: In general --and of course, this varies widely for actual individuals --my own personal sense is that women tend to be more aware of, interested in, and concerned about a wide and constantly

@Kevin153

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In general --and of course, this varies widely for actual individuals --my own personal sense is that women tend to be more aware of, interested in, and concerned about a wide and constantly shifting network of interpersonal social relationships. They also tend to be more self-reflective and more consciously aware of their emotions and their motivations. Men --particularly young men --tend to be more transparent, more direct, less observant, less reflective and less self-aware.

In terms of a strongly gendered male voice, I'd recommend comparing and contrasting Nick Hornby's About a Boy with his own High Fidelity. Both books, I would say, have a strongly gendered male voice, but the first reads as though intended for a female audience --it goes out of its way to explain the male perspective --, while the second reads as though written for a male audience. Catcher in the Rye is a good example of a young male narrator who is introspective and self-reflective, but who still has a strongly gendered male voice. As a man it's harder for me to identify a good example for an "authentic" female voice (as opposed to my own stereotypes), but one of my own favorite books with a strongly gendered female voice is Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God.

As you mentioned, however, a lot of the difference is not voice per se, but experiences. It's still a very different world for men and women in most settings. I'd recommend a lot of long conversations with someone of the opposite gender in order to absorb and internalize what that "different world" looks like from the other side. Doing a lot of reading of work by authors of the other gender is probably also a good idea (see answers to this related question for more).

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