By Apurva Kandpal
Abstract
This article talks about the emergence of women writers in the history of literature while tracing the struggles and challenges they faced in an extremely male-dominated society. It highlights the societal barriers and the limited access to education women have had to deal with throughout history. The article examines the gradual rise of women as acclaimed writers and the dismantling of societal institutions.
Introduction
The history of literature has long been dominated by men and their works, while women’s voices were marginalized and suppressed. If we go back centuries, women were seldom given any form of recognition. The society they lived in was dominated and controlled by men, and so was theliterature. Women were confined to patriarchal roles of domesticity, where their only job was to take care of their husbands and children. Due to limited access to education, the majority of the women were unable to read and write. Many women who could write resorted to using pen names or pseudonyms to hide their gender in fear of their works getting rejected. Gradually in the 18th and 19th centuries, women writers emerged as well-known authors, and their contributions to literature started getting recognition around the world. They managed to challenge societal norms and expectations in the process of fighting for women’s rights.
Challenges Faced by Women Writers
Before the 18th century, there was very little evidence of any literary works by women, which speaks a lot about the oppression and the traditional hierarchal system that women faced. Society assigned them the roles of an ideal mother, wife, and daughter whose life was limited to the household. They were excluded from any form of political and economic participation in the society. But being closed inside four walls and the oppression they suffered added to the passion and symbolism that they managed to manifest in their works. In the presence of a male supremacist regime, the works of any women writers were blatantly ignored and hardly ever came close to publication.
In A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf described the oppressive lives women used to live back in their homes. She wrote that women have been sitting inside their rooms all their lives, and due to the time they spend by themselves, they have such creative ideas inside their heads that need to be harnessed by pens and brushes. Woolf, one of the most notable 20th-century authors, has written many pieces on feminism and has constantly advocated for women’s rights. Social class played a huge part in a woman’s life when it came to literature. Women of the lowest class found it exceedingly hard to invest time in literature, and in addition to that, a huge population of lower-class women were illiterate. High-class women were more well-learned and educated, but even among the upper class, a very small portion of those women were literate.
There were a lot of women who were forced to publish their work under male pseudonyms due to the prejudice society had towards women writers. It was extremely hard to get a book published if you were a femalewriter and even harder to find an audience who is unbiased to your work. Some great t novelists,such as the Bronte sisters, Emily, Charlotte, and Anne Bronte were among the many who published their works under male pseudonyms such as Ellis, Currer, and Acton. Mary Ann Evans, under the name George Elliot and Violet Paget under the name Vernon Lee are more examples of women who concealed their identity to get their work published.
Rise of Feminism in Literature
Literature has been one of the most artistic ways to express one’s thoughts and imagination in the form of language structure. A person’s insights, thoughts, and feelings are poured into the pieces they create. It is used as a space and medium through which issues concerning politics, economy, and sociology are expressed. As women started publishing works on equality and feminism, such ideas started spreading around the world. In a world where women were subjected to oppression and injustice, literature turned out to be a space where women could express their feelings and challenge the male dominance around them. For years, they continued their struggle to make their voices heard and their work to gain recognition. But it was not until the 19th century that the notion of feminism started gaining traction.
The first wave of feminism started in the 19th and early 20th centuries and was mainly focused on legal rights for women that included the right to vote, the right to work, the right to fair wages, the right to education, the right to property amongmany more. Gradually, the past works of women started gaining tractionaround the world of literature. The most significant works which talked about more representation of women authors were Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch (1970), Mary Ellman’s Thinking About Women (1968), Kite Millet’s Sexual Politics (1969) and various others. Simone de Beauvoir, a French writer, philosopher, and feminist activist is considered as one of the major female writers and feminists of the twentieth century. Her work, The Second Sex, is regarded as a groundbreaking work of feminist philosophy in which she brought forward the idea of gender being different from sex and gender being an aspect of an identity that is gradually acquired. Her quote “One is not born, but rather becomes a woman”, describes how gender is socially constructed by the values and culture of the society.
In the classic A Vindication of the Rights of Women, Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) argued for the equality of men and women: men and women, in her view, were born with the ability to reason, and therefore power and influence must be equally available to all, regardless of their gender. This was a unique and radical view in 1792, which was when the book was first published, and is considered one of the earliest works that talk about feminism. Another famous feminist and among the most remarkable writers of the 18th century, Jane Austen in her classic Pride and Prejudice talks about the social norms of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, where the society was ruled by men who held both economic and social power, not only outside but also inside their homes.
Virginia Woolf on Feminism
Adeline Virginia Woolf is among the most famous novelist of the Modern Age. Her essay “A Room of One’s Own” is one of the most prominent works of her time that deals with feminism and the patriarchal system. She traces the reasons why the works of women writers are so few in the world in comparison to men’s work. Woolf wrote about how the real reason for fewer works of women was not because they did not belong to wealthy families but because they were not given the freedom to write and explore their ideas. One quote that was one of the main highlights of her essay was how women must have money and a room of their own if they wish to write fiction. She described the role women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size.
Virginia Woolf, through her works, wrote about how women have been oppressed under the dominance of men for centuries and have rarely been recognized for their works. She wrote, “When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils, of a wise woman selling herbs, or even of a very remarkable man who had a mother, then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet, of some mute and inglorious Jane Austen, some Emily Brontë who dashed her brains out on the moor or mopped and mowed about the highways crazed with the torture that her gift had put her to”. Her work beautifully yet tragically described the inequality and societal roles assigned to men and women.
Conclusion
Besides Woolf, there are various other incredible feminist authors who wrote on the need for equality and raising the position of women in society as well. They published books that urged the need for recognition of women and their works in the field of literature. Authors like Anna Akhmatova, Louisa May Alcott, Charlotte Bronte, and various others were among the most accomplished women authors who wrote on feminism. Authors like Uma Chakravarty, Nivedita Menon, Arundhati Roy, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Anita Desai are among the most acclaimed feminist writers today in India. They have written books on issues that go deep into the issues of gender, caste, class, intersectionality, and sexuality. Today, women writers continue to make significant contributions to literature. Their work has gained wide recognition and has also been critically acclaimed. The history of women and literature is a journey that has crossed multiple barriers of gender, class, and caste in society. These authors now pave the way for future generations of women writers.
Author’s Bio
Apurva is a second-year law student at Jindal Global Law School. Her areas of interest are gender studies, intersectional feminism, queer theory, and criminal law.
Image Source: https://www.marieclaire.com.au/virginia-woolf-feminist-quotes-a-room-of-ones-own
NICKELED AND DIMED 