Even in elementary school, I had made the subconscious connection between certain subjects and gender; science and math were for boys, English was for girls. I can’t fully explain why I formed this connection – maybe it was because of the genders of my teachers, or just what came more naturally to me and my friends, or because of the TV and movies I watched. How this connection formed isn’t nearly as important as the fact that it exists and that this notion, no matter how subtle, permeates our culture.
High school girls have a tendency to perform better in class in all the core subjects (English, math, social science, and science) than their male counterparts. This is problematic in itself, but it provides an interesting comparison to ACT scores: boys test better in math and science, while girls test better in English and social science. Of course, this proves nothing regarding who is better at what (the gaps in ACT scores were approximately one point for each subject and tests are designed to appeal to different groups of people by subject matter), but it does conform to the societal notion that girls are naturally better at English, or reading and writing.
Why then, is the literary world so prejudiced against women?
One hundred eleven people have won the Nobel Prize in Literature; only 13 of that 111 are women. Of course this stretches back for over 100 years, and the world used to be much more sexist than it is today, right? Except for only 4 of the last 20 winners have been women and the prize isn’t based on a single book, but their collection of writings, so women who may have been previously cheated are still up for contention.
Alice Munro, 2013 Nobel Prize Winner
J.K. Rowling was told by her publicist to use her initials to hide her gender because he thought young boys wouldn’t want to read books by a woman. Whether or not that’s true, it’s hard to deny that popular fantasy is a genre dominated by men.
What can we learn from these examples? That writing, much like cooking, is something that’s for women…unless they’re getting paid for it.
Preach it, girl.
In both money and prestige, women authors are getting cheated. Books about male friendships and hardship are hailed as being classics while the feminine equivalents, with their pretty pastel covers and supposed “shallowness” are dismissed as “chick lit.”
Of course, women write about both: Zadie Smith’s critically acclaimed book White Teeth centers around very masculine relationships forged in wartime. J.K. Rowling wildly successful book series centers around a young boy. Women writing about men can become as successful as their male counterparts. But how many male authors become established by writing primarily about women? Not just a few female characters, but a book that is centered around the unique struggles of women?
This discrepancy in prestige is even more obvious in discussing classical literature. In my high school AP Literature class, most of the books we read were either by women or about women: Jane Eyre, Their Eyes Were Watching God, The Awakening, The Scarlet Letter, etc.
I had never had an English class that focused so much on women. Throughout the core English classes at my school, most of the books were by men and/or focused on male characters: Jay Gatsby, Holden Caulfield, the entire cast of Lord of the Flies, Beowulf, Huck Finn, etc. For whatever reason, my AP class was dominated by girls; we’re talking one boy in a ten person class. I remember my teacher continuously apologizing for all the “girl books,” his only sanctuaries from the apparently overwhelming traumatizing sense of femininity were The Stranger and our small group unit. I cannot imagine any of the other English teachers apologizing to the girls in their classes for subjecting them to so many books about men.
Even here at Notre Dame, the sexism that has infiltrated the world of literature is rampant. In our Program of Liberal Studies “Great Book Seminars,” students are supposed to cover the best books across a variety of subjects in Western culture. Over six courses, over 80 books are read and discussed; about 5 of them are written by women, and another 5 or so are written by people of color.
Books by women, about women are often dismissed as “chick lit.” In spite of reading the same supposedly “experimental” works about the same 20-something year old white guy (who’s clearly a stand-in for the author) as he navigates a tumultuous love life with women out of his league and searches for meaning in his empty life, apparently a unique book about the familial bonds between a mother and her daughters, or the exact same book starring a 20-something year old woman is just too tediously boring for men to handle.
“Chick lit” is trivial, or frivolous, or cliche, or shallow. Of course, this is true for some books about women. Just as it’s true about some books about men. But to completely disregard books about women as a “niche market” (yes, because 50% of the population and 80% of the buyers in the fiction market are a “niche”) is insulting. The cliches that surround “chick lit” are the same cliches that surround women: we’re frivolous, shallow, obsessed with shopping (spoiler alert: men are obsessed with shopping too; we live in a materialistic society), have daddy issues, and are incredibly snobbish.
The sexism in the literary and publishing world is rampant and disgusting, but it’s bigger than that. The thoughts we have about women in fiction (and movies, and music, and video games, and…) are nothing more than a reflection of the thoughts we have about women in the real world. Even in classic literature, we have formed a very clear distinction between what is a “real” classic, and what’s “just” a classic for women.
I remember when The Hunger Games first came out when I was in middle school. I loved it: I was deep into my dystopian phase and was fascinated by the connection to Greek myths and the terror of the Capitol. I suggested it to a friend, and a week later he told me he couldn’t get into it. A 12 year old boy didn’t like a book about fighting, genetically mutated dogs, and a dystopian government.
He said he just couldn’t relate to Katniss.
RIP to his fragile sense of masculinity.
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