Rant: female writers being denied of their own art.

submitted by questioningtw from self.GenderCritical

This has been something that has been bothering me for a long time, and i am kind of tired of being told I am overreacting. I have always been ultra sensitive to this idea that women have never created anything worth while. Anyway, not only are people trying to "joke" taht Danial Radcliffe is the true writer of Harry Potter, you aren't even allowed to point out how damn misogynistic that is. Because apparently her "transphobia" is just so bad that she deserves to have work work attributed to at least an anonymous person.

Apparently there is also this man who is obsessed with debunking that Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstien and wrote a book trying to prove her husband wrote it. of course his only "proof" is that the book was super deep and about male bonding so a woman couldn't have written it.

And misogynists also love to have conspiricy theories that Harper Lee did not write to Kill a Mocking Bird but stope it from a male writer. It really angers me that women's achievements are minimized and denied and it bothers me that pretty much no one cares about this.

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[–]ShieldMaiden 15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 0 fun16 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Meanwhile HG Wells stole from a woman writer, Florence Deeks. https://www.nytimes.com/1932/11/01/archives/author-pushes-suit-against-hg-wells-florence-a-deeks-takes-charge.html The case is considered "not proven" to this day. Not the only instance, I'm sure.

Also: thanks to centuries of the doctrine of coverture, plenty of women were legally unable to make money while married, and so published works under their husband's names (the husband receiving any profit from the work, of course). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverture#Criticism and see this for an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Taylor_Mill#Own_work

"These marriage and property laws, or "coverture," stipulated that a married woman did not have a separate legal existence from her husband. A married woman or feme covert was a dependent, like an underage child or a slave, and could not own property in her own name or control her own earnings, except under very specific circumstances." https://www.library.hbs.edu/hc/wes/collections/women_law/

So, try not to let these men gaslight you into thinking women were do-nothings for all of history. Men claiming women contribute nothing to society (except as being mothers and wives, which they consider a burden while also not wanting us to be independent???) they sound exactly like anti-semites blaming Jewish people for historically being more likely to be bankers and money-lenders, even though Christians were often specifically barred from that kind of work because it was seen as "spiritually unclean" and "dirty" and "sinful". Meanwhile, Jewish people in diaspora were being pogrom'd over and over again and were just trying to survive as a reviled minority. Men create a system of male supremacy where women can't legally operate as individuals with free expression or the right to their own property, and then blame them for "not accomplishing anything". The things is, in spite of all the artificial legal, mental and physical hurdles men erected, women still made history time and time again. They can't keep us down.

[–]QueenBread 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Female writers, even highly famous ones like Rowling, still end up having to pick up a male nom de plume, just so they're taken seriously. Go figure.

[–]questioningtw[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

The only genre they don't have to do this is romance novels, which are also looked down upon.

[–]QueenBread 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

True!

[–]ShieldMaiden 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

P.S. Here we are making tonnes of history: https://www.rejectedprincesses.com

[–]MonstrousRegiment 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Super site!