Hello, everyone and all. It’s been a few months since I last posted – I’ve been insanely busy, new job, hideous hours, etc.
But the Straight Dope is just about the best knowledge base I know, and you’re the best place I can think of to ask this question:
In the book I’m writing, there is the following:
Marinda made a face, but took his point. “Well, all right. Maybe it’s one of those things that men take differently than women.”
“Like jokes about farting?” Saxton suggested.
A woman in my writing/critiquing group said, “That’s extremely sexist.” Is it? It doesn’t say that either sex is better or worse than the other, only noting that there is an obvious (cultural!) difference. I don’t see how it’s sexist, any more than say, observing women tend to wear their hair longer than men. It isn’t an innate difference, just a societal one. Do you see the passage as sexist, and/or as offensive? Do I need to toss it?
(Does it help to note that Saxton is actually The Toucan God, a Coyote-like trickster god, the sort who likes to put taco-filling in people’s shoes?)
Thank you very much for your considered opinions (and for off-the-cuff opinions too!) Best regards to everyone!
Is Marinda being sexist? I can’t tell without knowing what she is putting in the “Men and women are different” box.
Is Saxton being sexist? Yes. A tiny and very common level of sexism.
I personally find statements of the type “Women don’t like fart jokes” very annoying. Lots of women like fart jokes, even if the majority don’t, and lots of men don’t like fart jokes. And every statement of “Women don’t like this”, “Men don’t like that” contributes to some number of people in the minority (E.g. women who like fart jokes) to avoid showing that.
I have a hard time seeing how to context could be such that I personally would consider the exchange you shared as “extremely sexist” though. It looks like ordinary, run of the mill, everyday sexism.
In you visualization of Saxton, is it too sexist or not sexist enough? IMHO, that should be your real question. Is this the kind of thing Saxton would say in this situation?
To directly answer your question, a person who holds or expresses this view is engaging in a minor act of sexism. As Naita said, minor everyday sexism.
Good question, but a scary one, because it could permit nearly any ugly statement to be made, if put in the mouth of an ugly character. My reader wasn’t willing to make this allowance, and I can’t guess if it helps me here or not. (Yes, it’s totally “in character,” but how much responsibility does the author carry for what his characters say?)
If a character is a living thing rather than cardboard, the character will say what it is in the nature of the character to say. This is especially true for ugly characters, since a good ugly character’s ugliness comes from within his or her personality, not painted on. The killer should have some reason to be a killer, not because the author needs a bad guy.
I would strongly suspect that many women would agree with the mildly sexist statement as men.
I’ve been in critique groups also, the last run by a professional editor/publisher. She would have objected if the statement came from the author, not the character.
It is a quote from the POV of a character, not an authorial claim of objective fact. Your character can say ignorant or sexist or “non-woke” things. The critiquer is an idiot. But if you feel that your readers will be as stupid as the workshop group member you could put a disclaimer at the end like they did with Frozen.
Happy grin! I didn’t know about that disclaimer in Frozen, which is a sweet one!
I still feel uncomfortable going back to my writing group with, “But it’s what the character legitimately would have said,” but, well, it really is. (The character is a dork! What do you expect from a trickster god?)
Be careful with diegetic justifications. That video is short, I really recommend watching it, but in short, you have control over what the character says. They’re not a real person. “That’s what they’d do” or “the backstory of the setting/character justifies it” is not necessarily a justification for, as he terms it, “creepy bullshit”. You have complete creative control over all of that.
That said, I’m not sure this really rises to the level of that, depending on the tone and context of the rest of the book. It’s minorly sexist at best, and sometimes writing people who are a little rough or imperfect makes a work of art feel more real. It depends on how you frame the characters and situation throughout the story, how they grow, and so on. It also, unfortunately, depends on the author a bit, a black person writing about a futuristic space slave trade is just going to have a different perspective and be taken differently than a white writer doing it.
Without having read the whole thing, I can’t help make a judgment here, but I’d err on the side of ignoring the feedback given no other context. If I read the whole chapter or book I could very easily change my mind.
You can’t have complex, flawed, nuanced characters in your writing group? No one can? You can’t have a sweet grandma who really has many good traits, but is racist? A neighbor who is willing to help out and is a genuinely nice guy, but uses slurs to refer to people of Hispanic descent and thinks they are all here illegally? You can’t have an African American character who does tremendous work for civil rights but has some bone-deep misogynistic views?
I’d feel uncomfortable with a writing group where characters had to pass a litmus test.
I feel like this is too much of a kneejerk. We have no evidence this character is complex, flawed, and nuanced. Sometimes characters passively mimic real world sexism rather needlessly, and rather than making the character seem flawed it just subtly reinforces societal norms.
I’m not a big fan of him in general, but Pop Culture Detective’s video on the misogyny in the Big Bang theory is a good example of how even when it sooooort of condemns sexism, it’s very “gee willikers” about it and treats it as a cute character quirk more than a problem.
In contrast, Jose’s (very, very good) video on Roseanne show how it can largely be done well, by not making the characters have an inauthentic feeling epiphany about their flaws, but by framing things in a way that do authentically challenge the characters who hold those viewpoints.
