We Still Aren’t Teaching Enough Women Writers
I wrote last week about a lesson I have taught using “The Yellow Wallpaper,” a great story by a great woman writer. In an effort to reach more of my female students this year, I’ve been trying to incorporate more stories and books with strong female characters, and to highlight female characters in books more. However, I’m still seeing an upsetting trend: We aren’t teaching enough women writers.
Sure, “Eveline” by James Joyce or “The Chrysanthemums” by John Steinbeck both have interesting female main characters, but there seems to be a difference between the women characters in these stories and women characters in stories written by men. And don’t even get me started on the women in The Great Gatsby or Catcher in the Rye! (Although I love those books and enjoy teaching them, the women While fascinating, these women characters written by men still seem to fall short of what it truly means to be a woman. The women in these stories and books are either choosing between which man to eventually settle down with or are not worth the men’s time or, even worse, it seems, are held up as the epitome of purity and integrity. Women in stories such as “The Yellow Wallpaper” are complex and intriguing in a different way; they seem more real in a way.
I know I haven’t done this topic justice, and I anticipate blogging much more about it in the future with some ideas for texts to teach as well as accompanying lessons, but what are your favorite women characters by women writers? What do you think is a must-see in any classroom?
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=b7259ae7-8f5d-4536-abb6-daa0a0d26c78)
I think the most important book I use in class is Kate Chopin’s masterpiece _The Awakening._ I first hunted it down because — as you point out, Ashley — we aren’t teaching enough women writers, if we are teaching any AT ALL. Not to sound racist, but I think that our course syllabi and school novel storage closets are stocked with books written by and about African Americans and I think our public schools do a great job teaching and preaching diversity, but I think our public schools fail to make students ever think about gender inequality. _The Awakening_ addresses the same issues that Gilman addresses in “Yellow Wallpaper” but we get to actually see how the protagonist, Edna, approaches and embraces freedom and independence and then society’s reaction to a free and strong-willed woman, whereas we never get to see that angle in “Yellow Wallpaper.” In the 8 semesters that I’ve taught it, kids go into the story thinking it’s boring, and by the end, I have them YELLING at each other over their opinions about and interpretations of a novel published in 1899. It’s a novel that should be required reading for all American literature courses.