Protagonists and gender
I find it interesting that male novelists do on occasion put forth female protagonists … but (as far as I know) female novelists never write from the point of view of a man.
I would like to qualify my observation: short stories don’t count, neither do novels about boys or teenagers (e.g. Harry Potter).
I wonder why this could be.
Maybe because being a man is boring, except when he’s an action hero/a lawyer fighting injustice/a spy.
On the other hand, for a woman, even receiving a phone call from a beau (or, in the case of Jane Austen’s heroines, a letter) can bring the greatest of raptures.
So female authors have more than enough material on their hands with which to write countless variations on a theme, which is to be a woman and have relationships.
Male authors, on the other hand, need to come up with stuff ranging from politics to car chases to global conspiracies. And then, to spice things up, they would sometimes feature female protagonists.
If I were to write a novel, would I ever have a woman as the central character?
Maybe. But she would first be scared, and when push comes to shove, she would lob IEDs at the bad guys and ride an RX-Z down the Masjid Jamek Putra LRT station.
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