and in some circles, you’re dead meat.

Sensitivity

Careful wording is crucial. Women will scrutinize your work and judge accordingly. You would be a wise man to have several women read your works and then listen to them, listen well. Consider the two following sentence fragments.

• This line will earn you appreciation of your sensitivity:
  • "… reminder of her womanhood and purpose as a giver of life."
• This line will get you flayed alive:
  • "… reminder of her womanhood and potential purpose in life."

These lines sound identical to a guy. However, to a woman, she sees the first as a beautiful embodiement of her womanhood. The second she sees as an imposed lack of choice.

A Glimpse of the Dark Side

As much as I love women, some have a dark side and it’s incumbent to be aware of it. Throughout these articles, I’ve spoken in generalities. Here I digress on a couple of points for the sake of understanding women not as a whole, but as part of a spectrum. We’re taught that boys are "snot and snails and ugly dog tails" while "girls are sugar and spice and everything nice", but of course neither is true.

In both fiction and real life, bad guys– males– are dismissed as bums as if they suddenly popped out of a vacuum. Women do not accept this in female perpetrators. If a woman is bad, you have to create a realistic back story, what shaped her and brought her to this particular juncture.

Before you jump to the TV movie-of-the-week solution that it’s all-men’s-fault, be aware that women writers have freed themselves of the morally superior stricture and are mining the darker side of relationships between sisters, mothers, and daughters. You may find faulting a male is simpler and safer, but several women writers have created real depth out of other, formerly sacrosanct relationships.

The Teachers Lounge

In a teacher’s lounge, I read and worked on my projects, the only male in the room. At lunchtime, the lounge became the place where the women gathered to eat, chat, and socialize. After a while, I became part of the furniture, but I absorbed a lot.

I was in for a number of surprises. First, I was amazed how many women contemplated cheating, including at least two who openly talked about affairs. A double standard emerged: While men who stray are dirty rotten cheating bastards, the women spoke of ‘finding themselves’, ‘expanding horizons’, and ‘throwing off the bonds of society’ within a ‘deathly dull marriage’. Whereas men usually condemn cheating in other men, many of the women seemed sympathetic. I say "seemed" because women will lie to friends for the sake of kindness and may not have voiced their true opinions.

Several women spoke of divorce, often pegging complaints on what seems minutia to males, the equivalent of leaving the cap off the toothpaste.

• "He’s so vain; he won’t grow a mustache because he says it reveals grey hairs. Hasn’t he looked up his nose?"
• "For God’s sake, he digs into the butter, instead of slicing off a pat like anyone else."
• "He leaves hair all over his pillow. I can’t stand it. If I don’t divorce him, I’ll kill him."

From time to time, one of the potential divorcées would glance up and speculatively ask another, "Why kind of work does your husband do?"

Honesty

In the past century, there were unscrupulous women who made a living from breach of promise suits or used them to force a marriage. Fortunately, lawmakers realized the process was abused and breach of promise became a thing of the past.

Men and women are dishonest in different ways. According to private investigators who track cheating spouses, men are straightforward– they cheat, but they deny, deny, deny. Women, however, duck in and out of beauty salons, have a taxi waiting for them behind the mall, use a secret cell phone or eMail account, and– this just in from a correspondent– involve their girlfriends to help them cheat. However, when caught, they quickly ‘fess up, sometimes without any sign of contrition.

I had a troubling conversation with a friend starting a divorce. She confided that a couple of her girlfriends had advised her to testify her husband molested their daughter to gain leverage in the proceedings.

"I thought you said he’s a good father," I said.

She gave me a look like I was dense. "He is a good father; this isn’t what it’s about. Anyway," she said, noting my look, "I’m only considering it."

I was stunned, not only by friends who would suggest such a thing, but the fact she didn’t reject the notion out of hand.

A reader wrote in that men can lie, cheat, and steal, but only a woman can comprehend the devious.

Stand by your Woman

I wrote an article in March defending Silda Spitzer, wife of Eliot Spitzer, criticized for appearing at the side of her husband in defense and defiance of the news of his cheating. In my article, I backed her as the sole innocent party and the one who still managed to show dignity, compassion, and loyalty.

In looking back, I think people weren’t so much denigrating Mrs. Spitzer, but fearful of how any of us would act if we faced those same circumstances.

For this series, my friend Sharon clipped a cartoon for me, Six Chix by Stephanie Piro. In it, she says she’d forgive her husband for cheating, … after she killed him and took him for everything he had.

What Women Want

I like another Six Chix cartoon. In it, the girl says, "If you’re Mr. Right, how come I’m not your Ms Right?" He answers, "Because men don’t think that way. (But we’re secretly glad women do.)"

Amen.

These articles run long and I still have a lot left for yet another column.

I’ll wrap up with this study sent by Criminal Brief friend and reader, alisa:

Research conducted by UCLA’s Department of Psychiatry has revealed that the kind of face a woman finds attractive on a man can differ depending on where she is in her menstrual cycle.

For example, if she is ovulating, she is attracted to men with rugged and masculine features.

However, if she is menstruating or menopausal, she tends to be more attracted to a man with duct tape over his mouth and a spear lodged in his chest while setting him on fire.

No further studies are expected.