This way, she seemed to be saying, you come up with a believable woman rather than a man's fantasy of a woman. Psychologically, this is sound writing advice. His thoughts, feelings, and actions will have whatever empathic substance she possesses. If 90 years of psychotherapy has taught us anything, it has taught us to pay close attention to individuals regardless of their gender. Psychotherapists treat individuals, not disorders and dysfunctions.
Individuals have original ways of being a woman or being a man.
Character reaches deeper than gender. From birth to death we construct character, we earn it, lose it, rediscover it, and we are driven by it. Character is that elusive but unmistakable quality that therapists, novelists, screenwriters, and filmmakers pursue. Significant gender differences exist primarily because we've chosen to emphasize, enforce, and exploit them. Women are more likely to be primary caretakers of children, for example, or to pursue relationships, or to be paid less than men for the same work.