The Female Void in a World of Masculine Readers

Karenina Lines
Adjunct English Instructor
Chaffey College
E-mail: klines@exchange.fullerton.edu

Men have dominated the literary canon, largely because women were historically denied an equal voice. Women fought for the right to vote, they fought to possess equal positions in the workplace, and now they fight to obtain a comparable role in the literary canon. While women claim progressive equality with men in most disciplines, they continue to be inaccurately represented in the literary canon.  Though women were not published to the extent of men, the fact is that they were published. While the canon should appropriately represent today’s American society, the canon refers not to currently published works but to works that have added historically to our culture.  More women writers, both from the present and from the past, should be included in current academia and anthologies in order to best represent the progress of equality that American society claims to have made.  Instead, works by females end up in what critic Lillian S. Robinson addresses as the “alternative canon” (Robinson 164).   Consistent exposure to the literature of these “alternative” authors is not often gained by students, and it is,

probably quite accurate to think of the canon as an entirely gentlemanly artifact, considering how few works by nonmembers of that class and sex make it into the informal agglomeration of course syllabi, anthologies, and widely commented-upon ‘standard authors’ that constitutes the canon as it is generally understood. (Robinson 154)

Although times have changed and society has altered its opinion of women’s value, the canon still lingers in the past. Critic Barbara C. Pace created her own “textbook canon” by compiling authors that appear in three out of five anthologies by commonly known publishers.  Through this study, she found that of the “98 writers represented in the textbook canon,” there are only twenty women in the anthologies (33).  Students are asked to read these anthologies in high school and college, and the lack of female representation shows students that women writers are not as significant as their male counterparts. Though Pace's study was completed over fifteen years ago, there has been no progression in the favor of women in the canon since that time.  For example, in the updated version of the commonly taught The Norton Anthology of American Literature, out of the approximately 146 authors included, roughly 50 are female. Where Pace found women underrepresented over fifteen years ago, the trend has not died out, even in the most recent anthologies.

Susan Hardy Aiken, a feminist critic passionate about female representation in the canon, is appalled at the role women take in The Norton Anthology of English Literature. She describes this anthology as “an authoritative embodiment of the British canon outside the novel,” explains that this edition “is revealing both for what it omits (which is to say, most women writers) and for what it includes when it does at last represent women” (Aiken 291). The anthology mentioned by Aiken does include some women writers, but on the average, it does not include their significant works, in contrast to the male writers represened. For instance, Anne Finch “appears as a minor nature poet, important, the introduction suggests, because Wordsworth admired her” (291).  Not only is Finch acclaimed purely because of her alliance with a famous male writer but her “brilliant poetic critiques of cultural gender systems” are not discussed, “in selections from an age that valued the verse essay as one of its major genres” (291); instead her more minor poetry is included.

Pace writes of this same exclusion, stating women are portrayed as writing fictional short stories and poems whereas men “are involved in being expressive, reflective, and political” (Pace 35). The male and female works of fiction that are included show female characters that “are physically weak and passive” and are “the voiceless victims of negative experiences with men” (35-36). Pace explains that “these characters match culturally encoded stereotypes of women” (36). There are several stories where women are depicted as being strong and resilient, but these are not the ones that are included in the anthologies, and these are not the ones most included in the canon. Rather stories that portray women as acquiescent, silent, and passive are included, implying that “those who are different had better be quiet, that those who are angry have no constructive outlet” (38). Not only are women omitted from selections that represent accurate portrayals of their sex, but they are also omitted from political and social essays that express opinions on contemporary society. In Pace’s compiled textbook canon, “no female voices are involved in politics; no factory women protest unfair labor practices; no Southern women speak out against the insanity of lynching; no suffragettes claim the right to vote” (37). Despite the strong opinions women possessed of these vital events in America's history, a thorough record of their literary voices is not included for exposure to the student. 

Not surprisingly, social commentaries by men are included in these anthologies but none by women are included, so “the silences born of these omissions become consent; they become the voice of complicity” (Pace 38). Some women utilized their forced silence by adapting to it, conforming to the behavior society enforced in order to live more peacefully. Critics Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar explain that “women in patriarchy have traditionally cultivated accents of acquiescence in order to gain freedom to live their lives on their own terms, if only in the privacy of their own thoughts” (Gilbert and Gubar 291). Some have chosen to conceal their identity or to regress into a patriarchal abyss because “for the woman writer…concealment is not a military gesture but a strategy born of fear and dis-ease” (292). Women have so submitted to such criticism and rejection that it is often easier for them to be hidden than to be heard.

