Olsen fills a page with the names of great women writers, all of whom remained childless. To write, you need not only engagement but what Graham Greene called the piece of ice in the heart. For women such as Virginia Woolf, this has been a disturbing gift. This can lead to empty virtuosity, but also to the acuity of Jim Crace, Niall Duthie or Tobias Wolff. Being able to objectify is not the same as being objective.
Men are suckers for the epic and have no trouble creating on a monumental scale.
They demand attention, take up more space and assume their world is of interest. Conviction comes easily, and so when they take risks, they are more likely to pull them off. John Cheever had the verve to sustain the high colour of The Wapshot Chronicles and the lyrical efflorescence of Falconer . Women might well resist taking flight, or find themselves up in the air and say no, I can't do this. Which is not to say that they always fall.