Well Ok but I would disagree, and I am not sure there's much point debating it, as you clearly are assured of your mind set. Suffice to say I think often in the past women who wrote were not considered good writers simply because it was in the most part a mans' world, and they often had to publish under a psuedonym to even get that chance. And as in most fields a woman had to be so much better than average to even compete with the male orientated arts. I think in previous years, personally, we have seen a change in this misogyny and women as authors are some of the best selling writers. As time goes by and more women feel confident enough to write, the balance will shift.Melchior wrote:But I disagree. Almost everything written by women stinks. I can tell almost instantly when I am reading something written by a woman, because it stinks, even when, as you say, the prose has some polish to it.Blaggard wrote:No quite clearly learning to talk early as a child and learning how to create entertaining stories are not the same thing. If you think they are, you are probably not thinking very hard about the skill sets involved in a great author and being a 1 year old baby. Clearly they are not the same thing. You can write utterly badly and still sell millions of books, look at Dan Brown nobody would claim he was any good at writing. But what he is good at is telling an enteratining story, clearly in writing it's more important to entertain than it is to write magnificent and clever prose that transcends all generes. Ok book snobs may not agree but then they are pretentious twits, good authors entertain first if they can write like some sort of linguistic genius all the better but it wont mean jack unless they can grip the audience and create a page turner. I've read some books that had such brilliantly clever prose that I could not fault their skills, at the same time some of those same books left me cold because clearly although the author could write, what he wrote was just dull and often I never finished them.
Written language and spoke language as it pertains to picking it up are not the same thing, written and spoken language as in as you speak it as an adult and as your write it are not even the same thing. Some people sound like gibbering fools when they speak stuttering over sentences and talking such meaningless ideas that no one can understand them, some of the same people you sit down could write like a poet. You must of noticed that you have a different spectrum of talent in the spoken word from the written word?
Women learning to speak at a young age, in no way means they will hence be better writers, it just means they are better at picking up grammar and syntax than the average man. So basically there is no difference between how talented a writer a woman is over a man, they seem to be both as adroit.
For example:
http://www.amazon.com/Blame-A-Novel-Mic ... r-mr-title
http://www.amazon.com/Sloppy-Firsts-Jes ... r-mr-title
"if you want to waste your time, or if you're in a masochistic mood, buy this book. if you must give it as a gift to someone, make sure it's someone you really hate. if they can think at all, they'll hate you for giving it to them after five pages of this vapid, vacuous read."
http://www.amazon.com/Cleopatra-A-Life- ... r-mr-title
http://www.amazon.com/Dreamers-Day-Mary ... r-mr-title
"There are five members in our book club. We have been a book club for over 15 years. This was the very first time that not one of us could recommend a given book, Despite dealing with one of the most fascinating periods in world history as it affected an American, the author of "Dreamers of the Day" managed to be trite and boring. This was a case of an excellent historian who should never have tried to put her knowledge into novel form. She just is not good enough in character depiction or dialogue."
I would hazard a guess if you read a book that you did not know was written by a woman, you would probably like it much more than if you knew who it was authored by. I would hazard a guess it has nothing to be with the ability of women to tell interesting stories, but more to do with your own prejudices. I might be wrong, and often am, but I think you judge women as poor authors on your own values rather than any intrinsic skill. Women do of course bring different perspectives to writing, women might sometimes not appeal so much to men as they might to women, but to say they can't write well I think is perhaps only indicative of peoples prejudice in general.
If you look at Nobel prises for literature they seem dominated by men in the early 20th century and beyond, but if you look at prizes now, far more women are creeping in to steal it from the men. I suspect the only reason that women have not been given a fair shake is only because men have dominated the arts for so long, and seldom let women in to compete, that they have hence seldom been given the level playing field they needed. Which doesn't mean they are worse at writing, it only means that there are so much fewer women writing that you get a skewed imp0ression of the field.
Anecdotal stories about women who did not measure up are about as useful as a screwdriver when you are trying to bang in a nail. I really don't care about your personal experiences, but would be much more likely to believe you if it wasn't just your book group but many other book groups out there. I suspect your book group is loaded with misogynist dinosaurs, but suffice to say if you used a consensus amongst book groups some of whom, heaven forbid even included women you might find a different story.