When science frustrates fiction

[Dekusta]

I dedicate a great part of my time writing science fiction and fantasy and drawing comics and graphic novels. Another great part of my time is spent on reading random, real science because whynot.

However, in early and recent works, many of my favorite and memorable characters are women. Strong and often very smart. And I don't do this out of any bias I am aware of, I sincerely like what I did and I'm greatly attached to these works.
Recently though, I started reading stuff like this: http://www.sciencevsfeminism.com/th...nces-general-intelligence/#alternate_measures
And related texts referring to overall biological differences between the sexes. It sucks a whole lot. I don't know precisely why, but I'm starting to get a feeling of frustration whenever I look at my early works and losing interest in future projects. I also get the same feeling when I'm playing dark souls and slaughtering the hell out of goth minions with my female ignorant pyromancer. Or when scaring the hell out of literally everyone in my way with femshepard in mass effect.

It's a feeling of frustration but not the dammit-you-lied-to-me type. In the middle of gameplay or work, I start to think if it's fair to have male and female characters inflict the same damage given the same circumstances, or if some of my early work with genius women saving the world is somehow a brutal lie. If I was a woman, surely I would be extremely pissed by now.

My thoughts are that unexpected fiction aspects (if you can call it that) might screw the little realistic aspects you thought you had built. Has any of you gone through something similar? Please share.

 

[zorq]

Variation between individuals of any gender is huge compared to average variation between large gender populations. You can have Mary Sue characters and Gary Stu characters in fiction and it doesn't bother me in the least because some rare people even in the real world are simply amazing. Yes, men are more likely to be outliers on the high end (and low end) than women, but some women can get there too.

PS. I also always choose female avatars in the games I play when I have a choice.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

After reading the link at least now I understand why my wife doesn't have the same verbal skills as myself, yet is able to learn isolated simple tasks much more quickly, like learning a new dance step.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I dedicate a great part of my time writing science fiction and fantasy and drawing comics and graphic novels. Another great part of my time is spent on reading random, real science because whynot.

However, in early and recent works, many of my favorite and memorable characters are women. Strong and often very smart. And I don't do this out of any bias I am aware of, I sincerely like what I did and I'm greatly attached to these works.
Recently though, I started reading stuff like this: http://www.sciencevsfeminism.com/th...nces-general-intelligence/#alternate_measures
And related texts referring to overall biological differences between the sexes. It sucks a whole lot. I don't know precisely why, but I'm starting to get a feeling of frustration whenever I look at my early works and losing interest in future projects. I also get the same feeling when I'm playing dark souls and slaughtering the hell out of goth minions with my female ignorant pyromancer. Or when scaring the hell out of literally everyone in my way with femshepard in mass effect.

It's a feeling of frustration but not the dammit-you-lied-to-me type. In the middle of gameplay or work, I start to think if it's fair to have male and female characters inflict the same damage given the same circumstances, or if some of my early work with genius women saving the world is somehow a brutal lie. If I was a woman, surely I would be extremely pissed by now.

My thoughts are that unexpected fiction aspects (if you can call it that) might screw the little realistic aspects you thought you had built. Has any of you gone through something similar? Please share.

There were three statisticians out hunting deer. The first shot three meters to the left of a deer. The second to the right of the deer. The third exclaimed joyfully "we hit".

Gender differences only describe populations. Men and women really are very similar. Yes, sure, the outliers for either gender will be extreme and very different from the average man or woman. But the overlap is huge. I wouldn't be surprised if 40% of all men display properties that are mostly female. There is a girl at my job with bigger biceps than any man here. She's fit as fuck and should not be messed with.

I think this huge overlap explains why we have a tendency to try so hard with exaggerating gender differences. What this proves is that most people are slightly uncomfortable about how similar they are to the opposite gender.

 

[Elixir]

I dedicate a great part of my time writing science fiction and fantasy and drawing comics and graphic novels. Another great part of my time is spent on reading random, real science because whynot.

