New Delhi: Women cannot be compartmentalised as just a bitch, babe or brain, avers feminist publisher-writer Urvashi Butalia.
"A bitch can be brainy and a babe can be a bitch," feels Butalia even as British author Tim Parks sees the modern women redefining her slot in the sexual hierarchy.
Both were putting forth their views at a panel discussion on 'Bitch Or Babe, Never Brains - characterization of women in contemporary literature' hosted by the British Council and publishing firm Random House India on Thursday evening.
"The self-conscious differentiation between men's and women's writing has changed as the latter has moved well into the mainstream," said Butalia, the publisher of Zubaan Books and author of The Other Side Of Silence: Voices From The Partition Of India.
"Today writers do not want to be called male or female writers, though sexuality and satire are still taboo or difficult areas, respectively, for women to penetrate," she added.
An author of 11 books, Parks said, "Men describe women according to their appetite and women attack this crude approach."
"Between a man and a woman, there remains a difference after emancipation. In the passage towards modernism, the hierarchical role of a woman is being redefined," Parks added.
On whether an identifiable writing style existed for the fairer sex, the Manchester-born Parks said: "When a book is written in first person, the author is presumed to be a woman. When I wrote a novel in the first person, a publisher accepted it thinking I was a woman."
"In one of my books I have explored fatherhood and incestuous attraction, which I think is a huge issue. There is this father who lost his daughter when she was 18 and she is frozen in time for him. He can't help compare the memory of her to his current girlfriends," he added.
Literary critic Nilanjana Roy, who runs the popular blog Kitabkhana, said: "There is what my grandmother used to call 'memsahib writing' - a woman imagining herself in less privileged circumstances. It is not always possible for the writer to cover the distance between himself and his subject.
"Even in chick lit, which is usually about being man-less and overweight, something is happening under the matrix. It is motherhood that's getting to be a rare area."
On the Orange Prize, a UK-based annual award for women writers, Roy said: "I wasn't too sure how I felt about the prize when it was announced 10 years ago. But the ambivalence about a person's eligibility for a prize because of her chromosomes has now gone somewhat.
"Look at the Booker shortlist and the Orange shortlist. The former has one token woman while the latter takes in a vast array of subjects from motherhood to lesbianism."
"Anyway, literary prizes are unfortunate and boring, with the Nobel being the silliest of them all. Prizes should be better managed. It is terrible that a book has to win some prize to make money," added Parks.
"The Booker is ridiculous and people wipe it out of their minds once it is announced," said Parks who was short-listed for his "Europa" along with Arundhati Roy for the prestigious prize in 1997. Arundhati Roy won it for her The God of Small Things."
However, asked if he'd ever refuse a prize, Parks quipped: "If they give me a prize with money in it, I will take it."
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