: Re: How to write female characters as a male writer? Yesterday I asked a question about writing a female character who has agency. Much to my surprise, it was well-received and generated a lot

@Jessie137

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The passage puts cart before horse. She fantasizes about having babies, and then gets around to trying to justify the man who is going to give her the babies, yet she doesn't sound like there is any sexual attraction to him. He just has some superficial traits (green eyes, curly hair) which presumably she would like her babies to have too. Then he is described in words that make him sound like an escort who won't embarrass her at a social event, and is the right height for when she wears her favorite pair of heels.

This woman is the opposite of "self-possessed". She doesn't center her desires at all, instead she is weirdly detached, and passively thinking of others.

If this was the only thing I knew about this character, I'd call her a Pondering Uterus. Her desire is to have babies. 2 other characters exist: one to give her the babies, and another Pondering Uterus who already had babies but also only thinks about babies. I don't learn anything else about this woman.

There is also a strange disconnect that she is there in the world but instead of experiencing the adventure first hand or talking with the people around her, she wonders about "looking it up" on a tablet while sitting in a quiet wineshop like a tourist in a cafe, yet you say she has been here for months. Is she an accidental traveler? It sounds like she'd be happier staying home having babies, and experiencing the world only secondhand through other people's accounts related through a tablet.

Being a woman in a medieval era, she would be forced to spend time around other women who would be very aware that most women die in childbirth, and half of all children die before the age of 5. From her 24th Century perspective, motherhood would be a sure and quick path to disease and death. Grimy babies would be nursing and pooping themselves, and crawling on the dirt floor among the bugs and chickens. There is no soap, medicine, or hygiene of any kind. Maybe she has gone to an idealized medieval world, but why would she be planning a family in such a hostile environment? It would be just as bizarre as being stranded on Mars or trapped in sunken submarine, and her thoughts wander to the topic of planning her family. A man could also be having these bizarre baby fantasies and they would seem just as out-of-place.

But it's all ok because he seems to love her.
(steps away from keyboard to scream)

I have to wonder, do you honestly believe this passage is in-character for a "self possessed" person of any gender? I don't see it.

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