From a clueless white woman, on RaceFail2009

[lalouve]

I have not been posting much, and commenting sparsely, but two things have now annoyed me sufficiently that I feel the need to vent. I know I still don't understand much about racism, but some of it should be blatantly obvious to anyone who's ever opened a book on feminism.

One thing was reading davidlevine 's entry on writing CoC, and especially this comment

Comments

[lalouve]

I'll stick to gender, rather than race, as an example here, as that is what I know best and where I have personal experience.

I think the problem with the bad writing is not really lack of writing skills, but the inability to see that women are not, in fact, men who are just less rational, or more nurturing, or whatever cliché they choose to believe in, but people who, due to their gender, have different experiences from men in similar class/race/age/sexual orientation bracket. Those writers cannot grasp that other people have experiences that differ from theirs (I submit all the men to whom I've tried to explain how women go through life fearing violence from men, and who refuse to believe that this experience exists). It will inevitably lead to bad writing.

Stereotypes are, in my opinion, also a worse problem than the bad writing produced; they are tools for the closing of one's mind. Every reproduced stereotype strengthens the impression that it is an image true to life. As I think writers (like the rets of us) have moral obligations about their work, I think they have an obligation to avoid stereotypes, both because they're bad writing and because they are dangerous.