A male author’s claim to be living proof that men can write authentic female characters has provoked glee online – but he’s not the worst offender
One integral thing about being female is that we don’t really think about our breasts very much at all. If we ever do, we never think about how we’ve “propped them up front and centre”. But it seems some male authors don’t realise this, as was piercingly highlighted on Twitter by young adult author Gwen Katz at the weekend, after a writer insisted he was “living proof that it’s possible for a male author to write an authentic female protagonist”.
Well. Obviously, it is possible. But not in this case. Here are just a few lines from the unnamed writer’s novel: “I sauntered over, certain he noticed me. I’m hard to miss, I’d like to think – a little tall (but not too tall), a nice set of curves if I do say so myself, pants so impossibly tight that if I had had a credit card in my back pocket you could read the expiration date. The rest of my outfit wasn’t that remarkable, just a few old things I had lying around. You know how it is.”
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