Women’s Writing


Semester V
Let’s begin with some questions!

i. What is women’s writing?
ii. Why do we need a separate branch for women’s
writing?
iii. You have read texts written by women in your
previous semesters like Kamala Das, then what is so
special about or even the requirement of a separate
category called “women’s writing”?
iv. Why don’t we have a corresponding branch of
study called men’s writing?
 Let’s answer from the last question!

 We have a great many male writers writing important texts
about our society from the very beginning of time. Some
of the important and famous Western canonical writers
could be William Shakespeare, John Milton, John Dryden,
Charles Dickens and so on and so forth.
 More questions!!

 But one important aspect of the history of literature of
any culture so to say is that of the absence of women
writers or women’s writing.
 But why is that? Why don’t we have women’s writing?
Where were they when their male counterparts were
composing consequential texts and becoming important
intellectuals of the day.
 Women in Society!

 Women were not educated! Women were not literate for a
substantial portion of history.
 They were considered intellectually inferior to their men
counterparts.
 They were not educated because religious and
mythological texts (as created and propagated by the
patriarchal society) taught that it is dangerous to allow
women to voice their opinion.
 Their proper sphere is the home and their appropriate duty
to take care of their family at the behest of their male family
members.
 The Process!

 This however, does not mean that women stopped
trying to articulate their positions and function in
society. Women continues to strive for improving
their position in society and in due course they
started reforming themselves, if not through formal
education, then by the means self-education.
 The change!!

 Mary Wollstonecraft Vindication of the Rights of
Woman ( 1798).