Of Gender and Differences

In an obituary in the L.A. Times noting the death of Elizabeth Hardwick, co-founder of the New York Review of Books as well as an accomplished author in her own regard, the article quoted Joan Didion (circa 1979) RE Ms. Hardwick:

"In certain ways the mysterious and somnambulistic 'difference' of being a woman has been, over thirty-five years, Elizabeth Hardwick's great subject," Didion wrote. She is drawn to "women adrift," who "indulge a fatal preference for men of bad character," Didion observed. "Perhaps no one has written more poignantly about the ways in which women compensate for their relative physiological inferiority."

The article did not mention, however, if Ms. Didion or Ms. Hardwick ever mentioned--any men writers of that thirty-five year period who wrote poignantly about the ways in which men compensate (perhaps fatally) for their relative emotional inferiority.