Andreas Johansson wrote:
>Roger Mills wrote:
>>My questions exactly. As Yoon Ha herself knows, we tend to assume
everyone
>>is male until proven otherwise ;-)
Sorry for the lack of clarity. I had in mind our assumptions about
contributors to Conlang who have, or adopt, names not immediately
recognizable as to gender. (And as Sally Caves pointed out in her article,
conlanging is _by and large_ a male pursuit.) In the world of authors,
consider Pramoedya Ananta Tur, or Evelyn Waugh (and several of my 18th C
male ancestors were named Beverly).
>Do we? I can recall several occasions of me believing an author to be
female
>for half a book or more, and only then discover he was actually male, but I
>can't seem to remember any example of the opposite thing. This only seems
to
>work for authors tho' - there's been more than one I-novel whose feminine
>narrator I've thought to be male for the first few pages, but can't think
of
>any example of the other way around.
>
>Since I'm told that a clear majority of authors are male, and I know for a
>fact that most author's I've read are male, it can't well be down to us
>seeing certain roles or professions being primarily associated with one
>gender (eg we'll all assume, say, a soldier to be male, even tho' the term
>as such is gender-neutral).
You are quite right; I couldn't agree more. It's a very good writer who can
successfully adopt the voice of the opposite sex.