writers, A Literature of Their Own (1977), traces the development of American
women’s writing through four stages. The first, which she calls “feminine,”
consists of “a prolonged phase of imitation of the prevailing modes of the
dominant tradition.” In the second, “feminist” stage, “there is a phase of ‘pro-
test’ against these modes, and ‘advocacy’ of independent rights and values.”
The third stage, “female,” is one “of self-discovery, a search for identity and a
specific aesthetic.” In the last, or “free,” stage, female writers “can take on any
subject they want, in any form they choose.” Students might use Showalter’s
categories to analyze two or more works by American women writers pub-
lished from the early 1970s to the present. Do the works support or undermine
Showalter’s divisions? Do particular works fit neatly into separate categories,
or do you see evidence of a combination of categories? Do you find, as Sho-
walter does, that works published in the twenty-first century belong to the
fourth category? What does it mean for women to be “free” to write on any
subject? Chapters 18 through 20 of Showalter’s Sister’s Choice: Tradition and
Change in American Women’s Writing (1991) offer excellent starting points and
suggest primary works to study. Also useful is Katherine B. Payant’s Becoming
and Bonding: Contemporary Feminism and Popular Fiction by American Women
Writers (1993).
- In Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution (1977) Adrienne
Rich examines how motherhood in a patriarchal culture can, on the one hand,
limit a woman’s growth, while, on the other hand, it can be a source of pleasure
or power. Various writers have depicted the paradoxical nature of mother-
hood and the various ways it can affect the relationship between mothers and
daughters. Mothers in literature can be a source of encouragement and nurture
but can also be unsuitable role models who, as representatives of patriarchy,
socialize their daughters into accepting their inferiority to men. Students
might analyze portrayals of mothers and/or mother-daughter relationships in
one or more works. There are many works from which to choose, including
Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior (1975), Marilynne Robinson’s
Housekeeping (1980), Gail Godwin’s A Mother and Two Daughters (1982), Mar-
sha Norman’s play ’night, Mother (1983), Denise Chávez’s The Last of the Menu
Girls (1986), Sue Miller’s The Good Mother (1986), Vivian Gornick’s Fierce
Attachments: A Memoir (1987), Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club (1989), Esmeralda
Santiago’s When I Was Puerto Rican (1994), Edwidge Danticat’s Breath, Eyes,
Memory (1994), Nora Okja Keller’s Comfort Woman (1997), Chitra Banerjee
Divakaruni’s Queen of Dreams (2004), and poems by Rita Dove and Louise
Glück that rework the myth of Demeter and Persephone. The collection
edited by Mickey Pearlman (1989) and chapter 3 of Payant’s book offer excel-
lent starting points for this topic.
- Speculative fiction, which includes science fiction, fantasy, and utopian works,
has long been written by women—for example, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
(1818) and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland (1915). In the late 1960s
women began to explore overt feminist themes in works such as Ursula K.
Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), Joanna Russ’s The Female Man
(1975), and Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time (1976). These works
Feminism and Women’s Writing
