American Feminist Writers.

[mamamiya]

Hello everybody:wave:

I'm very happy to join this forum and hope I will be an active member:rolleyes:

I'm a literature student and I studied lately the Feminist approach and I like it and want to read for some Feminist writers , so could you please give me some names of American Feminist writers and novels to start with:angel:
thanks all :D and I'm waiting for your replies:nod:

[Eryk]

Margaret Atwood

Adrienne Rich

Anne Sexton

and L. Frank Baum:

Sally Roesch Wagner of The Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation has published a pamphlet titled The Wonderful Mother of Oz describing how Matilda's radical feminist politics were sympathetically channelled by Baum into his Oz books. Much of the politics in the Republican Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer dealt with trying to convince the populace to vote for women's suffrage. Baum was the secretary of Aberdeen's Woman's Suffrage Club. When Susan B. Anthony visited Aberdeen, she stayed with the Baums. Nancy Tystad Koupal notes an apparent loss of interest in editorializing after Aberdeen failed to pass the bill for women's enfranchisement.

Some of Baum's contacts with suffragists of his day seem to have inspired much of his second Oz story, The Marvelous Land of Oz. In this story, General Jinjur leads the girls and women of Oz in a revolt by knitting needles, take over, and make the men do the household chores. Jinjur proves to be an incompetent ruler, but a female advocating gender equality is ultimately placed on the throne. His Edith Van Dyne stories, including the Aunt Jane's Nieces, The Flying Girl and its sequel, and his girl sleuth Josie O'Gorman from The Bluebird Books, depict girls and young women engaging in traditionally masculine activities.

Wicky P (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._Frank_Baum#Women.27s_suffrage_advocate)

[Etienne]

Margaret Atwood

She is canadian.

I'm no expert on american or feminist literature (thus even less in american feminist literature), but let me suggest to you a islamo-french writer (actually I don't think she is muslim, but she comes from a muslim background) who is simply marvelous, that is Assia Djebar. I've (unfortunately) read only one book by her, Far from Medina (that must be how it's translated), that tells the tale of early islam, but from the point of view of women, important or heroic feminine figures that, often, have been forgotten by the mysoginist history of the time.

[Modest Proposal]

I don't know exactly your tastes, but Edith Wharton tends to have a very balanced and astute view of gender. Willa Cather is another great classic author. If you want some SF Ursula LeGuin is great. Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Flannery O'Conner are some of the best American short story writers.

Honestly, I tend to be turned off by 'Feminist Writers'. I think ANY reasonable writer of any gender recognizes discrepencies in American society, but the idea of Feminism I think is flawed and has been somewhat obscured by politics. Virginia Woolf--British of course--has written brilliantly on Feminism, its values and its flaws. What I would recommend is reading great and wise authors and trying to find a honest and reasonable view of gender politics rather than 'buying in' to some of the theories that will be thrown at you and be hamfistedly pushed by certain authors.

[lavendar1]

You might want to check out Grace Paley. Click here (http://www.msmagazine.com/news/uswirestory.asp?id=10487)for a taste.

[kelby_lake]

Feminism...there are some interesting ideas in the literary theory (I buy into a feminist interpretation of Hamlet) but at times it just seems a bit annoying.

Jane Smiley wrote a good adaptation of King Lear- A Thousand Acres- which takes a feminist approach and is on the side of Goneril and Regan.

[mamamiya]

Thanks a lot for your replies and happy to recieve them , I will take them all in my consideration.
thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanks again

[vonsvin]

Gertrude Stein?

[kelby_lake]

Oh, Sylvia Plath! That's the obvious one!

[shortstoryfan]

Joyce Carol Oates.

[OrphanPip]

Gertrude Stein?

She's more of an avant-garde writer than a feminist. Apparently she relished in her masculinity but her association with queer writing has kind of resulted in her being retroactively associated with feminism.