Trickster gods are notoriously eccentric. Is he saying it because he likes juvenile humor or just to be crude? Because he wants to use his statement to illustrate a contradiction is Marinda’s speech versus behavior? For example, does she like fart jokes, thus showing that the male-female dichotomy she is creating is flawed?
I can see ways to use that statement easily. To me, personally, fart jokes aren’t the delineation between men and women, but it’s a common enough trope that you can certainly use it.
I’m curious to know what the stories written by your critic are like.
Does she successfully avoid any instance of language or ideas that might be considered sexist, or racist, or ableist, or ageist, or classist, or ethnocentrist, or any other -ist?
If she does, how interesting are her stories? How interesting and believable are her characters? Or does she dispense with characters altogether? Perhaps she does a wonderful job, but I’m more than a bit dubious.
The heart of a story is conflict. Conflict implies behavior that is less than ideal on at least someone’s part. It will often imply behavior that could be classified as one of those -ist words listed above. So it goes.
FWIW, I’m a professional writer who has published a good chunk of fiction, and I have many times written dialogue which comes under the heading of “This is not what I believe, but it is what my character would say in this situation.” It’s entirely reasonable to do that. In fact, it’s often necessary if you want your reader to have a full picture of who that character is.
Pretty good, actually! I think she meets her own criteria for moral soundness.
Nifty, and certainly congratulations on selling, which is a mighty hard threshhold to cross! Those of us sitting on large stacks of rejection slips can only applaud (and perhaps gnaw our own ankles in jealousy!) (Grin!)
Writing characters with unpleasant viewpoints is difficult and a little scary. One feels the need to distance oneself from them, to signal to the reader, “I don’t believe this! Sir Eustace Stinknoddle believes this!” But a sense of integrity compels us to give Sir Eustace his say, almost as if he, himself, were our co-author. He deserves to have his (rotten!) ideas expressed in a fair manner.
Anything else is just moving cardboard props around.
Still, I really did (and do!) crave the opinions of those here on this forum, as I hold The Straight Dope as one of the civilized world’s great intellectual treasures! (G’wan, just try to stump 'em in a trivia contest!)
Does she write about any bad characters? And are they believable?
Have you ever had a character come alive for you? That is, talks to you and tells you what he or she thinks and believes. Those are the best, and you owe to them and to your readers to let them speak and not make them a conduit for what you think is right.
After all, some characters might die? Sucks for them, but it could be necessary for the story.
First, it is not extremely sexist; it is mildly sexist. Your critiquer needs a dictionary and to switch that horse for a shorter one. And second, what has already been said about being in character.
Even in children’s books there are characters who are jerks. The few books which don’t have characters who are jerks are those directed at teaching vocabulary to not-quite-verbal-yet toddlers. “The little bug saw a FLOWER. What color is the FLOWER? The FLOWER is RED! RED!”
I kinda feel like you are having a bet each way here. First you say it’s not even sexist, and then you say if it is, it’s totally just this sexist character saying it. Or both these sexist characters, in fact.
I agree with others that it’s mildy sexist. You have to decide if you accept that or not. Then you have to decide if you want these characters to be that way (why would a trickster god be sexist, necessarily?). You can choose what aspects of your characters, your setting, your conflicts, that you want to explore. That is a meaningful choice that affects how people read your work.
Yes and yes… And others in the group have written much worse, and she hasn’t commented on it… I think I may just have hit a buried trigger…
Yes! A true joy! Several of my favorite characters are “alive” in my mind. (I go on long walks alone, and “converse” with them. Vaguely psychotic, but they have that much “reality” for me.)
Grin! re the Stooges, is there also an age factor? When I was young, I hated them, but now that I’m an old fart, I think they’re great!
Sort of an evolution. When I wrote it, I didn’t think it was sexist at all, and I still mostly don’t, because it doesn’t say that either sex is better or worse than the other (or others, if you wish!) just different. Until I got the first responses in this thread, I didn’t even think about the “character integrity” aspect, but I accept it now and agree with it. So I’m not really being two faced, just evolving/revolving.
A trickster god doesn’t have to be sexist…but if he is, it can be seen as just one more aspect of his weirdness/quirkiness/screwiness/perversity.
I want to keep the line, on the Roger Rabbit principle: I, at least, think it’s funny. So far, I’ve heard from more than thirty people (when I ask a question, I ask it widely!) and a fairly strong plurality have put forward the “character integrity” viewpoint.
Thank you, all and all and all! As always, I’ve learned much here!
I can’t evaluate that line without knowing what was said previously. What is Marinda talking about that men take differently than women?
I don’t see how saying that men take fart jokes differently than women is any more than a generalization, which is exactly the sort of thing I could see trickster god making. He’s above mortals, so he’s gonna make generalizations.
But I suspect that what would make it come off as sexist to your reviewer would be whatever Marinda is screwing her face at. The line on its own is too borderline to make a call.
Be cautious with those evolving justifications. I know what it’s like to fall in love with your own words, such that you’ll latch onto any reason not to cut them. (In some of the writing workshops I’ve been in, we used to describe editing as “killing your babies.”) But you have to be willing to make those cuts if you want to grow as a writer. Not saying you have to cut this line in particular. But you have to be honest with yourself about whether it’s right for this story, and not just something so clever on its own that it has to see the light of day.