Women And Writing Essay, Research Paper

Since the beginning of times, human beings have found various ways to express

themselves and more specifically how to declare their feelings and emotions. We

all know that art (in a general term) is supposed to be the tool used for

expression. People from different communities, cultural backgrounds, and

religions, have been appealed to manifest and share their uniqueness through

art. Art, whether it was music, painting, sculpting or writing has been highly

censured through time because of its contents of truth. The majorities of a

society did not allow minorities to fully express themselves with fear of

manifestations and revolts . Women, as a minority have fought to tell the truth.

In order to understand better the meaning of Women?s writing, we will first

analyze the factors that pushed women to write, then we will go over the

obstacles that women encountered and finally, we will discuss what the writers

wanted to achieve through their writing. Factors that pushed women to write

"There are writers who need to make sense of the world they

live"(Dorothy Allison, Trash, p.19.) This sentence shows that the writer

needed to write to see and understand herself through writing. This young white

woman was living a life filled with alcohol and drug addiction, she tried to

escape that trap by fooling herself and by rebuilding a total new idealistic

image of her person (working as a social worker.) However, throughout her

progression, she has been writing everything about herself on a yellow pad,

whatever she would do, wherever she would be, those yellow pads were there, as a

representation of her truth. She could fool herself, but not her yellow pads,

her truth was written there. Allison as many women in the world has been trying

to hide her suffering. Constantly fooling herself, she still had to yell out her

truth, this, by spreading her pain on paper. However, the papers were taboo,

just like someone would litter an embarrassing amount of trash. Allison had to

take out her story and anger, even if they were full of shame. She could not

live without writing, it was a matter of survival. This urge to write was shared

by some other women writers. The search of an understanding was the factor that

pushed Bell Hooks to write "I began to feel uncertain, displaced, estranged

even, this was the condition of my spirit when I decided to be a writer, to seek

for that light in words" (Bell Hooks, remembered ruptures, p.15) after that

she declares "Searching for a space were writing could be understood, I

asked for a diary" (Bell Hooks, remembered ruptures, p.15.) Writing was a

way to understand herself a little like Dorothy Allison, a way to look at

one?s own person in a global manner, from a different angle, in other words, a

way to be objective about oneself ?situation. Not only do women write for

themselves with the thought that nobody can understand them, but they also write

for others, a way to make a declaration to the world, a way to change the truth

by saying it . In her writings, Sandra Cisneros implies that she wants to change

the world. In her book "The House on Mango Street" she declares that

she wants to leave the unpleasant neighborhood of Mango street, however, she

says that she will come back, probably not physically, but at least trough her

book. Coming back might mean that she wanted to do something to change Mango

street, and that is trough her book, that?s why she wrote it. Edwidge Danticat

tells us how her desire to write was consuming her in a society where Women?s

writing was absolutely forbidden, something to do in the corner. Danticat

learned how her female ancestors have been expressing themselves through nothing

else than cooking, hair braiding or even carving potatoes. But she wanted to

perpetuate the creativity of her ancestors, she just needed to do it through

writing. "It was their whispers that pushed you, their murmurs over pots

sizzling in your head. A thousand women urging you to speak through the blunt

tip of your pencil." (Edwidge Danticat, Kirk? Krak! p.8.) By writing, she

would have passed along a culture, just like braiding or cooking. However, her

writing was threatening "the natural functioning" of a patriarchal

society. Whether women write for themselves or for others, the main matter is

that they write for an urge of understanding. There is a clear desire of

comprehension. Obstacles that women encountered In her paper "A Room of

One?s Own", Virginia Woolf wonders ironically "why women are

poor?" She then tells us that it would have been near to impossible for a

woman of that era to be wealthy. Women couldn?t do anything else than have

children and be submissive housewives, "Making a fortune and bearing

thirteen children-no human being could stand it" (Virginia Woolf, A Room of

One?s Own, p.22.) And even if women had been able to earn money, they could

not keep it until 1870. Unable to keep her money, a woman gives up the idea to

earn it, and so , she confirms her idea that her natural place is in the house.

This last idea was (and still is) adopted in most of the places of the world.

Most of the world?s societies have defined women as a housekeeper. But how

could this endanger their ability to write? It could be said that if women are

"doomed" to stay home taking care of the house, their business is

nowhere else. Men do not want to be invaded in the workplace, so women stay

home. Also staying home could just as well include writing at home. But we all

know that only about sixty years ago, reading was profaned for women. A women

literate was the devil incarnated. This was probably set that way because we

know that reading and writing both develop the ability to think in a critical

manner, and again, men did not want to have rivals in that sector. Maybe Woolf

tried to warn us in her paper since she declared that women need a room of their

own to be able to write. To be able to write, women needed a material and

financial independence. Apparently, the major obstacle to women?s writing was

the presence, influence and domination of men. It Is in fact hard to be a rebel

in an already very set and rooted culture. In Danticat?s society, writing was

forbidden, something to do in the corner when you could have been learning to

cook. She describes how writing was considered a curse, by giving us the

explanations her mother gave her. She was a prisoner of her education and

culture. Again, it was the same concept of society?s manipulation and

conditioning. If Danticat had had tried to rebel, she would have probably been

seen as the devil "you and your writing demons in your head" (Edwidge

Danticat, Kirk? Krak! p.10.), therefore, she would have been left on the side

and set as an example to any other young girl that would have had her ideas.

There was always a fear to disappoint family, community and society by not

standing up to her "good old culture" "You remember her silence

when you laid your first notebook in front of her, her disappointment when you

told her that words would be your life?s work, like the kitchen had always

been hers." ." (Edwidge Danticat, Kirk? Krak! p.7.) The society

Danticat was living in was very intolerant, and there is to believe that the

sanctions were very strict for leaving the "natural destiny of a

woman", the cultural imperialism she was living in was totalitarian. What

the writers wanted to achieve by writing A woman who writes may want to achieve

different tasks. As we have seen, a woman may have the urge to write, Bell Hooks

for instance, because she needs to understand herself since she doesn?t find

understanding among her surrounding. She could also need to write like Allison

Dorothy, because she needs to face herself and she has so much inside her that

can not been taken out unless it is trough writing. A woman may need to write to

reveal a truth to the world the way Sandra Cisneros did it. Also, just like

Edwidge Dandicat, a woman may want to give the voice to kitchen poets in order

to fight cultural imperialism. Virginia Woolf as well probably surprised (or

shocked) many people by trying to fight cultural imperialism by approaching the

taboo of Lesbianism "Cloe likes Olivia?do not blush" (Virginia Woolf,

A Room of One?s Own, p.82.) Since the beginning of times, human beings have

always needed to express themselves, whether they are male or female. It is

crucial to the development of our societies that people speak out loud, so,

whether it is spoken by a male or a female, the message has to go through. Also,

each individual will express only his or her own feelings. That is maybe why, we

did not see any man talking about Lesbianism around the 1920s, it might also be

why no men wrote anything like the concept of the Red Clowns of Sandra Cisneros

in the House on Mango Street. In other words, some things may just not be

perceivable to men, just as other might not be to women. It is not said here

that there is a distinctive separation between male and female writing, there

might just be a different way of thinking. It is therefore of the utmost

importance for the sake of the good development of our world, that everybody

gets a chance to express and share his or her ideas, in the least censured

manner possible.