A question of genitalia

-->

Disclosure. I am a man and I am not 25.

There is a tyranny of gender and age discrimination currently ruling in businesses and agencies and it has to do with creative talent. The top down thinking is thatonly 25 year olds can write for 25 year olds and only women can write for women. Management that is neither and has no insight or gut feeling usually dictates this for what is right or wrong and so depends on peer-to-peer creativity. Does the charge have merit? Is it impossible for an older man to write for a younger audience? Ask Mark Twain. Is it impossible for a man to write convincingly from a woman’s point of view?

Ask Roddy Doyle. Writing is either good or bad. The author’s job is to inhabit the mind of the characters and audience. Some of the thinking behind the tyranny has more to do with the politics of gender representation in agencies and the clients and I agree there are far too few women. I have worked for women creative directors and found them all unbiased in their reaction to my work. It was good or it wasn’t. That was their only judgment call. I have also worked for male creative directors whose insecurities about making a call on work targeted to an audience outside their understanding has caused them to fall back to the peer-to-peer trap. Do we expect gay writers to be unable to write straight? Or African American writers to write white? Crowdsourcing doesn’t ensure the best work. Talent sourcing does.