Women Writers in the 21st Century Before

Women Writers in the 21st Century

Before the 20th century, literature was primarily a man's world. Although there were a handful of women authors who became famous, the majority of books were written by men. This all changed with the turning of the 20th century. Women used their voices to express ideas and to tell stories from all matter of genre, from books which dictated etiquette, books which discussed politics, romance stories, historical novels, and thrillers. Now when a person walks down an aisle at the local bookstore, it is likely that their eyes will rest on as many titles with female authors as males. Surely, women have made an enormous amount of progress in integration and ungendering the literary world. However, there are still progressions which can be made. Women writers of the 21st century such as Sara Desson, Nora Roberts, and Ellen Hopkins will help change the way that women writers are viewed in the future until an author will be judged by the value of the work and not have that value subjected to the gendering of the author.

Even in the modern period, women are at a decided disadvantage in writing nonfiction texts than their male counterparts. A text written by a woman is still not as readily believed or accepted as factious as a text that is written by a man. Women writers are more accepted in books of fiction or in nonfictional works which have more "feminine" subjects, i.e. motherhood, cooking, and other domestic pursuits (Hamilton 1901,-page vi). If this seems untrue, take a look at the bookstore aisle featuring cookbooks and examine how many female authors there are in comparison to the male authors. Then go to another part of the store, such as historical nonfiction and examine how many males there are in comparison to females. Although women have made strides in nearly every field of study from mathematics and history to science and medicine, they are still psychologically marginalized by the larger population in society. To this end, whenever a nonfiction text is written by a woman, that volume will be more questioned than if it were written by a man. Some women have become so disheartened by the ways that they are marginalized in masculine fields that they choose literature as a more socially acceptable pursuit. Women writers like Andrea Barrett gave up their chosen field, in her case science, because of the pressures of the male domination in the field and the potential success she could have in the world of fiction (Johnson 2004,-page 1). As a rule, more people will investigate the text and try to disprove it than if the text had a male author.

Women have had more success in writing fiction than in nonfiction texts. Some of the most successful writers of the twentieth and twenty first century are women. In particular Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling comes to mind. This is a remarkable feat but also serves to underline the truism about the placement of women writers in the present moment. It is easier for a female author to be successful if she chooses to write a work of fiction. Fantasy texts and other genre pieces are also usually more likely to be successful than a non-genre piece of literature. Women are psychologically considered to be the "weaker" sex, more controlled by their emotions and feelings than the male gender. Thus they are usually considered better writers when they work in genres which exploit these preconceptions of their gender.

Of the three women earlier addressed, each has achieved a level of success in writing despite the shortcoming of their gender and the innate marginalization of their sex. Sarah Dessen has achieved literary success writing honest coming of age stories and romances, such as Someone Like You and That Summer. Nora Roberts is one of the premier mystery writers of the modern age. She credits her stories with jobs she held as a young woman. Her works are based upon legal knowledge that she gained while working as a secretary. Roberts is one of the more prosaic and prolific authors currently working. The New York Times awarded Roberts the honor of "America's favorite novelist." It seems that she is able to publish a new book several times a year leading some to argue that the woman is more interested in quantity of text than the quality. Not the careful use of the word novelist rather than author or writer. By using this very specific noun, the newspaper is clearly defining Roberts as someone who works in fiction but does not award her the honor of calling her an author. Finally, Ellen Hopkins specializes in writing novels with protagonists who are usually mad or dealing with some sort of mental disorder. This is a popular topic for female writers. Perhaps publishers are more willing to publish books of women in this topic because it plays to an archaic masculine belief that women are overly emotional and more prone to disorders of the mind. This is an arguable point, but makes one question all the same.