Why don’t you write F/M content? I’m genuinely curious
I think I got similar asks in the past, and now I couldn't find them, so I will answer this again. :D
I have actually written a few f/m stories; both had very specific (and fucked up) contexts. I shipped one of them, and the other I didn't. But only one of them still exists on AO3; the Tumblr ones were on a previous account, and it's gone.
I have only ever interacted with m-m shippers, so I am a little shocked and surprised to see f-m and y/n content in this fandom. Is it demography specific ? IDK !! So this question is also surprising for me.
I write based on what inspires me rather than choosing specific boxes. At one point, I had tried to analyze why so many people (including women who are queer) lean towards m/m content. One of the major reasons is the way popular entertainment portrays women. Often, women are unidimensional, underwritten, and they aren't allowed to be complex enough or grey enough. Imagine the kind of things an average male character gets away with, with women often serving the role of being their foil and enablers. Just take the example of Hamza! Hamza got away with an enormous amount of dark antics because he's a man and on a mission! If Jameel Jamali were a woman, there would have been more discussions on how bad a mother she was rather than her being a darkly comic character.
Even appearance, a woman isn't allowed to be anything other than overdressed and neat even in dark gritty stories. Popular entertainment doesn't even allow portrayal of a realistic woman :D Hey she exists for decoration. In a discussion like this, in tumblr, I was told that women do not look good if they are presented as rough and tough or disheveled (??)
Next—the Bechdel test. It's a check to see if two named female characters interact with each other, where the subject should be something other than a specific man or men. There are more tests, but basically they aim to see if a female protagonist or antagonist has an authentic, independent story driven by her own distinct desires and goals. And often, it fails.
The other point is power imbalance. Several different situations can be played out between male characters with different power imbalance implications than an f/m pair.
Then, I am queer and writing about queer desire feels liberating to me, there's so much beating around the bush and restrictions in popular media on the topic.
I, however, always try to write female characters in a way that gives them more agency and makes them more fleshed out than in canon. I tried that with Ulfat here, ( here I explored her grief, her intuitions, her limitations and worldview based on her upbringing) and even a little with Yaline, and in future wish to give both her and Yalina more active and significant roles in my stories (but not f-m pairing as such), and I already have those ideas in my mind!
