flying car appreciation zone

the thing about art is that sometimes you'll be moved to tears by stuff that is not very good

and my take today is that framing misogynistic writing as an "inability to write female characters" subconsciously takes away most of the blame, implying that women are an alien creature compared to men and that it is no fault of the writer because it's out of their skill set. it's not an inability, not a lack of expertise, it's the simple refusal to consider women as individual people and give them the same depth and grace that comes easily to the writer when they write male characters. it's not that christopher nolan, stephen king, james cameron (and frankly anyone using the argument, both professional and hobbyist; yes, that includes fanfic writers) etc can't write women, it's that they just won't. at that point in time it is a conscious decision driven by the laziness to unpack their misogynistic biases, and should be addressed as such