Journaling - men vs. women

Can Women write Creative Nonfiction better than Men?

(a response to another student's dissection of an article...)

In your writing about “The Landscape of Creative Nonfiction” by Jocelyn Bartkevicius you said that the writer is recording emotion when they write CNF.

That is such a great point! Emotion DOES happen and is part of human interaction. I'm so glad you said this. It explains a lot about CNF and puts it down perfectly.

I wonder if female writers do a better job of recording emotion (nature vs. nurture...) or if some male writers can learn this. The literature about this I'm reading lately suggests that maybe men and women are more alike than scientists and researchers first thought. I don't know. Women DO tend to dissect things like events more thoroughly - and men tend to just "go on" and make a decision to forget about a painful incident after a short period of reflection about some things.

I know I've been told to "let it go" when I try to go to an event again and again, looping it through my memory too many times to see if there was something I may have missed, trying to understand what happened. I sometimes go too far in that direction. Looking at something upsetting too many times can be bad for your emotional health. When I was laid off from my longtime job (ahead of others who were hired later!) I couldn't stop thinking about it for a long time. I played days, events, conversations, over and over in my mind. I tried to figure it out.

I should have written my thoughts down!

I know I read something lately about writing things down - it's healthy for people, it helps them emotionally get through upsetting events.

This article tells about the health benefits of journalling (which I think extends to all CNF). I'll bet WRITING of all kinds is healthy.

http://www.selfhelpmagazine.com/articles/health/journal.html

I think a spiritual journal would be a good idea too.

My gut tells me that both men and women can access their emotional side.

There have been great male writers who can describe their angst, their fears, their joys in great detail. These are the writers who can't "let it go".

Maybe that's part of being a "real" writer - we NEVER let it go, but writing about it helps.