The scene is this: A bookshelf, sagging. Rows upon rows of many-colored spines. And each spine’s title recalls specific, special memories…standing on a too-hot beach, confusion and fury all around (The Stranger)…seeing your kid-brother in everything you do (The Catcher in the Rye)…fire-crackering the town clock in an effort to stop yourself from growing up (Farewell Summer). These memories are visceral and overwhelming and all-important.
However, there’s one thing that most people don’t notice when they take inventory of their books: the vast majority of their collection is no doubt comprised of male writers. Writers who have taught us and moved us and shaped us, but males nonetheless. Where are all the women? It is almost eerie to think that so much of our imaginations, both collective and personal, have been formed in large part by only one half of our species. While I can list scores of writers that have stayed with me, I can count on my hand those that have been written by women: Cather, Oates, Erdrich, (Zadie) Smith. The incredible majority of books that have meant something to me have had male authors (Salinger, Greene, Capote, Wallace, Hardy, Percy, Malamud, Vonnegut, Kesey, Toole, Frazier, Chateaubriand, Bradbury,William Carlos Williams) and I never thought twice about it until this weekend, when the disparity on my shelf jolted me out of my dreamy process of looking lovingly at books read long-ago.
More importantly, think of all the books that we want to read, that we feel foolish if we haven’t read. They’re The Grapes of Wrath and The Sun Also Rises and Anna Karenina and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and the 1984s of the world. This is our canon, this is our standard, and there are very, very few women who are a part of it.
Perhaps none of this is all that shocking. Men have had so much more time on women, as their voices have never been contested. And the fact that I can name any women writers, all of whom are powerhouses in their own right, is significant and wonderful. However, I do think it is time to peel back what often is an invisible film, time to really look at all of those stories and feelings and voices that we take for granted and which form our subconscious subconsciously. There are whole worlds of description underrepresented on our bookshelves (and this applies to the impoverished as much to the female.) What are we not hearing/seeing/thinking/feeling? During this Banned Book Week, a week for protecting and promoting that which is precious and endangered, it seems relevant to mention that there is a completely different type of preciousness that is just as worth seeking out and safeguarding: the voice of a woman.
List of My Top 10 Favorite Books by Women: Which Have You Read?
**please note: this list is obviously self-compiled, but this fact arose out of necessity: there are no formal lists that I could find! Truly shocking, truly a reminder of that which we’re not hearing. **
1. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
2. A Widow’s Story by Joyce Carol Oates
3. The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich
4. On Beauty by Zadie Smith
5. Bitter in the Mouth by Monique Truong
6. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
7. The Petty Details of So-and-So’s Life by Camilla Gibb
8. Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays by Zadie Smith
9. O! Pioneers by Willa Cather
10. A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly
And for a more structural look at why women writers are underrepresented, and general observations on being a woman writer in the U.S., check out this great article by the ever-articulate Elaine Showalter: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/may/09/female-novelists-usa