"Her breasts entered the room before her far less interesting face"

The unnamed writer who recently confidently proclaimed that he was "living proof that it's possible for a male author to write an authentic female protagonist" really was setting himself up for a fall, wasn't he? Fellow author Gwen Katz found evidence to the contrary on the very first page of his novel, and the responses from women writers to Whitney Reynolds' subsequent challenge "Describe yourself like a male author would" made for hilarious reading.

As the Guardian's Alison Flood suggests, it's not impossible for male writers to write well about women - but there are numerous examples of it done badly.