I meta, therefore I am.

[bandgeek]

So I've been reading about feminist criticism of Hamlet for my Lit Studies class. But what I'm interested in isn't so much the Hamlet stuff itself (although I'm sure we can all ruminate on Ophelia until the cows come home). What I'd really like to know more about is this

Comments

[thisficklemob]

So here's my question to you: is there, in your perception, a gender to writing? ... If I presented you with two unlabelled samples of prose, would you be able to tell which was written by a man, and which by a woman?I suppose it partially depends on the subject of the paragraph. In many cases, I'd say no. On the other hand, if the subject were one that typically evoked different responses in women and men, then that might come through in the paragraph

[bandgeek]

Hmm ... yeah, I can definitely see how gender would matter when it comes to men's vs. women's socio-political experiences. I guess something I'm interested in that vein is whether or not a man can really understand or write from the perspective of a female. Regardless of his level of sympathy toward women, I mean. I guess I'm not really thinking as much of politics as of just the way men and women experience the world ... kind of like as much as I can read and try to sympathize with men, I will never really know what it's like to get a blowjob. :)

[thisficklemob]

Hee hee. Yeah, I don't know the answer to that. And I think it's all filtered through our own sense of gender ownership as well... it's much easier to say, "women don't think like that, he doesn't understand women," about a male author. If a female author writes what seems to us an unauthentic female voice, we're left more with questions like, "Who the hell is she? Is that really how she thinks?" or else we question her insight and skill as a writer, period

[bandgeek]

Eeek! Revelation! :)

It's the power dynamic! This is making all kinds of sense to me. In order for women to survive, we've had to get good at understanding and appeasing men. Oh, wow ... I guess I've always thought of women's empathy as something more biological, but this is so much more logical.

Must ... set up ... scientific ... study ...

[thisficklemob]

Hee hee hee. I wish I could remember where I read about this, but it was years ago. On the other side, my strange science teacher (like that narrows it down) once gave me an article to read about differences in female and male brains... women have more links between the right and left brain, or a thicker connector thingy, or something like that. They speculated that this was the basis for "women's intuition." This was even longer ago. So I guess one could find... or at least posit... evidence either way

[bandgeek]

I've often wondered just why it is that so many societies are patriarchal. I mean, aside from the fact that men tend to be bigger and stronger, there just doesn't seem to be much of a logical reason for this to be the case over and over again. And because of the factors you mentioned -- like women's fertility and intuition -- it would almost seem more likely that women would be the dominant sex.

As for the brain chemistry ... well, I just don't know. I'll have to poke my finger around in there and see if I've got this connector thingy ... ;)