Men Writing Women: Five Times Male Authors Got It Right

As I spend so much time complaining about some truly atrocious portrayals of women in books written by men, here are five recommendations for books where male authors got it right and created some truly amazing female characters. Good female characters are hard to find, and even rarer when written by male authors, so let's celebrate them when we get them.

BOOKS MENTIONED & TIMESTAMPS:

2:50
Mark Lawrence: Red Sister

5:43
E.M. Forster: Howards End

8:24
Terry Pratchett: Witches Abroad

10:38
Kazuo Ishiguro: Never Let Me Go

11:48
Charles Dickens: Oliver Twist

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Spinster's Library on social media:

[roblove]

The book that came straight to my mind was The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. The main character, Liesel, was so engaging and believable.

[toasturhztoastbunz]

Proof that females can be written perfectly without being strong or sexualised.

[solo]

I love how all the good women in fiction literally just boil down to "This character had an actual personality and goals in life!"

[hungariangiraffe]

As a male writer, I promise you that I'll try my best to help in expanding this list!

[WomanVsBooks]

I agree the female characters in Howard's End are fab. I love Terry Pratchett and he is so good at a female character, Susan is another example of that ☺

[sameraiza]

George double R Martin's female characters are realistic

[t.r.everstone]

I'm trying to get better at writing women myself, and since I've read Never Let Me Go and Oliver Twist, these examples helped. Thanks!

[danielcopeland]

Very late to the party and this is a big stretch. Not easy to get hold of, because it's not a finished novel. But I'm thinking of Luthien from J. R. R. Tolkien's mythos. She's referred to several times in _The Lord of the Rings_ and there's a very tightly condensed version of her story in a single chapter of _The Silmarillion._ In long form, Tolkien wrote about her in a poem called _The Lay of Leithian, _ which he didn't finish; you can find it in some of the material his son published after his death (the _History of Middle-Earth_ collection). I have a habit of going on about this story at stupid length in comment threads, so I won't start doing that here. But honestly, well worth checking out.

[raminybhatti]

The opposite to this: brilliantly written male characters by female authors. The most convincing example I can recall is Edith Wharton writing Newland Archer in The Age of Innocence. It's been a while since I read it, but I remember being very impressed at how Wharton managed to explore the nuances of a particular type of male mind. Highly recommended.

[lonewolf]

I was orphaned at a young age yet I'm not exactly "independent", I need to feel loved and protected, (within reason), to thrive. Living alone for a longer-term period of time is pure agony to me, but I have met guys/men who feel the same.
Trauma-& loneliness during childhood made me crave my own family even more.

[suhaskini]

I feel Brandon Sanderson is another author who portrays strong female characters... Would like to know your thoughts about him... Most, if not all his book series(with special mention of Mistborn and Skyward) have female protagonists who are well etched out, I believe .

[ashappyasiget]

My favourite five female characters by male authors are: Bathsheba Everdene (Far from the Madding Crowd), Eowyn (The Lord of the Rings),   Marian Halcombe (Woman in White), Ursula Brangwen (Women in Love), and Miss Havisham (Great Expectation).

[OldBluesChapterandVerse]

What are some fantastic and some unfortunate examples of male characterization by women authors, I wonder?

Some of the best-written women characters I’ve read by male authors are Lucinda Lesplastrier in Oscar and Lucinda, Susan Burling Ward in Angle of Repose, and Oriel Lamb in Cloudstreet.

[regerde]

Thank you for the video! I definitely have to read some of these books!
It's a shame when authors (men or women) are struggling to write believable characters. I always have a hard time staying immersed in a book when that happens.



I have three more authors from the top of my head who have a real talent for writing good characters in general (which definitely includes women).
- A probably well known one is George R.R. Martin with his "A Song of Ice and Fire" series. You definitely won't like every character but I can't deny that they are well written.
- Another great one is Phillip Pullman and his "His Dark Materials" trilogy. The protagonist is a young girl and throughout the story there is a wide array of side characters which all feel natural and most of them are rather likable as well.
- Lasty one of my favorite authors at the moment Joe Abercrombie. Now I haven't read his first trilogy but most of his books are set in the same world like "Best served Cold" and "The Heroes". I absolutely adore his writing which is mostly gritty and rather bleak but his characters are all well thought through. And if you want something a little bit less dark he also wrote a YA trilogy set in a different world. It's called "The Shattered Sea" and is probably my favorite writing of his.

