Writing Men vs. Writing Women

You seem to be adamant that anything pretty cannot have any utility.

No, that's not what I'm trying to say. What I'm saying is that whether or not something is pretty is the result of someone looking at it and thinking it's pretty. If there's no one to look at it and think how pretty it is, then it can't be pretty.

You've looked at everything you own at least once, right?

Yes, but even if I've seen myself in the mirror or on video and know how I look, after looking away from the mirror/screen, my brain is no longer directly processing how I look and is instead relying on my memory of how I looked. And a memory is nothing but a daydream that happens to be based in reality, so as long as I'm daydreaming I might as well daydream I look however I want to look.

Again, I perfectly understand if someone adjusts their appearance so they can admire how they look in the mirror. And I can understand adjusting their appearance if they want to create a certain impression in whoever looks at them. It's adjusting their appearance even when no one's around to appreciate it that I don't get.

Well . . . I could understand if they like the process of adjusting their appearance even if no one's gonna see the final product, like how someone can enjoy cooking even if they don't taste the food. But that doesn't seem to be what people are talking about.

Maybe it's because you admire how you look once and removing all the stuff immediately after you do is impractical. Have you ever thought of that?

I don't see why you would write men any differently than you write women, unless your story is about society's different expectations of the two. Most differences you see in real life come from the fact that society has these expectations, and forces people into gender roles.

@ Raven Wilder: You are right, but I am not sure that you are on the same page as everyone else. People generally don't care about their appearance when they are alone, lounging around in their home. It's usually when they are going out someplace where other people will be is when they get gussied up. However, I think you might be confusing some things.

Somebody wearing something to make her feel good doesn't mean that she wears it even when she's alone. You are giving me the impression that you think the other tropers are saying that women wear designer clothes and shoes even when they are alone, and I don't think that's the case.

I was responding to the post "I think women also wear make up/high heels/fashion etc. for themselves. They like how it makes them feel. It's not for other people."

Most of the posts since then have largely been arguing semantics.

I know that's the post you were responding to. That's why I said what I did.

edited 15th Dec '13 5:36:53 PM by shiro_okami

Well when it comes to clothing, the farther away from your face it is, the more likely it is to be seen by the person wearing it. Shoes are more visible to the wearer than anyone else, actually.

Collen: Just because a story isn't about society doesn't mean it can't have society as the backdrop. Society molds people, of all types, and that's an important thing to keep in mind when writing them.

I guess what I'm getting at is that, if someone wears fashionable clothes to make themselves feel good, but they need other people to see them in those clothes to get that good feeling, then they're not really wearing those clothes just for themselves.

That's what you should have said to begin with.

edited 15th Dec '13 5:13:38 PM by shiro_okami

You put on a piece of clothing. You see yourself in the mirror and you look nice in it. It makes you happy momentarily. Now you go about your business, still wearing the clothing. Nobody sees you the rest of the day. Why is this such a horribly implausible turn of events?

Are you meaning that the entire purpose of the clothing is to look nice with the need to wear clothing as secondary, or meaning that someone just notices that they look nice when they get dressed?

People tend to wear clothing. Clothing looking nice is always secondary to wearing clothing period, otherwise we would be asking why, if nobody was going to see you, you would bother wearing clothes at all.

That's mostly true, but what I'm getting at is that throwing something on and thinking you look nice as an afterthought is a completely different scenario than a girl getting ready for prom night or a woman putting on her wedding gown. In those last two scenarios, saying that having nice-looking clothing is secondary to wearing clothing at all is at least partially false. What I'm saying, and what I think Raven Wilder is saying, is that a woman probably isn't likely to get dressed up to that extent and not go out anywhere. Unless maybe she was just playing "dress-up".

edited 15th Dec '13 5:34:59 PM by shiro_okami

And you keep adding qualifiers. A wedding gown or a prom dress is not normal wear, but nor is a tuxedo. Do you know any women who lounge around in wedding or prom dresses? I would love to meet them.

I own a nice coat. I have gotten many complements on it and it looks nice on me. I however also wear it when I take the dog out to shit at midnight when no one is going to see me because it is good at its primary function-keeping me warm.

That was the point I was trying to make. Or rather perhaps I should ask: how far do you think a woman would go to make herself look nice when she's staying home on not going anywhere special in contrast with if she was going somewhere special?

You said I "keep adding qualifiers", but remember, this discussion started with regards to designer clothes and shoes, not normal clothes.

edited 15th Dec '13 5:46:30 PM by shiro_okami

Designer clothes and shoes tend to be of higher quality make and material than non-designer clothes and shoes. Not all designer clothing and shoes are horribly impractical. That should be reason enough to wear them as normal items of clothing if you can afford them.

People who are not "in" on the whole designer thing do not notice lots of designer clothing because they look like normal clothing. The nice coat I have is designer clothing. It's not flashy and I still wear it to walk the dog at midnight.

edited 15th Dec '13 5:56:43 PM by ohsointocats

Raven: Okay, here's where I think you're mistaken. (I think I can say this without giving anything away.) It isn't necessarily a matter of being fashionable. That assumes your conclusion, since fashion essentially is "what everyone wants to wear right now". It is about presenting yourself in such a way that you think looks good, as a form of your own self-expression and giving others a desired impression. That impression doesn't have to be respect; it doesn't even have to be anything in particular so long as you know what other people see first when they see you, and that you like what they see.

And this is itself a form of comfort, separate from whether or not what you are wearing is physically comfortable, and which does not depend on whether anyone, including yourself, is actually looking at you.

edited 15th Dec '13 6:43:37 PM by Noaqiyeum

Did not know that. When I hear "designer clothes and shoes", I think of the horribly impractical outfits actresses wear to awards shows.

Those clothes are designer as well. Designers will make excessively fancy things for award shows because it gains them publicity and do fashion shows and whatnot for publicity and for the art. Mass produced designer items may be fancier than normal items and have more detail, but are generally not very outlandish. Look in a Nordstrom sometime. It's the same with makeup- the adverts look nothing like what people actually buy or do with their face.

People think the designer thing is crazy and stupid because of othering but it's really like anything else people get into— once you understand something there are shades of quality you can see that people who don't understand can't. And like anything else, the culture of fashion has its own weird quirks, but are highly visible because fashion is a visible industry and has been around for a long time.

edited 15th Dec '13 6:41:55 PM by ohsointocats

Okay, but that's all still based around the idea that there are other people seeing you and having an emotional reaction to how you look. That's not quite the same as dressing nice just for yourself.

It isn't "based on" that, exactly, that's only what seemed to me to be the most convenient way to explain it. No one actually has to see you for you to feel comfortable in your appearance.