One of the things that caught my attention in high school Literature classes was that I had never read a single book by female novel writers. Both from the 17th and 18th centuries and from the 20th century. Today is not different.
Could it be that, intellectually, women would be inferior to men? Although there are still many people who believe this, I totally disagree. The problem lies more in the social role historically reserved for women than in genetics. If you agree with me, read on to understand why literature was and remains for a long time a Men's Club.
BBC Brazil has published the report – The women writers who had to use male pseudonyms – and now they will be read with their real names. It even seems like transmission of thought because I was really wanting to make the inaugural post of this blog showing the difficulties that many women faced in their times to be accepted as writers.
Two Georges, the British and the French
The British female writer Mary Ann Evans adopted the name George Eliot to be taken seriously as a novelist. Launched in 1874, her novel Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life is considered one of the best works in English Literature. The writer Virginia Woolf even called it "one of the few English books made for big people.”
Sue Lancer, the female researcher professor of English, comparative Literature and studies on Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Brandeis University, in the United States, says that a literary critic newspaper at the time had two reviews of the book. The first, for George Eliot, was complimentary. The second, for Mary Ann Evans, was quite negative.
“Western history is one of male authority. That is why women started to use ambiguous or directly masculine names. They were trying to authorize themselves.” |
The French female writer Amantine Dupin, one of the most prolific authors of her day, was known as George Sand. She wrote tales of love and class differences, criticizing social norms. She also wrote political texts and plays, which she staged in a private theatre. Amantine caused controversy in Paris by wearing men's clothing, smoking in public and having frequent love affairs – things forbidden to a woman at the time.
Sandra Vasconcelos, full female professor of English and comparative literature at the University of São Paulo (USP) says that, at that time, a woman who had intellectual activity was committing an enormous transgression. The women who dared to publish using their own names received a lot of criticism because they were extrapolating the role assigned to them. Most of them used a pseudonym to avoid publicly exposing themselves.
A survey by the American organization Vida - Women in the Literary Arts shows that books written by women are still reviewed less by critics in literary magazines than those written by men. And essays written by women are published less in these specialized magazines.19 |
Written by a lady
During the 18th and 19th centuries, the role of women as primarily mother and wife within the bourgeois family crystallized. The wife was responsible for the domestic world, from the door to the house. Many of them did not even have access to formal education. Moreover, every woman who had any sort of ambition beyond that was a point outside the curve.
On the cover of the novel Pride and Prejudice, the first book by the English writer Jane Austen, was written: "A novel. In three parts. Written by a lady." Her later books were credited to the "same author" as the earlier ones.
Publishing anonymously became less common in the 19th century. Writing became a profession and novels became more respected as a genre. This made it even more difficult for women to sign fiction books.
The feeling of freedom was also a factor that led women writers to publish under pseudonyms. These women faced many social limitations and expectations about the way they should write and the subjects about which they could speak.
If there were any questionable sexual elements in the novels, or deemed inappropriate for a society woman, they would be judged. The pseudonym was also a way to protect her personal life.
In Brazil, it was not different
In Brazil, many writers have also used the pseudonym or anonymous book resource for the same reasons, according to Constância Lima Duarte, female professor of Brazilian literature at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG).
The novel Úrsula (1859), considered by some historians as the first abolitionist novel in Brazilian Literature, was written by Maria Firmina dos Reis and signed only "a woman born in Maranhão".
During 1887, in Bahia*, the book As Mulheres: Um protesto por uma mãe (The women: A protest by a mother) denounces the small labor market that was reserved for women, the absurd salary difference between men and women and the excessive valorization of the functions reserved for men. The female author hid so well that no one found out later who this writer might have been. "It's a hugely important book, but she hid it so well that no one found out later who this writer might have been".
Female writers published under their real names
The Brazilian project OriginalWriters, by HP and an advertising agency, aims to encourage readers to read female romance writers who used male pseudonyms. The company decided to create new covers so that readers can learn about the real identities of their authors. The plan also includes translating these works for publication in Portuguese.
Books by female authors from the 19th and early 20th centuries, mainly European ones, were already available on the Gutenberg Project website – which offers more than 50,000 public domain works free of charge. The project also includes a search for Brazilian women who have done the same and whose books can be made available for free.
As we saw above, female romance writers used male pseudonyms to sign their books. This happened not only in the 18th and 19th centuries, but also throughout the 20th century.
"This is still common in academia, in the sciences. There is a bias in favor of male authority in knowledge. It is a bias that is sometimes implicit, unconscious. We think that this has changed, but in fact it has not changed that much," says researcher Sue Lanser, professor of English, comparative literature and women's, gender and sexuality studies at Brandeis University in the United States.
"If there was any questionable sexual element in the novels, or considered inappropriate for a society lady, they would be judged. The pseudonym was also a way of protecting one's personal life." |
But according to the researcher, the phenomenon has not completely disappeared. At the beginning of the 20th century, the French British Violet Paget kept her writings – which ranged from books on travel and music to supernatural tales, art criticism, essays on liberalism and novels – under the pseudonym Vernon Lee, perhaps also to avoid comments about her homosexuality.
In the 1990s, British author J.K. Rowling hid her first name, Joanne, at the suggestion of her publisher. In interviews following the worldwide success of her Harry Potter book series, she said she was persuaded by her publisher to abbreviate her first names. Her more ambiguous signature would make the books easier for boys to read. To escape the expectations surrounding her first detective novel, Rowling also chose a male pseudonym, Robert Galbraith. But she was soon discovered.
The book had sold little, but received such positive reviews that it raised suspicions that it was not the debut novel by a new author. After the revelation, the signed first edition of the work sold for more than R$13,000.
Men vs. women
The phenomenon of market segmentation between "literature for women" and "literature for men" is also something recent and contributes to female writers who want to exceed the public's expectations for their books changing their names, as in the case of J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter.
Sandra Vasconcelos, professor of English and comparative literature at the University of São Paulo (USP), recalls that men also read fiction novels. Most of the comments about novels in newspapers were made by men. And some of the greatest novels with female protagonists are by male writers. There was no such difference; everyone read everything.
According to Sue Lanser, publishers today interfere a lot in the lives of books and authors, making decisions that are justified by this supposed market segmentation. She also agrees that this is a modern phenomenon.
"There is now a greater dichotomy in terms of gender and reading practices. Since Jane Austen, for example, became popular, it was only in the last 20 years that men stopped reading her and no longer want to take classes about her," she says.
It is absurd that, in the 21st century, stories about women, especially if they have some kind of love story in the plot, are automatically considered "lesser literature" and "only for women."
We can't change history
But if the HP project claims to have the intention of "reprinting the history" of these writers using their own names, researcher Sue Lanser warns that it is necessary to be careful with the idea.
"It is a good idea, but it is also important to keep the names under which they originally published their works. It is a way of honoring the trajectory of these women." |
"Even if some of them were trying to hide, we also need to show our past, we cannot change it. You cannot change history and transform it into something we would like it to be". |
Not all of them just wanted to protect themselves with the pseudonym. Some were trying to inhabit other identities. Perhaps Mary Ann Evans or Violet Paget really felt like George Eliot and Vernon Lee when they wrote ֎
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