The Rise of Women in Literature at the
Turn of the 20th Century
The late 19th and early 20th centuries experienced a great shift in literacy as women writers achieved goals of acknowledgment and growing acceptance. There were many driving factors that pushed this change such as social, political and cultural causes that heightened women voices so they would no longer be ignored. During this time, the women’s rights movement began to uplift women around the world and caused significant changes behind women in literature. With women all working toward a goal of challenging traditional norms, there was a great increase in the recognition of their work and impact on society.
The women’s rights movement caused a huge rise in women in literature and that influence changed social expectations when it came to gender norms. Equality for women in education, work, and politics all began to improve during this time. Female autonomy and self-expression were taboo topics, until the fight for women’s suffrage rose and society began demanding representation of women in everyday culture. These factors were huge influences on the stories women began writing and how society reacted to them.
The social norm for women was most often defined by them being mothers and wives. In the novel, The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan, she describes how society often just assumed that women would have the most fulfilling lives through marriage, motherhood, and homemaking. If a women didn’t want to go down this path, they were not considered “feminine.” When speaking of motherhood Friedan states, “In the feminine mystique, there is no other way for a woman to dream of creation or of the future. There is no other way she can even dream about herself, except as her children’s mother, her husband’s wife.” This novel had a huge impact on the growing activism for gender quality as it helped speak for women around the country who were continuously diminished by these gender roles.
Virginia Woolf is another writer who had a huge impact in the cultural shift of literature and society. Her essay, A Room of One’s Own, highlights the difficulties that women face when trying to achieve things, such as writing, when they do not the financial stability and space to work. Due to societal constraints on women, it made gaining financial independence and the freedom that men often had almost impossible. Woolf states, “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” The fight for equality, women’s suffrage, and education caused women to feel more free to write about their own lives and experiences, not in the lenses of men.
The use of modernism in literature in the late 19th and early 20th century had a crucial role in contributing to the rise of women in literature. The trend of modernism helped break traditional literature and gave writers different way of story telling. Writers began to speak on deep psychological topics regarding their characters which began to address the lives of women. Women characters started to have different narratives and instead of their lives being narrated through the eyes of men, they began to tell their own thoughts and experiences. This provided more opportunities for writers to experiment and address topics that had previously been avoided and considered unimportant in literature.
An author that pushed literary modernism is Gertrude Stein. Stein’s first book Three Lives contains three different stories, each revolving around women in the working-class, struggling to express themselves and what they want in their lives as society continues to keep them down. Her use of writing about female characters in the early 20th century was already breaking norms, as was her being a female writer. Writing about their experiences as they face difficulties in their lives as women broke the norms even further. New possibilities continued to open up in women’s writing, and people began to want more in depth and complex characters in novels. This allowed women to explore their emotions and intellect.
Another cause that allowed for the increase of women in literature was the access to more education and economic independence. As women gained more rights in the workforce and education, they were able to gain more financial independence that allowed them to write and have more power in their expression. With higher education, women began to create better writing and have more opportunities for exposure and engagement. Previously, women often did not handle money as it was believed men were better capable of handling all financial problems. The “Journal of Social History: Women and the Paradox Of Economic Inequality in the Twentieth-Century” quotes, “‘Men handled financial matters because it was assumed that women were not interested in such activities and furthermore women’s minds were incapable of and unaccustomed to what was referred to as, “doing figuring” and making financial transactions.’” It wasn’t until the early twentieth-century that bank jobs even opened to women, which was similar to the same time the powerful rise of women in literature began. The access to higher education allowed women to explore and be educated in broader topics and stretch their intellectual abilities. Female writers could write in ways that were relevant and imaginative.
Novel weren’t the only form of writing women did to promote female voices and advocate for the women’s suffrage movement. Many magazine and newspapers articles were published that inspired other women to use their voices for change. For example, “The Woman Journal” made by Lucy Stone in 1870, has been publishing news devoted to the interest of women for decades. It voiced women’s suffrage for almost 50 years and highlighted women’s achievements.
At the turn of the century women in literature caused many factors in the women’s rights movement, by incorporating modernism to advocate for themselves, fight for access to higher education, and strive for independence both economically and socially. Breaking gender norms and challenging the fulfillment that many believed only came from being a wife and motherhood, women worked together to create an environment where they could be heard and pushed to importance onto society. These writers and characters still push the world we live in today to stay aware of the power behind women’s words and learn from the past in literature.
References
Friedan B. [The Feminine Mystique, Typescript Draft] : Notes; Printed Book 0.; 2018. https://primo.rowan.edu/permalink/01ROWU_INST/mgcbt1/alma9921325894805201
Woolf V. A Room of One’s Own. Ktoczyta.pl; 2020. https://primo.rowan.edu/permalink/01ROWU_INST/jg5vjd/alma9921533908205201
Stein G. Three Lives. The Floating Press; 2011. https://primo.rowan.edu/permalink/01ROWU_INST/jg5vjd/alma9921443676005201
Katz, M.B., Stern, M.J., & Fader, J.J. (2005). Women and the Paradox of Economic Inequality in the Twentieth-Century. Journal of Social History 39(1), 65-88. https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/10/article/187573
Livermore MA (Mary A, Howe JW, Stone L, Higginson TW, eds. Woman’s Journal (Boston, Mass. : 1870).; 1870. https://primo.rowan.edu/permalink/01ROWU_INST/mgcbt1/alma9921550794805201
Counterintuitive Fall 2024 
It’s capable and clear in its intent, Andarnaurram, and the language is clean and serviceable, all of which go together to earn a solid B. For better grades, essays need to be more specific than this one, which opts for broad generalizations in every paragraph, almost every sentence.
Several paragraphs in a row, for example, use the terms and phrases like “changed social expectations, and “gender norms,” and “female autonomy” and “representation in everyday culture,” and “how society reacted to them,” and “the social norm,” and “difficulties women face,” and “trying to achieve things,” and “societal constraints,” and “their own lives and experiences,” and “the rise of women in literature,” and “different ways of story telling,” and “address the lives of women,” and “have different narratives,” and “their own thoughts and experiences,” and “address topics that had previously been avoided.”
I apologize for hammering you, there, but I thought I might need to be very blunt to help you feel how your reader—even a reader like me who is very eager to learn what you have to share—struggles to VISUALIZE or FEEL what it is you mean by all these generalities.
Betty Friedan is the best source for specific details here, and only because of her two little phrases: her husband’s wife, her children’s mother, or something like that: pithy and to the point. The other detail that sticks in the mind is that women were thought to have no interest in “figuring.” But . . . wouldn’t it be MUCH BETTER to be told that until 18xx, whatever the year was, women COULDN’T sign deeds, or own real estate, or borrow money, without a male co-signer?
We get no idea what those “previously avoided” topics are. We need to be told if you want to hang on to readers. Did women lead armies in the new books, or have affairs, or murder their husbands, rob banks, invent new machines, explore the Amazon?
Finally, you can’t just toss in the term “modernism” without some explanation of what you mean by it. I looked in vain for your description and have no clue what “different ways of story telling” might mean. Surely male writers for centuries had been speaking “on deep psychological topics regarding their characters,” so, are you suggesting that modernism IS WOMEN writing on the inner lives of their characters?
Again, some or all of that would boost your grade to or toward the grade you may be seeking. If you’re satisfied that this represents the best work you can accomplish in the time you’ve left yourself, I’m satisfied too, just disappointed, because I wanted to work with you on this essay and we’ve run out of days and steam.