Why We Need Men to Start Reading Books by Women
It’s long overdue for us to take female writers seriously
George Sand. Acton, Currer, and Ellis Bell. Cotton Mather Mills. George Eliot. Isak Dinesen.
What do these writers have in common? You might answer that they are all women — and you’d be right about that. But I’m talking about another commonality.
All of these writers chose to write under a male pen name because they didn’t want their gender to stand in the way of their potential for success. A novel written by a woman would be judged not just by its cover, but by the name on it. If that name was a woman’s name, it was often assumed that the book would be silly, melodramatic, and/or overly-romantic. You know…feminine fluff.
Men didn’t want to read books by women. The publishing industry often wouldn’t even look at manuscripts submitted by women, let alone publish them. And the general opinion was that women were inferior writers compared to men.
This meant that female writers had, at best, only the potential to be about half as successful as male writers. If they could even get to the point of publication, their readership was limited to other women.
But not if people assumed they were a man… With a man’s name or a name that created ambiguity…
