Why do men have issues writing female characters?

I am a guy. I'm just going to say that right now, in case it weren't obvious. And, because I'm a guy, I think I have issues writing convincing female characters. I'm not saying that this problem is unique to me, I think a lot of male authors have the same issue, especially screenwriters. Articles I've read recently complain about "strong female characters" and I personally don't like that label. Characters shouldn't be able to fall into a simple one word description. Even labeling them "male" or "female" is kind of stupid. I'm not saying all characters should be asexual, but I think gender should be incidental, not a defining characteristic.

If you seem to be struggling with writing female (or male for lady writers) characters, the best thing I can recommend is to forget gender altogether. You shouldn't be defining your characters by what's in their pants, unless you're writing sex stories.

Let me give a for instance. My current novel project involves a thief who gets into some kind of trouble and is helped out by a bar-owning friend who also happens to wield magic. Now, look at that sentence and judge the genders of those two characters. Judging by just that sentence, bearing in mind cultural bias, one would assume that both are male, with a token female supporting character somewhere in the story, right?

That's a perfectly acceptable assumption, right? One doesn't typically think of lady thieves or even lady business owners, no matter how often we see such in reality. In truth, the thief is indeed a male while the bar owner is a woman. Surprising? No, not really, when you think of how many TV shows or screenplays or whatever have been altered to include female mains. In truth, I never gave much consideration as to Rose's gender; while I was writing, the name Rose came out and I rolled with it.

But, here recently, I've been toying with the idea of completely reversing the roles, making Rose my main, the thief, and Orion the barkeep. Would that make any difference at all? No, I don't really think it would. It would take minimal rewriting to alter the story in such an earth-shattering way, because I don't write Rose as a woman, not completely. I write her as a person first, and as a woman second. She has all the strengths and weaknesses, in fact probably more strengths that Orion, my main. Quite frankly, there are times I find her a more compelling character than the thief.

So what's my point? When asked how he manages to write such convincing female characters, George RR Martin replied "You know, I've always considered women to be people." Ultimately, that's the secret that writers, and especially screenwriters, need to realize: women are people. The best way to write convincing women is to write them as people, rather than women. And, on that note, write men as people too, not the testosterone fueled Duke Nukem type men. Not all guys feel the need to solve problems by punching them in the face. Speaking, or writing, as one of the nerdy, social butterfly types, I can say it's not only women being misrepresented in media, it's just worse with women.