Calling all women

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Bethberry

On the other hand, and not to disparage your experience (I wasn't aware you are a teacher, Lal, or had taught at any rate), the research and the writing I have seen does not suggest that female students write "idealised men/boys" with they write from a male POV (at least in North America). Far from it.

The keyword is that I was a teacher, and I'm not alone on the 'Downs... Bear in mind that I taught teenagers, so the creation of idealised male characters was perhaps not so surprising; girls develop an interest in the opposite sex much sooner and go through the 'idealising' stage much earlier. Though the Byronic figure can linger in the female imagination for many years!

Originally Posted by Lalaith

Single-sex female environments are always 'enclosed' - convents, schools, harems, prisons. When such environments are portrayed in film or literature, it is usually related to a male influence/intruder and the women's reaction to this.

I have a rather bizarre example of a female centred TV show, set in an enclosed environment which was almost entirely about the women's relationships with one another - the defunct Australian soap Prisoner Cell Block H ! I remember this achieved a high level of cult popularity when I was a student and the blokes all loved it, despite it being an unremittingly grim look at life in a women's prison (with no dolly birds )! It would begin with them laughing at a certain character with an unfortunate nickname and then they'd be hooked on it, presumably because they enjoyed the tales of the women's lives.