What do you reason to be the reason for the gap in proliferation between published men and women until recent history?
I alluded to it in my original post: from the depression to the 60's there was a stigma of 'communist' to women authors, and the red scare kept women from developing a voice of thier own for most of this century. As for writers of the 19th century... It's important to note that prior to the industrial revolution two things were happening: 1) most people didn't read, because books were insanely expensive 2) most people were illiterate. Links I found last night to bolster this argument (I was puting the boys to bed, and I didn't include them, and I'm at work now so I don't want to spend the time finding them) suggest that in the 18th century LITERACY rates were about 40% and 50% for women and men respectively. In the nineteenth century the expansion of seminaries, and other religious based schools tasked with rising literacy and education in general rost that number to about 80% 90% by the end of the century. Now, given the industrial revolution was in full swing at this point, it was actually reasonable create a market for books (by teaching both men and women to read) as they'd actually have something to read other than the bible.
I refuse to believe, and you've not offered a shred of evidence to suggest that the publishers arguably mostly men had any reason to go against their economic best interest by not printing books by women authors. It is far more likely (IMHO) that
1) there was little demand for books as most people could either not literate or not able to afford them. This lead to a preponderance of 'academic' texts as they'd be 'worthy' of someone ponying up the dough to buy them. Now why are there few women 'academic' texts? I'm guessing it's because women, like all people really, really like having sex, and given the lack of birth control they were likely to get pregnant. Now while women who were able to afford books likely had servants to care for the children, motherhood still smokes women, and given they'd likely have 3-6 kids and have an insanely high risk of dying at each instance, who'd have the time to a) get an education as it was very expensive, b) stay focused long enough to have something to say.
2) 1) above lead to not having any sort of 'literary' tradition to speak of on any sort of mass appeal, women or otherwise, until well towards the end of the 19th century, when you see a burgeoning of both male and female. It hit a high point in the early 20th century (see my orginal post for that anthology I was refering to... with the exception of 'the yellow wallpaper' none of the authors you lised are in the book), and tragically according to my (albeit single) source they were almost uniformly socialists or communists. It's my suspicion that woman writers were far more likely to be communists than male, and hence far more likely to get blackballed then men.
Mmm seminary schools that only taught women how to be good Christian wives or good Christian teachers!
You are rewriting history with a decidedly modern bend... Most men attended these same colleges. In fact until Lincoln created the land-grant act that founded state institutions, ALL colleges had religious affiliations. There was a time, when 'Christian' was synonymous with 'Liberal' as the teaching of Christ were usually associated with forgiveness, not venom as it is today.
Also, think of the times pre darwin, when EVERYONE believed that the world was 5000 years old, Adam and Eve were the first two people, etc... the age of science hadn't yet killed off God...
But, women's chance to lead productive lives were considerably lower than a man's... for no other reason than fear, religious dogma, hatred/intolerance/lack of consideration, and historical precedence.
Nonsense. It was fear of death in childbirth, and women seeing the need of some support during pregnancy being pragmatic about their chances of survival without someone who had a direct stake (i.e. the father of their children) in their survival.
You didn't explain the gap between the proliferation of male and female authors.
Copied from wiki article "literacy" sub cat "history of literacy": England in 1841, 33% of men and 44% of women signed marriage certificates with their mark as they were unable to write. of course that is England but its what I found first.
So, more than half were able to read/write... at least, a little. The 11% drop in literacy rates for women does not translate into authoring only 1-3% of published works of the time. Women were mostly socialists authors? That may make some sense for the early 20th century era (Socialism didnt really get a bad name until the 30s) but I think I mentioned SPECIFICALLY the gap until the beginning of the 20th century when women started to really take a foodhold in the publishing world and became more than the rare case.
If companies don't think it will sell, they won't invest in it. Companies have shot themselves in the leg MANY times making the wrong decision about particular people or particular products. If publishers didn't think books authored by women would turn a profit, they wouldn't bother with them. Publishers were willing to publish letters and diaries of women, but fiction was another story until the 1870s.. and even then was exceptionally rare... until they noticed the profit and interest and started publishing more female authors... which snowballed for decades as they realized people didn't care WHO wrote the book as long as it was good.
