Journal Entry #1

Feminist writing, which is any literature across any genre that supports feminist thinking and objectives, plays an extremely vital role in connecting people across identities and experiences to theories of feminist thought and life. As feminism inherently intertwines topics of race, sexuality, ability, gender, nationality, class, size, age, and more, feminist texts explore a diverse range of topics in a diverse manner of ways, taking advantage of the breadth of our literary range for feminist means. But why is this necessary?

In non-feminist media, there is a recurrence in the type of people who are allowed to be represented positively, or as main characters in their own lives, and this trend emphasizes ideas of privilege and superiority amongst those key groups. Whose stories are told and in what ways directs our ability to empathize with one another and defines our subconscious or conscious perspective of who is allowed to matter, and this influences our day-to-day lives in insidious ways (Solnit 17).

An example of this can be seen in the way the media reacted in 2018 when a teenage boy fatally shot Jaelynn Willey, a fellow classmate, for rejecting his advances. “The newspapers labelled him ‘lovesick,’” Rebecca Solnit writes, “as though premeditated murder was just a natural reaction to being rejected by someone you dated” (Solnit 18). Gender plays a huge role in how situations like this are perceived and presented. When we see these stories and people react by shifting blame to the girl for rejecting him, or by framing murderers as somehow reasonable in their violence, this reinforces the narrative that women inherently owe men their bodies and their consent, while diminishing their own needs or wants (Solnit 19). This is why we need feminist writings – to shift the perspective on how we tell these stories and what narratives we reinforce.

Another important aspect of feminist texts is that they act as a refuge to those whose voices often go unheard. “I found a home in language and storytelling,” Viet Thanh Nguyen writes, and this home becomes a space for personal exploration when further confronted with writings beyond the generally accepted canon (Nguyen xvii). In feminist texts written by minorities and exploring decolonization, Nguyen found inspiration and a sense of justice and defiance that motivated him to do his own writing. Feminist texts not only serve to inform or broaden the narrative, but also inspire readers to likewise do the work that needs to be done to make the world a safer place for those who currently go unprotected.

There are numerous ways that feminist writings have had an impact, and one of the most prominent has been the publication of This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. This book, published in 1981, transformed the landscape of feminism with its distinct refusal to place gender above other important identities like race, sexuality, or ability (Gilley 35). In a landscape with a distinct focus on white women’s feminism, this book was a turning point in the way gender politics were discussed and understood. The publishing process itself was unique in that mass market rights and translation rights were restricted to only being sold to feminist, non-racist, non-sexist organizations. Contributors to the anthology were also compensated over the course of the book’s lifespan, which was and remains an unusual approach to this format (Gilley 36). Over the following years, the book would struggle to remain in print across three editions before being published by a non-feminist press for the first time in 2015 (Gilley 42). This Bridge and its publishing history tell the story of how feminist texts combined with active feminist ideals can be transformative and radical in not just thought and content but also method, which can have significant effects on an industry.

A further example of feminist writing in action can be found in the Latina Feminist Group, which began to meet in 1993 and ultimately created a book of their collected writings that was published in 2001 (Latina Feminist Group 1). Their work focused on connecting experience and identity across a shared group and diversifying the discussion of feminism regarding Women of Color, specifically Latinas, and recognizing the crucial complexity of identities across race, class, sexuality, age, ethnicity, and more (Latina Feminist Group 4). “Consequently, to theorize and write about our experiences, we must create our own social spaces,” the group posits, and they did, working, writing, and theorizing together across their differences to build a community for feminism and recognizing the history that had gone undocumented to keep alive what has always been there (Latina Feminist Group 6). Feminist writing can create community, offering a support system that encourages growth beyond the limits of individual identity.

In our world, there is a need for the voices that are suppressed to be heard the most. In feminist writing, across its many disciplines, those ideas and perspectives can affect real change just by existing and by being used to further spread ideas of equity and activism.

Works Cited

Gilley, Jennifer. “Feminist Publishing/Publishing Feminist: Experimentation in Second-Wave Book Publishing.” This Book Is An Action: Feminist Print Culture and Activist Aesthetics. University of Illinois Press, 2016.

Latina Feminist Group, “Introduction: Papelitos Guardados: Theorizing Latinidades Through Testimonio.” Telling to Live: Latina Feminist Testimonios, Duke University Press, 2001.

Nguyen, Viet Thanh. “Foreword.” Go Home!, The Feminist Press, 2018.

Solnit, Rebecca. Whose Story Is This? Old Conflicts, New Chapters. Haymarket Books, 2019.