[WildeBookGarden]

I've never read Oliver Twist but I loved hearing you describe the female characters and it's definitely piqued my interest. I agree well-developed female characters don't have to be revolutionaries to be important!
I just finished Daniel Jose Older's Dactyl Hill Squad, and I think Magdayls was written really well!
I've heard that the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson doesn't have great female characterization, but I haven't picked it up yet. What I *have* read from him has had really good women! Especially Vivenna in Warbreaker. She's not the typical "spunky rule-breaker" archetype--not that there's anything wrong with that, but as you said it's nice to have female characters who don't always rebel in obvious ways.
Great video, Claudia!

[MrDeWorde]

Granny Weatherwax is my favorite character in all of fiction

[lucyrutherford]

EM Forster is incredible at writing people and particularly women I think, I love how every one of his characters is changeable and flawed. With Dickens I always felt he didn't work out how to write real female characters until his last book Our Mutual Friend, which is my favourite of his. But I totally agree about Nancy, I obviously need to read Oliver Twist again as I don't even remember the character of Rose! I've only read one Thomas Hardy so I don't know about the rest of his books but Bathsheba from Far From the Madding was amazingly written. Although I haven't got along with all of his books I think Ian McEwan writes great female characters, Richard Yates with Revolutionary Road and Evelyn Waugh with Brideshead Revisited are a couple of others that come to mind as well.

[sunshinesilverarrow]

Great topic, good video. Thank you. Hugs & sunshine 🌞 N

[Whitestripe]

I hope it's not too weird to leave a comment on a 5yr old video, but I've only recently discovered your channel and this is a great topic for a video. I enjoyed listening to your selections - a very nice mix.

When it comes to female authors writing male characters well, I can think of loads of examples just from what I've read this year - books by Tana French, Daphne du Maurier, Jane Harper, Danya Kukafka and Louise Doughty. But it does require a lot more thought to think of men writing women well. But after a little thought I've three names for you - and I've read all of these authors in the last twelve months.

Will Dean. He's a mystery/thriller writer - not the sort of books you generally talk about from what I've seen of your channel so far, but I like him a great deal. All of his books thus far have featured a female protagonist, and his main series is the Tuva Moodyson series - she's a reporter on a local newspaper in Sweden. I think the first book is called Dark Pines. I think he writes her very well. She's deaf, and I think he takes a lot of care to portray this as carefully and respectfully and accurately as he can. And Tuva feels like a well-rounded and compelling character overall. He writes crime stories than can go to dark places, but there's warmth and empathy in his writing. My favourite of his is The Last Thing to Burn - a standalone novel, again with a fantastic female protagonist, a woman being held captive by her abusive husband. It's an extremely taut and tense book.

Michel Faber. I reread a novella of his last year - The Hundred-and-Ninety-Nine Steps - and I loved it. It's very subtle, but also mysterious, and the protagonist - an archaeologist called Sian - feels to me to be a fabulously written character, with lots of subtle layers. One of his best known novels is The Crimson Petal and the White - it has a huge cast of characters, but I consider 19-year-old Sugar to be its protagonist. It's years since I read it, but it was one of my favourites - I plan on reading it again soon to see how it holds up. You may well have heard of this book - it's set in Victorian London, and Sugar is a young prostitute who wants to escape the life she's been forced into - it might sound a bit cliched but in practice Faber turns this story into something vibrant and colourful, and Sugar feels to me like a unique, formidable character.

And just one more - at the end of last year I read Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane - an explosively brilliant crime thriller. It has a more masculine feel to it than the other books I've mentioned. It's set in Boston 1974 and the protagonist is an Irish-American woman called Mary Pat Fennessey - and oh my word, what a character. The whole book is brilliant and I particularly like how Lehane doesn't seek to idealise Mary Pat - she's a phenomenal character, and he writes her warts-and-all; we sympathise with her, we're rooting for her, but he doesn't shy away from writing the unpleasant parts of her personality. I loved this book, thought it was phenomenally powerful.

Sorry this is long and sloppily written! I enjoyed the video and I enjoyed trying to think of well-written female characters by male authors - it's not easy! I'm relatively new to your channel and I look forward to checking out more of your videos.

[tortoisedreams]

Women as ... human beings? What a concept! That's crazy! Only read the Ishiguro & I agree, people, each with their own motivations. I keep thinking of examples, & then I realize the author is a woman. I'll work on it. Two questions: any thoughts about the Bechdel test? Have you thought about doing the "international booktuber tag"? Really enjoyed this video & found some new books to look for ... nary a ripple in sight.