Another letter to Mslexia

Dear Mslexia,

I open my emails and I find an email from Mslexia. Hurray! Ooh maybe my writing has been accepted. Oh no. Not this time. Still it is nice to get a letter with the judges comments. Or is it?
Comment: the writing was about suicide, adultery, murder, desertion and divorce.
Me: Isn’t that not only sad and depressing but also a tragedy? But the first step in changing is recognising the truth and we have to keep telling it like it is until it changes. Do you want us to write the same old Fairy Stories  about Princesses and Frogs?
Comment: The majority of submissions were written from a woman’s point of view! (‘I don’t believe it!’ said Victor Meldrew.)
Comment: She (the judge) would have preferred to have read about a broader selection of protagonists including men and children. Why not try writing from a different point of view say a male.
Is this really from Mslexia? Better check the website. So I re-read the mission statement which informs me that ‘Mslexia was created to address a difficulty, more prevalent in women, with getting into print.’
And the article, ‘Three cures for Mslexia’ by editor Debbie Taylor which ends with: ‘There’s no time to waste whingeing. Stick with Mslexia and we’ll help you all we can.’
There’s no hope for me then. Here I am whingeing and guess what? I do not tend to write from the point of view of a woman. I am a woman. So I write from a woman’s perspective. Even if I pretend that I am a man I can only write from the point of view of a woman. I do not know what it is like to be a man. I do not want to try to pretend to be a man. Not yet anyway as I am still constructing my confident woman identity after years of timidity. I subscribe to Mslexia because of all the reasons stated in Debbie Taylor’s article and your mission statement but if your advice is for me to write from a male point of view or you would like submissions which do not reflect the truth of our lives then say so in your competition guidelines.
Yours very puzzled and not a little disappointed,
Freda Bateman
La Ville Joly,
22230 Mérillac
France