No, books were not "average" for the lower class families to own. There were only the two classes until the industrial revolution. You either had money or you didn't. People who could eat while NOT working a hard labor job, were oftentimes academics, though. Libraries were a sign of status and education was becoming a notable pursuit at a time when science and world travel were changing the way people thought about life and their world.
You linked me to the history of colleges in America... I read it. Did you? First truly academic co-ed college was 1833. Women and men MOSTLY went to other colleges,.. which is why many of the top colleges started coordinating women's colleges. It was rare for men and women to attend the same college. And the training given to women in most seminary colleges was not the same offered at academic colleges/universities.... and most women went to seminary colleges, which, like a quoted, was meant to train women for two things: to be Christian wives and Christian teachers. SOME classes taught to men were also taught to women in these universities, but the crossover was not wide.
this book seems to hold alot of the information we're looking for. Hehe.
It wasn't until the mid 19th century that married women owned their own copyrights/patents, own their wage, or inherit directly from their father/husband... and it seems like THATS when women started getting educations, going to advanced/academic universities and organizing themselves. It looks like a perfect catalyst for women to LEARN... they had money of their own for the first time and didn't have to ASK to go to school, they could just go if the funds were available. That IS when everything blossomed, women started writing, most colleges for women popped up and the ball got rolling.
Christian was always Christian, mid line just like today. Its the affilation with sects that leans liberal/conservative. Deists were liberals, transcendentalists were liberals... the academic colleges like Harvard were affiliated with such things, but the smaller seminary schools you're referring to were most likely Roman Catholic or Methodist who were the conservatives of their day.
Pish posh on your last statement. Women were owned THROUGHOUT their lives until the early 1800s. First their fathers or brothers, who sold them to a husband. Where does fear of childbirth and pregnancy calculate into an 8 yr old girl being OWNED and accepting it? Or a 60 yr old woman being OWNED and accepting it? For the rich, it was protection from poverty, (Disownership was possible, but when you cant own property, being on your own means death, sickness and/or prostitution) for the poor it was... "this is what life is". And if they DIDN'T accept it and their owner wanted to enforce it... then, beatings, rape, sold into white slavery, or their death happened. Rich AND poor.
Also, just so I don't sound like a feminazi... heh,... many women DID want families, did want husbands and were perfectly ok with having no property rights, no rights to their children and no right to vote, no right to an education, and no right to choose their own husband. It was the way things were, it was accepted and many were fine with the way things were. Not ALL women wanted to write or go to school,... lucky women with forward thinking owners husbands/fathers were given many benefits outside the accepted system, too.
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no subject
Date: 2007-09-20 05:58 pm (UTC)I alluded to it in my original post: from the depression to the 60's there was a stigma of 'communist' to women authors, and the red scare kept women from developing a voice of thier own for most of this century. As for writers of the 19th century... It's important to note that prior to the industrial revolution two things were happening: 1) most people didn't read, because books were insanely expensive
2) most people were illiterate. Links I found last night to bolster this argument (I was puting the boys to bed, and I didn't include them, and I'm at work now so I don't want to spend the time finding them) suggest that in the 18th century LITERACY rates were about 40% and 50% for women and men respectively. In the nineteenth century the expansion of seminaries, and other religious based schools tasked with rising literacy and education in general rost that number to about 80% 90% by the end of the century. Now, given the industrial revolution was in full swing at this point, it was actually reasonable create a market for books (by teaching both men and women to read) as they'd actually have something to read other than the bible.
I refuse to believe, and you've not offered a shred of evidence to suggest that the publishers arguably mostly men had any reason to go against their economic best interest by not printing books by women authors. It is far more likely (IMHO) that
1) there was little demand for books as most people could either not literate or not able to afford them. This lead to a preponderance of 'academic' texts as they'd be 'worthy' of someone ponying up the dough to buy them. Now why are there few women 'academic' texts? I'm guessing it's because women, like all people really, really like having sex, and given the lack of birth control they were likely to get pregnant. Now while women who were able to afford books likely had servants to care for the children, motherhood still smokes women, and given they'd likely have 3-6 kids and have an insanely high risk of dying at each instance, who'd have the time to a) get an education as it was very expensive, b) stay focused long enough to have something to say.
