Gender in Writing

Prompted by this StoryTellers Unplugged article the issue of gender and genre is rearing its head again. There was a long, nice discussion of this on Brian Keene’s board, ut at other horror genre hang outs there doesn’t seem to be much discussion, just a routine dismissal.

Bev Vincent’s experiences are on one hand ridiculous, it seems that the editor in question was looking for reasons to dismiss his work, and since there is nothing to be won in a battle where the opposition is close minded and beligerant for the sake of simply opposing you, his solution to the problem was the only right one.

The idea that women can’t write horror, and that horror is a male genre, is ridiculous. Any time you reject someone from your target audience you fail. It’s not a writer’s job to say “This story is for men”. It’s the audience’s job to decide what they like and what they want to read.

This idea feeds directly into the depressing, sexist role of females in horror. Women, by and large, in horror are there to be token damsels in distress in order make the situation more serious. Or they are there to be raped and murdered. Occasionally they get to be villains, but when they are they’re just as flat and bland as male villains.

I think that the failure of horror to cater to a female audience has directly influenced the rise of urban fantasy, and led to that genre progressively leading down darker and darker paths. I think books like Rachel Vincent’s werecats series, Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse and Harper Connelly books, and Ann Aguirre’s Blue Diablo prove that women love the dark stuff too, and could easily grow a love of horror.

Defining horror as male is also insulting to males. How many writers out there have been told to dumb down their work, or have been constricted with the idea that this, and ONLY this is horror? That Horror is only the plucky group of people slowly being picked off by the bad guy/monster.

When I started Rot it was with two things in mind. 1) How do I write a zombie story that isn’t just a plucky group os survivors trying to get to safety and being eaten one by one? and 2) How do I write a convincing male lead who is also openly emotionally? How do I do the male lead and zombies differently, but convincingly?

Because I don’t think that writing the same old tale fosters intelligence and creativity. Not in Horror, not in urban fantasy, and not in romance. There is a satisfaction in reading a tale with familiar elements, but there’s a danger in it too. It’s called complacency, and that in turn leads exactly to where we are, in a genre so static that even though the idea of only males being able to write it may be dismissed, but it’s not fought against. It’s not out right challenge.

So, my dear horror people, I invite you to buy a copy of Rot (when it goes on sale), which is the product primarily of two women. Think of it as my response to the challenge “Women can’t write horror”. I refuse to simply dismiss the idea, I prefer to prove it entirely wrong.

And if you think I’m alone, why not try out these other female horror/dark fiction writers.

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

Nancy A. Collins

Kathe Koja

Lucy Snyder

Charlaine Harris

Polly Frost

Fran Friel

Cherie Priest

Jennifer Pelland

Shirley Jackson

Mary Shelley

Sarah Langan