04.16.08
Women’s Writes
There was
an article among a certain author’s truly polemic writings that caught my
attention recently. She was basically expostulating
about the term “Women’s Fiction” and why men are only interested in men’s
fiction (those with male main characters – which appear to include Ayn
Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and Harper
Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird) and why women are interested
in both women’s fiction (those with female main characters) and men’s fiction.
Apparently, that is rather true in most circles and if my
understanding is correct, she was certainly leaning towards the issue of gender
discrimination. Fortunately, that is not
true in my circle. If it were, perhaps my male friends have heard Erica Jong’s remark*
enough to have a change of heart. =P
I
think the author was a bit too “reactionary,” as Franz would put it. Besides, aren’t women the ones who tease men
to death if they caught men reading women’s fiction? And we should not blame men for looking at Women’s Fiction as plain “chick
lit,” but instead open their eyes and prove that Women’s Fiction is a broad
canopy with “chick lit” as one trivial sub-genre under its shadow. Hey, why not urge men to read Jane Austen? They all ought to have even just a tinge of Mr. Darcy
in them. ;-)
* “Beware of the man
who denounces women writers;
his *BEEP* is tiny and he cannot spell.”
Painting: Young Woman Reading by a Window
by Delphin Enjolras
Related Entries: The Writes of Women
