Women's Voice Still Struggles to be Heard

Celebrations to mark International Women's Day may be in full swing, however an academic at Edge Hill University feels there is still some way to go before they gain full recognition in one area in particular - literature.

While countries all over the world host events on March 8th to focus on, and remember, the struggle of women throughout the course of history, Dr Mari Hughes-Edwards - programme leader of the MA in Women?s Writing at the University - believes that female writers continue to be overlooked.

"The vast majority of the 39 Booker Prize winners have been male and we still haven?t had a female Poet Laureate in almost 400 years - they wouldn't give it to Carol Ann Duffy because she was a woman and a lesbian," said Dr Hughes-Edwards. "There's no doubting that women have made significant progress in society and the growing recognition of International Women's Day is a positive development, but I still feel there is work to be done.

"If people were asked to name three famous writers you get answers like 'Joyce, Keats and Lawrence? or 'Tennyson, Hardy and Wilde' - mostly male authors. There is still a vast amount of ignorance about the quality and variety of women's writing."

The MA Women's Writing programme at Edge Hill gives prominence to the female voice which has long been considered as an 'alternative? to the dominant patriarchy.

"Earning a living through writing was largely a male pursuit for many years with women only able to put pen to paper if they were under the control of progressive male relatives. Women in the medieval and Renaissance period had few rights over their own bodies and minds - yet still they wrote - and still their voices found their way onto the patriarchal world stage, albeit through the back door.

"Women writers such as Aphra Behn were largely responsible for the creation of the novel form - yet still academic English departments in this country marginalise them and instead teach 'development of the novel' courses which feature few, or no, female writers.

"Women writers have been just as prolific as their male counterparts for centuries now, yet they continue to struggle to get the recognition they deserve meaning the female voice is potentially as marginalised as it ever was."