Ladies in Literature: Give Female Artists a Chance

In four years of high school, I read only one book by a female author. It was The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, a gripping and surprisingly relevant novel that I find myself re-reading when I have the chance. The Handmaid’s Tale has stayed with me to this day and so has a realization: Books written by women don’t get read or taught as often. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed a majority of the books I was assigned in high school, but I wish that women were included in that long list I would receive at the beginning of every year.Since coming to college, I have been exposed to a lot more writing, a lot which does include women. In my opinion, Female authors can write just as well as a male author can. Shouldn’t we listen to what they have to say?

We all know the most famous women writers: Jane Austen, Emily Dickinson, Mary Shelley, and many more. But beyond the ones who are most popular, many of us draw blanks. Many work written by women have the potential to be glossed over and never truly focused on. Many women had to use male pseudonyms, they knew that people would not pick up their book if they knew who had actually written it. I think that this relates to the idea that people do not want women to tell them what to do. If they read a book and the author is male, that is fine because there is no problem learning a lesson from a man. But when work gets published it gives the author a sense of control, they know more about their topic than the average person. Many times, when women fight to gain a sense of power, people do not want her to have it. Women were, and in some sense still are supposed to remain subordinate to men. Writing and having that work published for others to read creates a sense of power for women, they receive recognition and people listen to what they are saying. If that power is ignored and we never read their work, it shows that their writing doesn’t matter as much and that they did not contribute to literary history, even though they do.

If we don’t read books written by women, we are in a way tuning out the female voice. It doesn’t matter what they have said or what they are going to say, we won’t read it. I believe that in doing so, readers will miss an important part of literature: the female perspective. One aspect of reading is to enjoy, but another is to learn. If we only read things from one perspective what are we learning? In a sense, we are reading the same story over and over, only learning what we didn’t uncover the last time. If we take a chance and read something that a women writes, we are opening a door. It is not only a door for female writers, it is a door for ourselves. It gives us the opportunity to find out something new; we can see things in an entirely different way. I believe that female writers have a lot to teach us and possess a unique viewpoint that we could never grasp if we only read things men write. We could all benefit by diversifying the things we read and if you are reading this, I challenge you to try.