Women In Writing

My senior year in college I took a Women Writers Survey course. On the first day of class, the professor (with the fantastic name of Dr. Lawless) asked us to name all of our favorite female authors. Beyond thinking of my favorite female authors from my youth, I was stumped.

Since that time I have made a diligent effort to read many female authors and have found many favorites. However, there are still two issues at hand: ONE - in 2002 there was still a need for a Women Writers Survey course because women are not fully represented in the "canon" and TWO - I have to make a "diligent effort" to find female voices outside of the genre of chick lit.

I have a good friend at work who I always discuss books with and share recommendations. Last week he was reading White Teeth by Zadie Smith, which he picked up because he said he realized he never read female authors. He argued that it wasn't intentional, but for some reason female authors never arrived in his stacks of books to be read. So now he, too, is making the "diligent effort" to find female authors who write what could be called literature.

What's interesting to me about all of this is that the problem is so pervasive that it almost seems nonexistent. Just as "home economics" was created so women could have their own subject to study as an excuse to go to college, it seems chick lit has been created so women could have their own subject as an excuse to write. While I do not want to discount the value of chick lit, it seems hardly memorable. Will our children's children really be reading Bridget Jones' Diary or one of the books from the Shopaholic series?

What I want is a group of female voices represented in literature that will be read for generations, like Vonnegut or Faulkner or Hemingway. What I'll get...well, it depends on more "diligent effort" by more people.