Male Journey vs Female Journey

I have a different question all-together. Why is one being called the male, the other the female journey? Is it because of convention sake? Tradition? Basically not thinking outside the box and following something that some people have been established and being used to? I assume it is being called the respective gender because it's simply the guide-line how fictions more often than not makes their female/male cast follow?

While I am at it I also want to express my own opinion to such 'guides' in general: I'm not saying such advice is wrong but for something that is supposed to allow you a kind-of 'freedom' in whatever you do this is just... I don't like it. Of course there are differences between being a unbelievable self-inserting edge-lord and making a believable character but that's what is being called 'common sense'. Following such a guide isn't wrong but I think it also stops people from growing. I think it is fair to make a comparison to science. If everybody just follows 'what has already been established and proven itself' we wouldn't be where we are today.

All that said, I also want to put out I am not saying this because I particularity care about the naming conventions at all, I couldn't care less about that SJW crap (And I understand that these aren't supposed to say a male character is only supposed to go on a male journey). I'm just curious how it got to these naming conventions (though I maybe already answered that myself).
 
The concept of the Male Journey is normally called the Hero's Journey and is often attributed to Joseph Campbell's writings from the 1940's, but was actually being studied and talked about as early as the late 19th century. It is based upon traditional structure of myths, legends, and religious scriptures as regards male protagonists.

The Female or Heroine's Journey is something that people have only more recently started talking about. I believe Asmo based this on a work by Frankel that came out the year before this guide did (2010). Likewise, it is based on study of traditional literature, myths, and etc. focused on female leads.

These are concepts that are taught and discussed at a university level. They're not meant to be a hard guideline, so much as something that links common narratives and highlights aspects of these stories that appeal to humans on a core level. Rules are made to be broken, of course, but it's good to understand them before you break 'em.
 
Rules are made to be broken, of course, but it's good to understand them before you break 'em.

That's a pretty important point, I'd say. Stuff like Joseph Campbell's monomyth, Jung's archetypes applied to fiction or the guide Asmo chucked up aren't meant to be hard rules, but useful tools to help understand how narratives and stories are built. By getting a grasp of the conventions, you gain a better understanding of how to play with them/use them/subvert them in order to create a more engaging story. Entire stories have been written that have set out to subvert (and even critique) these sorts of story structure/narratological arguments: Dune is a good example, which aimed to poke some holes in Campbell's ideas about the Hero.

Or to put it another way, if you wanna break shit awesomely make sure you know how it works first.
 
Hey, remember when I read this six years ago and thought it was bullshit but didn't say anything much, and then made a female character for your Campbellesque roleplay and kicked your dick off by doing NEITHER of these fucking journeys because I was really into Mamet at the time?

Good times.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Astaroth
Hey, remember when I read this six years ago and thought it was bullshit but didn't say anything much, and then made a female character for your Campbellesque roleplay and kicked your dick off by doing NEITHER of these fucking journeys because I was really into Mamet at the time?

Good times.

Ye and then you fuckin married him

DON'T DO THIS, KIDS, OR YOU'LL WIND UP MARRYING ASMO.

A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Astaroth
In hindsight, I shouldn't have kicked his dick off before marrying him


We do a lot of puzzles at the weekend
 
Ye and then you fuckin married him.
One might almost say... I got my..... elixir.

*chortles while stroking his prosthetic*


Also, yeah... the best part of my writing career was when Tegan proved the above wrong.
 
Tegan just went on the Female Journey, right there.
 
Fuck are you talking about? I always knew my shit was hot.

My ultimate Journey was the time I made that giant Hot Pocket. My opus.
 
But now I have proven your greatness to the world. Male Journey! BAM!
 
The important thing is that I crushed something.
 
Just look at you fucking go.

*Jangles keys and makes cooing noises at Asmo's penis*
 
*glares from the kitchen as Tegan makes cooing noises at a shoebox in the other room* >:[
 
You guys just shitposted your accounts back into active status. Utterly disgusting.
 
I wanted to say that this is really useful and helpful to me. I dont really care about what term is used to describe it and the nitpicking in this thread is just annoying.

Thanks for this, I'll prolly copy this into a notepad for myself.
 
I came to the Self Help section to try and get the gumption back up to start writing, well, anything. What I found by coming here was more than I could have expected, I'd like to hear more about his "giant Hot Pocket".
 
This is very interesting; I can definitely think up of a handful of childhood/ mythological stories that are patterned like the masculine and feminine journey. I agree with a comment here that says it still would heavily depend on the culture and environment that a character grows up in. After receiving an excellent paper from this great website , I'm exploring mythic structures again so this is a cool thing to read. Thanks for sharing!