Writing with a vagina...sounds like a drunk party trick.

When someone says "Woman Writer" though, I often wonder what it means.

It would seem to imply that the vast majority of publishing authors are male. And that the rare female authors stand out because of their sex.

Perhaps at one time that would have been appropriate if one were to use the description to emphasize the rareness of authors who had vaginas.

Is that still the case? I have no idea. Is it a 50/50 split? Is it a 60/40 or 51/49, 97/3?

The one thing I am sure of is that no author would want to be recognized more for the sex of their body, than for their body of work.

Well, maybe some "feminist scholars" who make their entire living off of their sex based issues. But they still put names to their work. So who knows? Not I.

Chick funny is very different from funny funny. The former is more like AAA ball and the latter are the majors. (I believe I need to put the qualifier in that many women are major leaguers.)

"Is that still the case? I have no idea."

Excellent - just as it should be. People pick authors because of the way they write, not because of their gender. Discrimination is a complete non-issue; just as it would be in lots of other places if people would stop pulling the race/gender card whenever life doesn't go their way.

Amy's absolutely right on this one: saying "woman writer" is dumb.

... but if you could.

Write with your WHAT???

That would be an interesting thing to see. :-)

Amy, I think you're missing another income stream. Writing with your vagina would be a gold mine.

I heard someone tried that in a bar in Boystown before they figured out that donkey shows would draw a bigger crowd.

Fortunately, I'm ambidickstrous.

If you could, would you write a monologue?

Once Upon A Time I read a USENET post (remember USENET? Good times.) from some feminist that was going on about a poetry reading she had attended. The chief attraction of this reading was that all the poets were women. I replied and said that until you get to the point where the sex of the writer was so immaterial it need not be pointed out, sexual equality in this area would not be achieved, and that in fact events such as that actually worked against the feminist agenda.

Some argument ensued.

I guess I don't think about this issue very much. I read "Woman Writer" as a person who writes women... presumably characters. My second thought was people who write the word "woman" repeatedly (some rare form of OCD?).

Sometimes, I am glad my name can be used for both guys and gals, but not often.

When I was in school we went had a "conference" type event for girls only. It was all about "you can have a career" and such. Everything from nurses to physicists. I remember thinking, "duh" for almost every speech. I guess I really never thought my gender was important one way or the other - except for having kids.

Plus it's grammatically incorrect. It's female writer.

Which to me implies a writer who happens to be a woman as opposed to woman writer, which makes being a woman sound like the dominant characteristic.

Yeah, but you'd hate being called a man writer even more!

"Woman writer" is someone who writes to women. Or perhaps he writes about women.

You don't write with your vagina, but do you ever hold a pen between your breasts and write that way?

I always wonder what people are thinking when they say "professional woman".

Exactly! And the people who called you a man are in your book about rude people!

You are an awesome woman writer! Hear you roar, or purr if you prefer!

"I don't write with my vagina."

You're not fooling anyone, kid. ;=)

Thank you so much Amy for your first sentence. I haven't had the opportunity to pass coffee through my nose for some time.