In order to provide a basis for this presentation, and to prove my conclusion, I asked my audience to play a game with me - a 'sex' game.
The rules were:
1. Read a quote, give a hint and the allow the audience to guess the sex of the
author. (For the purposes of this exercise, we confined our answers to either
male or female.)
2. If the gender question was answered incorrectly, disqualification resulted.
3. The person with the most correct won the game and received the prize.
EXAMPLES:
1. "With muscles made supple by over a year of training with the novices, Davred sank gracefully to his knees in front of the transmitter, sat for a moment to gather his thoughts, then spread his precious bundle of parchments out on a beautifully woven rug that the richest art collectors in the Confederation would have sold their souls to own."
p 214 'Quest' Book 1 of the Chronicles of Tenebrak by Shannah Jay (our own Australian author, Sherry Anne Jacobs)
2. "A SHELL SCOURED BY THE WIND. A RIVER-STONE
ROUNDED BY WATER, OR A BONE THAT'S BLANCHED
UPON AN ENDLESS WHITE DESERTED SHORE.
THAT'S HOW I SAW MYSELF - SPARE, CLEAN AND HARD."
From a poem 'One Life' p 134 Rosemary Dobson Collected Poems.
3. Mrs Giblett "Too long in the tooth Doctor is - and what's it he says he is?"
"Search me" said Alf "I wouldn't find much if I did, you're that badly educated.
So embarrassing f' me too, since I got you elected and have to play first lady for
the town. Yours truly can cut a fine figure still when I've the mind."
p 40 'The Northwest Ladies' by Henrietta Drake-Brockman (Australian author).
4. 'From the verandah by one of those small wooden houses, squatted against the
hillside, Lucia watched the cow feeding. Coming up from the paddocks where
he had been grubbing stumps and burning off, her husband stood to watch the
cow, too. He did not see Lucia. He was happy, in the rain, the misty veil of it,
everywhere, that film of green spreading on the hard red ground.'
P 107 'The Cow' by Katharine Susannah-Pritchard (Australian author).
5. 'Please do not exhaust me
with your temperament,
nor wring my heart
with unnecessary tears -
for even the most peaceful soul
can be tormented out of it's serenity
into a raging inferno
that burns love
to a cold, grey ash .....'
From the book 'The Thoughts of Nanushka' by Nan Witcomb.
6. "As night deepened, the young woman dozed between contractions, sometimes
walking, sometimes shouting. She had a hot bath and began to eat ice and
demand Liverworst. Her belly rose, uterus flexing downward. Her sweat
sparkled, the gossamer highlit by movement and firelight. The night grew older.
The midwife crooned. The young man rubbed his wife's back, fed her ice and
rubbed her lips with oil."
p 139 - 143 Story 'Neighbours' by Tim Winton.
7. "Youth is but the blossom on the tree
It's beauty is just to attract the bee.
The petals fall, the glories fade,
But there remains the fruit and shade."
Poem called 'Youth' by L. A Schubert book 'The Poetry of my Life.'
WHAT WAS YOUR SCORE?
How did the winner get it right? Was it guesswork or was there a trick to determining gender? At the end of the game only one person had scored because others had disqualified themselves with no answers after yeses. It was all purely guesswork. A hit and miss affair which underlined my own thinking.
Thank you to all who played the game. It is my humble opinion that the sex of an author should have no technical effect on their writing providing they are competent. Obviously, the writer's gender will colour their characterisations because we all write from the truth as we have experienced it.
During discussions of my presentation it was offered that certain gender-based subjects cannot be covered by the opposite sex for example; childbirth. I disagree. It is in the writer's interest to research their subject and present a true and accurate (from their knowledge) picture, in order to sell their product. A person who experiences childbirth may not be a capable writer and therefore not give a true and accurate picture.
There are many ways of analysing style, genre, content, context and numerous theories, which would probably blow my opinion right out of the water. But it is my opinion. This is all I can offer, at this stage of my study.
During my research of this subject, I collected one or two interesting snippets of (probably) useless information, which I would like to share with you.
A friend of mine, Scott Cain, works at Dymocks, the bookstore. During the two or three years he has been employed and after discussions with other employees, it has been found that men are most often the purchasers of the 'Black Lace' series of novels. These erotic novels are written by women specifically to appeal to women. It has been Scott's experience that no one he knows has sold one to a woman, but they sell out like hot cakes to men.
I asked my brother (who is a voracious devourer of popular novels) which female writers he had read and he stated emphatically that if the book had a woman's name on it - he wouldn't read it.
A fellow student and I discussed this exercise and discovered that we both have most often used males as our lead characters in stories and wondered why. It seemed to us that male characters historically were more literally acceptable, whereas previously, female characters were not considered of importance. Obviously, things have now changed for women. We concluded that for us, males are more predictable and females more complex. Is that because we are students and are learning our craft or will that basic conclusion stand at the end of my course?
I'd like to finish with a quote from the lead character in the film 'Commandments' that I watched recently.
" I do know
that what I don't know
Might be a whole lot bigger
Than what I thought."
~ Roddy Doyle, Author of The Commitments.
Thank you for your attention,
Frances Macaulay Forde