2) 1) above lead to not having any sort of 'literary' tradition to speak of on any sort of mass appeal, women or otherwise, until well towards the end of the 19th century, when you see a burgeoning of both male and female. It hit a high point in the early 20th century (see my orginal post for that anthology I was refering to... with the exception of 'the yellow wallpaper' none of the authors you lised are in the book), and tragically according to my (albeit single) source they were almost uniformly socialists or communists. It's my suspicion that woman writers were far more likely to be communists than male, and hence far more likely to get blackballed then men.
Mmm seminary schools that only taught women how to be good Christian wives or good Christian teachers!
You are rewriting history with a decidedly modern bend... Most men attended these same colleges. In fact until Lincoln created the land-grant act that founded state institutions, ALL colleges had religious affiliations. There was a time, when 'Christian' was synonymous with 'Liberal' as the teaching of Christ were usually associated with forgiveness, not venom as it is today.
Also, think of the times pre darwin, when EVERYONE believed that the world was 5000 years old, Adam and Eve were the first two people, etc... the age of science hadn't yet killed off God...
But, women's chance to lead productive lives were considerably lower than a man's... for no other reason than fear, religious dogma, hatred/intolerance/lack of consideration, and historical precedence.
Nonsense. It was fear of death in childbirth, and women seeing the need of some support during pregnancy being pragmatic about their chances of survival without someone who had a direct stake (i.e. the father of their children) in their survival.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-20 10:34 pm (UTC)Copied from wiki article "literacy" sub cat "history of literacy": England in 1841, 33% of men and 44% of women signed marriage certificates with their mark as they were unable to write. of course that is England but its what I found first.
So, more than half were able to read/write... at least, a little. The 11% drop in literacy rates for women does not translate into authoring only 1-3% of published works of the time. Women were mostly socialists authors? That may make some sense for the early 20th century era (Socialism didnt really get a bad name until the 30s) but I think I mentioned SPECIFICALLY the gap until the beginning of the 20th century when women started to really take a foodhold in the publishing world and became more than the rare case.
If companies don't think it will sell, they won't invest in it. Companies have shot themselves in the leg MANY times making the wrong decision about particular people or particular products. If publishers didn't think books authored by women would turn a profit, they wouldn't bother with them. Publishers were willing to publish letters and diaries of women, but fiction was another story until the 1870s.. and even then was exceptionally rare... until they noticed the profit and interest and started publishing more female authors... which snowballed for decades as they realized people didn't care WHO wrote the book as long as it was good.
No, books were not "average" for the lower class families to own. There were only the two classes until the industrial revolution. You either had money or you didn't. People who could eat while NOT working a hard labor job, were oftentimes academics, though. Libraries were a sign of status and education was becoming a notable pursuit at a time when science and world travel were changing the way people thought about life and their world.
You linked me to the history of colleges in America... I read it. Did you? First truly academic co-ed college was 1833. Women and men MOSTLY went to other colleges,.. which is why many of the top colleges started coordinating women's colleges. It was rare for men and women to attend the same college. And the training given to women in most seminary colleges was not the same offered at academic colleges/universities.... and most women went to seminary colleges, which, like a quoted, was meant to train women for two things: to be Christian wives and Christian teachers. SOME classes taught to men were also taught to women in these universities, but the crossover was not wide.
this book seems to hold alot of the information we're looking for. Hehe.
It wasn't until the mid 19th century that married women owned their own copyrights/patents, own their wage, or inherit directly from their father/husband... and it seems like THATS when women started getting educations, going to advanced/academic universities and organizing themselves. It looks like a perfect catalyst for women to LEARN... they had money of their own for the first time and didn't have to ASK to go to school, they could just go if the funds were available. That IS when everything blossomed, women started writing, most colleges for women popped up and the ball got rolling.
Christian was always Christian, mid line just like today. Its the affilation with sects that leans liberal/conservative. Deists were liberals, transcendentalists were liberals... the academic colleges like Harvard were affiliated with such things, but the smaller seminary schools you're referring to were most likely Roman Catholic or Methodist who were the conservatives of their day.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-20 10:39 pm (UTC)Also, just so I don't sound like a feminazi... heh,... many women DID want families, did want husbands and were perfectly ok with having no property rights, no rights to their children and no right to vote, no right to an education, and no right to choose their own husband. It was the way things were, it was accepted and many were fine with the way things were. Not ALL women wanted to write or go to school,... lucky women with forward thinking
ownershusbands/fathers were given many benefits outside the accepted system, too.