male writers vs. female writers

male writers vs. female writers | Aug 13 2003

咖啡店里有不少不言不语坐在角落的茶客，他们天天都来，就是不贴帖子，有想法就给我写email，就像这位，写了一个挺有意思的想法，因为不想独吞他的“思想”，就拿出来与大家一起讨论。

从今后要立个新规矩，光看不贴不行。

××××××××××××××
I read your thoughts about the difference between men and women writers. Suffering, as you mentioned, is something close to it or has some truth in it. The deeper reason or the root of the issue is how to make a living and different social roles to play.

Most women writers began to write when they secured financial support from husbands or parents. While a
man writer is expected to achieve other success in society. He is supposed to support the family, be a success in any kind, and therefore face a stronger conflict in making the choice of becoming a writer. For women,
writing is to make things better. For men, it is to turn things to work, or worse. You surely know the origin of the word "scholar," which means to have leisure. In modern world, scholars don't have any leisure. So, women
writers are scholars in ancient sense and men writers are scholars in modern sense. When I said to you that I admire women's capability to describe details, I was kind of referring to this issue but not very accurate yet. Even for those women writers who suffered from some poverty (like the author of Harry Potter), there is still a difference here in social expectations of social roles.

For a woman suffering from poverty while insisting on writing, people would just respect her and think she has
courage and she is working to help herself or solve her problems. A man suffering from poverty while writing can get zero sympathy. People would just say: go find a job to make money. So women writing is usually viewed
as moving towards a higher status while men writers are viewed as self-exile or giving up other opportunities. This is somewhat similar or simply just opposite to homosexuals. Lesbians are giving up climbing on
social ladders and degrading their social class, for two-women-households have less household income than a man-and-woman household has. But gays are social climbers, as two-men-families have higher household income than regular families. Also opposite to writers situation, lesbians get more sympathy while gays have harder time to solicit understanding. These differences create different social environment for men and women in
choosing to become writers. In other words, it is different types of men and women who self selected to be writers. I think I have said enough, and wish to hear from you now.