Women Writing For Men

by Zoë Pollock

This part of Katie Roiphe's interview with Janet Malcolm intrigues me the most. Malcolm explains her early writing style, borne from the "brutal frankness" of a harsh fiction professor:

I came to feminism late. Women who came of age at the time that I did developed aggressive ways to attract the notice of the superior males. The habit of attention getting stays with you. … Showing off to straight men remained a delight and necessity to women of my generation. Those of us who wrote, wrote for men and showed off to them. Our writing had a certain note. I’m not sure I can describe it, but I can hear it.

Malcolm settles on "aggression coupled with flirtation" and then quickly shuts down the discussion. I wonder how younger female journalists would characterize their own work – do we still write for men, and/or have we dropped the aggression? I'm reminded of Edith Zimmerman's profile of Chris Evans for GQ, contrasted with something like Maud Newton's critique of David Foster Wallace. Do we use flirtation and aggression in equal measure, depending on the subject and audience?