Workshop - Change The Gender

The meeting was led by Lorraine Forrest-Turner and focused on the issue of gender in writing. Did it make a difference whether a writer wrote from the male or female or non-binary standpoint or any other position?

Members had been asked to think about a piece of writing (book, story, film, play etc.) with a strong central character and to consider the effect of changing the gender of that character.

Various examples were discussed, including Sherlock Holmes, Poirot, Sanditon and Jane Austen novels. As the debate unravelled, it covered issues including whether it was possible to define what a gendered perspective actually was, indeed whether such a thing existed.

It was a lively evening though, perhaps predictably, the collective brains of those present did not manage to reach a definitive set of conclusions on the subject. As they say (or perhaps used to say) in the tabloids, this one will run and run.

A video of the workshop is available below.