Seeing past the limits of majority status

Over the past few years, a number of linkages have appeared to which connect New England and Nigeria in the network of Pen & Anvil collaborators. This relationship is the product of several factors, not the least of which is the 2016 publication of a portfolio of ten African writers in Clarion magazine. (A tip of the hat here to editors Samantha Arnold and Emma Forbes for that work.) And the links in that network are growing all the time as we continue to share news of publication opportunities and new magazine issues and book launches, and engage in the chatter of social media.

This background suffices to explain how it is we came to turn our attention to a Facebook conversation between young Nigerian authors. The conversation is paradigmatic of similar questions and answers being exchanged in literary spaces all over the map, as awareness of structural inequalities in the arts (as in all domains) creeps a little higher in the hierarchy of social concerns.

The original post was authored by a young writer who expressed frustration with the "hypocrisy and double standard" applied to the depiction of cross-gender characters. He writes:

In many writing groups, male writers continually ask fellow writers to "teach" them how to write female characters without annoying them or offending them. And I always think: No one has ever asked males to teach them how to write MALE characters without offending us! It appears to me that it is okay to portray "this gender that betrayed Jesus" any way we want, but an innocent description of a woman's breasts is objectification.

Anyone who has been in a mixed-gender workshop environment has likely heard expressions of this sort of frustration. There certainly are differences in how the act of depicting a gendered character in fiction is evaluated depending on the gender identity of the author. Is there any way to account for these differences, without coming to the pat conclusion that an unjust double standard exists?

Into the conversation comes Chukwuebuka Ibeh. Based in Port Harcourt, the capital city of Rivers State, Chuk is a long-time Pen & Anvil contributor, with bylines in Clarion, Charles River Journbal, NERObooks, and Ampersand. His reply to the question above was so cogent that we asked his permission to reproduce here in full. He writes:

Generally, when writing about (or from the perspective of) a minority, as someone who's not part of that minority group, it is reasonable enough that you get insights from actual members of the group. This is because your own privilege as a member of the majority could blind you to the realities of the group you're writing about, and you end up feeding into a stereotypical, drawn-from-the-closet, cliche narrative in your portrayal.

Now, specifically, when cismen write about women, there's often a tendency to present idealistic portrayals that most actual women are unable to relate to. You're a writer yourself so you should know what a cringeworthy storytelling is. (Straight) male writers almost always fail when describing women, as they are so fixated on the physical appearance (which is often inaccurately described) and fail to take into cognisance the complex emotional makeup of the character. They come to the script with basic, internalized ideas of what a woman "should be": soft, tender, curved, malleable, nice breast, shapely hips etc etc.

It's NOT exactly the same thing as a woman writing a man. There's a visibility of sorts that come with being the majority. You are basically the mainstream and so is your story. It's why queer people are more likely to write straight people better than vice versa, why black people are more likely to write white people better, etc etc.

This is a great answer! It doesn't punch up or down; it speaks across the table to a fellow writer, and invites that person to be a better writer (and a more compassionate human) by overcoming a natural inclination to prioritize one's experience of the world as most normal. The original poster agreed, writing as a reply: "Visibility, majority: these are the convincing words."

All well worth quoting and sharing. You can connect with Chuk on Twitter, where he posts as @ChukwuebukaIbe4.