However, in early and recent works, many of my favorite and memorable characters are women. Strong and often very smart. And I don't do this out of any bias I am aware of, I sincerely like what I did and I'm greatly attached to these works.
Recently though, I started reading stuff like this: http://www.sciencevsfeminism.com/th...nces-general-intelligence/#alternate_measures
And related texts referring to overall biological differences between the sexes. It sucks a whole lot. I don't know precisely why, but I'm starting to get a feeling of frustration whenever I look at my early works and losing interest in future projects. I also get the same feeling when I'm playing dark souls and slaughtering the hell out of goth minions with my female ignorant pyromancer. Or when scaring the hell out of literally everyone in my way with femshepard in mass effect.

It's a feeling of frustration but not the dammit-you-lied-to-me type. In the middle of gameplay or work, I start to think if it's fair to have male and female characters inflict the same damage given the same circumstances, or if some of my early work with genius women saving the world is somehow a brutal lie. If I was a woman, surely I would be extremely pissed by now.

My thoughts are that unexpected fiction aspects (if you can call it that) might screw the little realistic aspects you thought you had built. Has any of you gone through something similar? Please share.

Yep. I think you need to get over it. Certainly, as Dr Z points out, the outliers for either gender will be extreme and very different from the average man or woman. But when writing, you want your characters and/or their adventures to be worth reading about. So they are either going to be outliers, or "ordinary" Lake Woebegone citizens who have somehow found themselves in extraordinary circumstances. If you have invested in the development of a character who is an outlier, it behooves you - regardless of the exceptional qualities that makes them worth writing/reading about - to tie them back to the reader's own presumably average existence, by touching on whatever qualities they retain with which the reader might self-identify. But don't worry about the exceptional nature of your characters' exceptional nature - I think readers (male and female) are pretty forgiving about an author harping on that... I could be wrong of course, but it would be a shame to let it keep anyone from continuing to write.
</$0.02>

 

[ronburgundy]

Variation between individuals of any gender is huge compared to average variation between large gender populations. You can have Mary Sue characters and Gary Stu characters in fiction and it doesn't bother me in the least because some rare people even in the real world are simply amazing. Yes, men are more likely to be outliers on the high end (and low end) than women, but some women can get there too.

PS. I also always choose female avatars in the games I play when I have a choice.

I choose female avatars too, but mostly because they have big knockers and I am pervy enough to get horny from a drawing.

But seriously, your post is dead on about difference in the distributions not precluding male or females who deviate from the norm of their sex and are even well beyond the norm of the other sex.

Besides, why does it matter if the character's sex makes it a little less probable, given that most science fiction is filled with the extremely implausible if not impossible for either sex?

 

[iolo]

'Science' doesn't say anything - you just get fashions in experiments and research. Males and females have been put to play different roles for uncountable generations, and are subject to hourly conditioning from birth. I'll never forget, with our fourth child, we decided to buy a dummy (call them that in the States, do you? - thing to stick in baby's mouth to keep it quiet). 'Pink or blue?' they said. 'Whatever', said I - 'that all you've got?' And they thought I was nuts

 

[DrZoidberg]

'Science' doesn't say anything - you just get fashions in experiments and research. Males and females have been put to play different roles for uncountable generations, and are subject to hourly conditioning from birth. I'll never forget, with our fourth child, we decided to buy a dummy (call them that in the States, do you? - thing to stick in baby's mouth to keep it quiet). 'Pink or blue?' they said. 'Whatever', said I - 'that all you've got?' And they thought I was nuts

I saw a study on how much parents think is nurture and how much is nature. Turns out that parents with one child think nurture is critical. Sharp drop off with two kids. They think nurture is good but not the most important factor. And for every added child they think nurture is less and less a factor until they think nurture is largely irrelevant.

 

[iolo]

Well, we had four, and ended the other way - though I must admit that I seem to have been born without faith in 'Nature'.

 

[EricB]

The only place you would run into a real issue would be if you were compare elite athletes of both genders, where the differences - both neural and physical - are extreme. An elite female athlete will out perform many average men.