Has anyone ever critiqued your work and said "this screams of a male-written female character?" and it's true

So I'm a male writer, and I'm working on a female-centric story right now, so I've asked for crits from females. <br><br>I've had two now where I've been told that my character screams of being written by a male. What does that even mean? I've heard it before, but the reason that it screams is not explicitly stated. What does a male-written female character look like?<br><br>First crit said I should be more careful with the ways in which I am using female-coded mannerisms and traits, because I'm cherry-picking only the positive ones (smiling and laughing and shyness) and ignoring the negative ones. I've been cherry-picking certain traits that are the most endearing to male audiences, in other words. I should be more careful with that. <br><br>Second crit was completely opposite. The issue is that I've been too careful not to portray the negative traits, so I'm coming off as having the female character be overly kind, overly empathetic, overly compassionate, too selfless, too patient, too generous. The crit said that it would have the effect of making male audiences feel like they need to "deserve" a female partner. <br><br>These two crits have really made me realize just how much of a blind spot I have when it comes to the character, so I'm really trying to work through that. But for the most part, I've realized that I really don't know what it's like to be a woman. I don't know what it's like to have to go on a date and worry about rape, or to walk down the street and be harassed, or to be judged on your appearance, or to have to worry about pregnancy, or to be slut shamed, or to have to worry about your drinking, or to be excluded from certain circles, or to be condescended to by men, or to be stereotyped and shamed for being a feminist, or to have to go through childbirth, or to have to deal with divorce rape, or to be told to smile more, or any of the other million shitty things that women have to deal with. <br><br>I don't think I've actually ever really met a woman before. I don't think I've ever actually encountered a woman who wasn't entrenched in, or at least sympathetic to, patriarchal gender roles. I've always been shunned by the women who weren't sympathetic to patriarchal gender roles, and shunned by the women who were. What does it even mean to be a woman? What does it mean to be a feminist? I've read the lit, I know what the definitions are, but what does it actually mean? I've never seen it. <br><br>It makes me angry, because I feel like I've been robbed of being able to see what real femininity looks like. I've been robbed of being able to learn about real femininity from real women, because I've been shunned by that segment of the population and instead have only been surrounded by women who act like they have to be subservient to men. I've never been around a woman who was like "yeah I can be feminine, but I also don't want to be seen as inferior. I don't want my femininity to be defined by men." <br><br>Patriarchy has defined what it means to be a woman. Women are not feminine because they want to be, they are feminine because it is seen as pleasing to men. I would love to see what it looks like when a woman is feminine because *she* wants to be, not because men want her to be. What does it mean to be feminine when it's defined by *women*? I don't even know. The very notion of that seems so unfathomable to me. The very notion of *not* seeing things through a male lens seems so unfathomable to me. Just listing off the shitty things women have to deal with in the above paragraph was unfathomable, because there are so many. <br><br>I would love to see a woman be *actually* feminine. I've shunned the women who were patriarchally feminine. I've been shunned by the women who are *actually* feminine. I've never seen what it actually looks like to be feminine. I want to see what that looks like, but I don't actually know what that means.<br><br>I feel like I've been robbed of that experience. I've been robbed of being able to see what *actual* femininity looks like. I feel like I've been robbed of being able to write *actual* femininity.