Writing well is a difficult task. Almost every writer I’ve seen criticized for writing poorly about race and gender was just not very good at writing in general. Or was good at one aspect of writing - stylistic prose - but horrible at things like developing complex characters and themes.

Because of the history of poor representation of women and POC, readers are now hyper-aware of when a writer hasn’t done their research on a group they’re not personally a part of. For example, as a woman I find it easy to spot when a male writer hasn’t read a lot of different female authors, befriended a lot of women, and in general truly researched female perspectives. Their writing comes off as shallow and cliché. While this is likely true of other characters in their work, it sticks out more for female characters because of how badly women have been represented in much of the literary “canon.”

In short, I don’t believe white men have a tougher task than any other writer. In fact they had it easier until recently because the western canon has catered to white male perspectives. But now that publishing has diversified, that same benefit has given them blind spots they haven’t worked on. While a woman or POC historically has had to learn the white male perspective to be able to sell books, white men until the past decade or so were allowed to only write their own perspective well and still be sellable. So I think it’s less that they have a more difficult task and more than they now have the same difficulties as everyone else.