"The only way to be truly misogynistic is to be a woman." - Randy K. Milholland

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Nick Hornby on why you are damned if you do, and damned if you don't:

"It took time before he gained the confidence to portray women, he says. In High Fidelity, for example, the female characters were adult in temperament and impatient with Rob, the owner of the failing record shop.

He likens his approach back then to how film director Judd Apatow portrays women in his comedies, including The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005) and Knocked Up (2007). The men in his movies are selfish, aimless and irresponsible, while the women tend to be noble, mature and self-sacrificing.

'Apatow is criticised because the men in his films are funny and the woman are not,' Hornby says. He explains that men like himself, who went to university in the 1970s and 1980s, are steeped in feminist ideology. This is the root of their reluctance to betray feminist ideals.

He says he outgrew the fear of being tarred with the male chauvinist brush because it was hampering his ability to write, and over time, he began to populate his novels with women who were as fallible as men."

(Life, The Straits Times [30th September 2009])