Despite the conformity to which women have succumbed, their literary voices should be heard. Many have written works of fiction, essays, and political statements that should be read, but the canon has not given them this opportunity.  Pace explains that “if the students’ only taste of US literature is this canon, they will get few clues that women have thought and acted in political ways before contemporary times” (Pace 37). These omissions, despite their inaccurate illustration of women, give teachers the opportunity to question students regarding this unfair practice, as “it suggests that we ask, and encourage students to ask, why these stories are the sole representation of women’s fictions in the textbook canon—especially when there are other works that portray women in a more positive, more active manner” (36).  The use of questions such as these gives students the chance to reflect on and notice the way women are represented, and hopefully, recognize the inappropriateness of their omission.
           
These issues with the present anthologies and the attitude toward female authors makes it imperative that a new canon be designed:  “the rationale for a new syllabus or anthology relies on a very different criterion: that of truth to the culture being represented, the whole culture and not the creation of an almost entirely male white elite” (Robinson 158).  Without new emphasis on female authors, the canon is not depicting an accurate view of society, as it is ignoring a large aspect of authorship, one that must be represented.

Although society stresses equality for women, it is surprising that new editions of these anthologies or other aspects of the canon are not pushing equality as well.  Critic Lillian S. Robinson writes: “True equity can be attained…only by opening up the canon to a much larger number of female voices” (Robinson 157). The canon should accurately represent dynamics in society; since females make up roughly half of the population, females should also make up half of the population in the canon. It is imperative that women be included, “from the standpoint of cultural studies or from interdisciplinary or sociological perspectives” (Thompson 13). True knowledge in any area cannot be attained if only heard from the male perspective. In order to “understand the literary landscape” of society, “the whole spectrum of women’s literary production” must be studied (13). Because the canon is primarily made up of men, “the male-authored canon contributes to the body of information, stereotype, inference, and surmise about the female sex that is generally in the culture” (Robinson 155). Where women are being promoted in the business world, even nominated for president of this country, they are not being acknowledged for playing an equal part in literary history or even literary present. Robinson insists that the “longer we wait, the more comfortable the women's literature ghetto--separate, apparently autonomous, and far from equal--may begin to feel” (164).  The speed at which women are being added to the canon is not fast enough to indicate that females are respected and acknowledged as writers worthy of recognition.

There are several theories as to why women are not equally represented in the literary canon. One theory is presented by Nicole Diane Thompson, who specializes in female literature in the Victorian era. She infers that women, at least female Victorian authors, are not seen in the canon at this time because of the popularity of the novel in the 1860’s.  Female writers and readers dominated the literary spectrum, and thus a division incurred between “popular and ‘serious’ literature. The more popular a novel, the more appealing to a mass audience, the more suspect the quality of the work” (Thompson 8). Novels written by women at this time that were gaining such drastic popularity often dealt with problems and circumstances familiar only to women and, therefore, “were thus dangerously in line for the critical guillotine” (8). Men had a problem reading such writings, and thus, decided not to include a good number of women authors in the canon. Thompson says: “Over time, we can see the exclusion from the canon was in part the result of the popularity of the novels by women in conjunction with their complicated explorations of the woman question”(8).

Many male critics also feel that women have certain limitation to their writing and are unable to write as effectively as men, as “capacities attributed to women meant that their writings were considered less substantial and significant than men’s”(Wilkes 35).  This was a “practice endemic to nineteenth century criticism—the ascription of particular characteristics to writing on the basis of its author’s sex” (35). Although this habit gained its popularity in the nineteenth century, it has prevailed through the centuries.  For instance, current critics use various female authors as examples of those that cannot write as well as men and then apply that critique to their gender as a whole.  As critic Joanne Wilkes explains: “Austen was thought to be a woman whose writings had definite limitations—and limitations many commentators found easy to associate with women writers as such” (38).  Austen often chose to write of her surroundings and the society in which she lived. Some critics feel that:

artistic greatness involves going beyond transcription of one’s surroundings to demonstrate creative power. And given that creativity was strongly linked to mental capacities, notions about women’s intellectual inferiority to men meant that women writers were seen as inferior in the creative sense, as less capable of original thinking. (38)

Because Austen chose to write about her own experiences she was thought to be less creative than a male. This generalization, unfortunately, was carried over to women as a gender and acted as another reason why women are not included in the literary cannon.

