For women, then, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams towards survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action. Poetry is the way we give name to the nameless so it can be thought.

In fact, if the evidence of our holding libraries is to believed, there have always been female writers around, despite fewer women than men being literate. Some of these appear to have been commercially successful too. But few female writers pre-dating the 19th century have stayed in print, troubled academic canons or entered modern popular culture through tv adaptations and so on. It concerns me that the continued visibility of 19th and 20th century female writers might be taken for granted, and isn’t a foregone conclusion.

I mention this because countering stereotypes about women’s writing is a lot harder if its history is repeatedly sidelined by academic and commercial institutions.

This is not the kind of writing I’m talking about! Have you ever read any Greer Gilman? She is a writer who I think encapsulates what I (am trying to) mean by the richness of language and pushing the boundaries of meaning/meanings. I certainly don’t think anyone could characterise her work as thematically light!

I appreciate your disagreement on the issue of male/female language. I think your point about women being the teachers of language is interesting. I do think there is a difference between the spoken and written language – and it is a vital one, when we are talking about writers and writing. Until relatively recently, most women were not educated to read and write. Today, in many parts of the world, boys’ education is prioritised over girls’, to the extent that many millions of girls are never taught to read and write. The vast cultural shift of which you speak has not taken place in many countries. So in that respect alone, language has been and continues to be a male province.

I am thinking also along the lines of who ‘controls’ meaning. I think, in the same way, for Black writers (especially Black female writers), their writing is often seen as ‘less than’ – perhaps especially linguistically, but also thematically – or more often it is just ignored except for one or two writers and one or two books (I’m talking about being ignored by the academy) – and they are also often struggling with this idea of who controls meaning, and how to wrestle meaning away/back from white culture.

It’s not a straightforward proposition, certainly, but I find it interesting to consider and talk about, even if just to myself! This perhaps comes from too much semiology and linguistics at university!

“…ALL language essentially has always ‘belonged’ to men…”

I have never so much as considered these statements. I now have, and find them extraordinary. Surely, a language is primarily a spoken thing. Whoever speaks creates the language, and children are taught to speak primarily by the women – as has always been – whether mothers, nursemaids. Even the Spartans spent their early years with women.

I might have a frisson of agreement when it comes to how the written word has been the province of males throughout the centures. But things have changed, radically and a rather long time ago. A vast cultural shift.

It is certainly true that some female writers use flowery language, and combine it with very light work, thematically. That’s fine, and if they wish to do so, then who am I to stop them? There are plenty of readers who like that style. But I am not one of them, I’m afraid. It is just poor writing, relatively.

I think that in the language/gender discussion we have to consider the fact that ALL language essentially has always ‘belonged’ to men. Women have definitely created their own words, terms and even whole languages, but these have been eradicated by men/male culture through each generation. So perhaps one of the ways of looking at how women write is to see it as an act of rebellion, taking ownership of the language, taking something that historically, politically, and culturally does not belong to us. Perhaps that’s why women use more of the language – because we have to express concepts and ideas and relationships that are not encompassed by the simple, straightforward, plain, economic words that are common currency. We have to look harder for words that fit our meanings, be more poetic and adventurous and playful in order to express ourselves in a language that isn’t really ours.

Any thoughts?

By the way, if anyone is interested in this sort of thing, there are two books I would highly recommend – one is Joanna Russ’ How to Suppress Women’s Writing, and the other is a feminist classic: Dale Spender’s Man Made Language.

Oh yes, I also meant to say I haven’t started reading SC yet, just had a flick through, but it looks exciting and I’ll definitely be blogging about it!

And thanks for your advice re The Road.

Note that adverb…(!)

Actually, there deliberately, because Golding is teaching me something I’d like to pass on. About adverb use.

It seems to me that if the adverb used adds substantially to the meaning of the sentence, then it works well. Not saying my attempt to show it, works… but I find it a thing of marvel that words can make you forget you are reading… so ‘marvellously’ adds that resonance to what I’m saying. Duh… in a very cack handed way.

Let Golding put it far far better than I ever could. When we first meet Simon, (the lad who is a bit ‘different, who will be killed, in the end) in Lord of the Flies:

“The choir boy… sat up against a palm trunk, smiled pallidly at Ralph and said that his name was Simon.”

That ‘pallidly’ adds enormously to what is there.

a) It desribes him physically.
b) It lets us ‘hear’ him speak – hardly loud and strident.
c) It points him up as a somewhat gentle, non-assertive person
d) It begins, in the context of the story to come, to show Simon as something slightly ethereal.

etc etc Golding edited heavily, appearently, on his editor’s advice, taking out a huge amount of Simon’s character. So every word he left in speaks volumes.

End of lecture – sorry! But I thought this was fascinating.