PREACH.

[redbrunja]

Pulitzer Prize Winner (for fiction) Junot Diaz talking about the disparity between female writers' skill in writing males and male writers' skill in writing females, with that attitude that it's shameful how bad male writers often are at creating nuanced, realistic ladies –so they should work hard and get better at it.

Comments

[qualapec.livejournal.com]

Love that quote. It's so wonderful to see male writers calling their own bs on this.

One thing that pissed me off in high school English was how our curriculum was SO boy-centric. I don't think we read a single thing with a female protagonist other than To Kill a Mockingbird. Every time I talk to a teacher about it, they're like, "But boys won't read them!" and I just do a comedy sketch double take and go, "And that's their problem, now isn't it?"

Like, when I was a kid, I didn't want to read anything without a female protagonist (excluding anime and manga, where I was a bit more equal about it). Right around the time I turned 11/13, I got very interested in male characters and male protagonists, but I largely chalk it up to the fact that I had only a couple examples of men in my life so when I became a horny teenager I was suddenly interested in them because they were kind of a mystery to me.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Every time I talk to a teacher about it, they're like, "But boys won't read them!" and I just do a comedy sketch double take and go, "And that's their problem, now isn't it?"

Whoa, do you mean I could have just refused to read any book that wasn't starring a lady in school? Insight!

Like, when I was a kid, I didn't want to read anything without a female protagonist

I... am kind of still in that phase.