Because many readers have not been exposed to writing by women, they do not know how to appropriately read them.  Annette Kolodny explains:

Because students are not consistently asked to read women, they do not learn how, and therefore they can grow to be uncomfortable with that authorship.  Works by women are not equally included in the canon because often even those deciding the canon are not comfortable reading women. Many feminists who have recently reread female authors that had lost popularity in the past came to the conclusion that “it may be due not to any lack of merit in the work, but, instead, to an incapacity of predominantly male readers to properly interpret and appreciate texts—due, in large part, to a lack of prior acquaintance” (305). Virginia Woolf recognized the fact that men often disregard what they cannot understand, “abandoning women’s writings as offering ‘not merely a difference of view, but a view that is weak, or trivial, or sentimental because it differs from his own’” (306).  Students, both male and female alike, should be exposed to female authorship in order to familiarize themselves with this genre of writing so that they can decide for themselves which authors are worthy to be canonized and which are not.  The general public's “incapacity . . . to properly interpret and appreciate women's texts [is] due, in large part, to a lack of prior acquaintance” (305). Because these students and critics do not know how to properly read female writing they cannot appropriately evaluate it.

Many feminist critics have problems with the term “canon” in general and would either like to see it abolished or would like to see it somehow include women on a larger, more accurate scale. Thompson explains:

I am intending the canon to mean the body of literary works that are in print, written about and discussed, and taught. In effect, I am arguing that the canon should be enlarged, but in some ways I am uncomfortable with the whole concept of the canon that exists, like an exclusive club, to reject candidates seen as less than desirable by the homogenous elite (Thompson 13). 

The canon does not allow readers to be exposed to all types of works and authors; instead, it decides for the reader who is worthy of being read and who is not.  As a result, because women are the group most widely underrepresented, they are the ones that are often excluded. Perhaps if the term "canon" was eliminated entirely, it would make room for more women to be read, or at least allow the reader a chance to decide who is worthwhile to read.

The question then lies in how to include more females in the canon. Many question whether some canonical men should be eliminated to make room for the women, or if the canon should only be expanded, as Thompson suggests. Robinson says: “No one seems to be proposing—aloud—the elimination of Moby-Dick or The Scarlet Letter, just squeezing them over somewhat to make room for another literary reality” (Robinson 158). She explains that “by including the perspective of women (who are, after all, half-the-population), we will know more about the culture as it actually was” (159).  The generic canon does not have a designated number of spots, and so it can be expanded to include an infinite number of authors and works. When it comes to compiling a syllabus for a class, however,  Robinson explains that there is only so much room, and in that case, women should possibly replace a man on the syllabus, just “in the name of telling the truth about the culture”(159).

In a society where men and women are being raised to have equal roles, both genders need to be equally represented in the canon in order for students to see that both sexes serve equal roles in literature. The canon needs to be either expanded or revised in order to include more female writers so that it can better represent today’s society and give both female and male writers the opportunity to thrive.  If the canon is altered, then males and females will fill an equal role in literature, and students and writers alike will benefit.

 
References

Aiken, Susan Hardy.  “Women and the Question of Canonicity.” College English 48:3 (Mar. 1986): 288-301.

Gilbert, Sandra M. and Susan Gubar. “The Female Swerve,” in David H. Richter, ed. Falling Into Theory: Conflicting Views on Reading Literature.  New York: Bedford, St. Martin’s, 2000:290-295.

Kolodny, Annette. ”Dancing through the Minefield: Some Observations on the Theory, Practice, and Politics of a Feminist Literary Criticism,” in David H. Richter, ed., Falling Into Theory: Conflicting Views on Reading Literature.  New York: Bedford, St. Martin’s, 2000:302-308.

Pace, Barbara G. “The Textbook Canon: Genre, Gender, and Race in US Literature Anthologies.” The English Journal 81:5 (Sep. 1992):33-38.
 
Robinson, Lillian S. “Treason Our Text: Feminist Challenges to the Literary Canon, “in David H. Richter, ed., Falling Into Theory: Conflicting Views on Reading Literature.  New York: Bedford, St. Martin’s, 2000:153-164.

Thompson, Nicola Diane. “Responding to the Woman Questions: Rereading Noncanonical Victorian Women Novelists,” in Nicola Diane Thompson, ed., Victorian Women Writers and the Woman Question. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999: 1-18.

Wilkes, Joanne. “Remaking the Canon,” in Joanne Shattock, ed. Women and Literature in Britain: 1800-1900. Edinburgh, Scotland: Cambridge University Press, 2001:35-51.

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