Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site topaz.RUTGERS.EDU Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!caip!topaz!FONER%MIT-OZ From: FONER%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers Subject: Feminist authors Message-ID: <4033@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> Date: Tue, 15-Oct-85 19:35:44 EDT Article-I.D.: topaz.4033 Posted: Tue Oct 15 19:35:44 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 17-Oct-85 20:22:03 EDT Sender: daemon@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 58 From: "Leonard N. Foner" If you're interested in this sort of thing, take a look at _How to Suppress Women's Writing_, by Joanna Russ. [Citation at end.] It's a very angry book. It'll probably make you angry to read it, too; it sure did for me. Russ writes SF and "mundane" fiction and essays, and teaches English and Literature at the college level. In this book, she details the tactics, sometimes accidental, sometimes deliberate, that have been used to cover up, belittle, miscategorize, and otherwise lose the contribution of half of the human race's literary output for the last few hundred years. I highly recommend it. It is extensively footnoted, with a good bibliography, and hence will give you many other jumping-off points in thinking about feminism and writing in general. Russ talks about SF only incidentally, since (at least in recent years) that particular field has been more receptive to female writers---at least a little. (One reason for this may be that people don't often teach courses about literary "classics" that includes anything from modern SF.) Her main points span just about every literary category, rather than being limited to SF. The cover to the book is what grabbed me initially, with a "buy this book" sort of reaction. It's got lots of writing in red on the front, with little black letters interspersed, in parentheses, and runs: "She didn't write it. (But if it's clear she did the deed...) She wrote it, but she shouldn't have. (It's political, sexual, masculine, feminist). She wrote it, but look what she wrote about. (The bedroom, the kitchen, her family. Other women!) She wrote it, but she wrote only one of it. ("_Jane Eyre_. Poor dear, that's all she ever...") She wrote it, but she isn't really an artist, and it isn't really art. (It's a thriller, a romance, a children's book. It's sci fi!) She wrote it, but she had help. (Robert Browning. Branwell Bronte. Her own "masculine side.") She wrote it, but she's an anomaly. (Woolf. With Leonard's help...) She wrote it, BUT... How to Suppress Women's Writing by Joanna Russ" Again, highly recommended, if you like angry, scholarly looks at writing and women. Citation: University of Texas Press, PO Box 7819, Austin, TX 78712, 1983, ISBN 0-292-72445-4 (-6 for the hardback), LibCong PN471.R87.