One of the perennial questions is can men write believable and credible women characters? (It is rarely asked if woman can do the same for male characters, the answer is generally assumed to be yes, but that’s a little afield from where I want to go in today’s essay.) I have an author friend, NYT bestseller and all, who feels that she has never encountered a well written female character emerging from a male writer’s prose. I know other women readers who are quite the opposite, adoring some male writers for their depiction of females.
(If you want to start an unending argument at an SF convention, in a mixed audience, praise Heinlein’s female characters. You will ignite women passionate on both side of that questions.) Continue reading →