Twitter Account Proves Male Writers Have No Idea How To Write Female Characters

by Cassandra Stone

men-writing-women
Men Writing Women/Twitter

Male writers just keep telling on themselves in hilariously awful ways

When it comes to writing female characters, there are a lot of male writers out there who, uh, don’t really seem to understand who women are — even in the most basic ways. And since female writers don’t really have this issue when writing, we should all be grateful that the Men Writing Women Twitter account exists to show us just how badly our male counterparts are struggling.

For example, a recent tweet of theirs went viral instantly because it perfectly captured how clueless men can be about simple female anatomy and certain male writers are in their non-researched convictions about said anatomy.

To put it bluntly: some dude wrote a book where a female character uses her vagina as an extra pocket for stuff.

“The girl had a tiny purse tucked into her vagina, just big enough to store her driver’s license, a credit card, and a few bucks.”

How… how does this writer think vaginas work? That we all just use them as a purse? REALLY? This is an excerpt from Desperate Measures by Stuart Woods, and a quick Google search has informed me this is, in fact, a real book. Who is letting men do this?

The women of the internet were, of course, in full reaction mode.

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Lest you think that’s the all the Men Writing Women account has to offer, please allow us to bring you some of the most baffling-yet-amazing gems men have come up with (and editors and publishers have somehow greenlit).

Here’s the guy who tops off his fat-phobia undertones by reminding us all that bras are torture devices in the middle of what is supposed to be a sexy scene:

And the male writer who wants you to know that firm breasts, while exciting, do tend to get in the way when fighting — unlike a good, “soft” body:

And hey, what’s a poem written by a man if we’re not going to objectify women in the food service industry (Also where the hell is this restaurant? Other than only inside this man’s frontal lobe?):

OMG ALWAYS SO MUCH TALK ABOUT BREASTS JESUS CHRIST (minus a million points for using the word “moist” at all, let alone in reference to glittering eye holes):

Speaking of eyes, haven’t all of us womenfolk wanted to borrow the eyeballs of a prettier friend or acquaintance at one point or another?

And yes, even well-established writers like John Grisham can be your problematic fave by calling women BARBIE DOLLS via their male protagonists:

But really, if we tried to come up with a list of female writers who only wrote about boners and schlongs, we’d be here for weeks. Because women don’t do that. And if we did, best believe we’d produce the most well-researched, accurate texts about boners and schlongs in existence.

Now if only male writers could pull their brains and their typing fingers away from “breastsbreastsbreastsbreasts” and “oh hey, this female corpse had a pretty cool wallet stored inside her vaginal canal, no biggie, totally normal” — well, wouldn’t that be something.

Until then, we can all enjoy the internet fodder brought to us by Men Writing Women.