One of the major issues that feminists raise is that we should not use the masculine pronoun 'he' to represent both men and women. For most feminists, the use of the pronoun 'he' uses male experience as the standard by which the experience of both sexes is evaluated. It is a deeply rooted cultural attitude that ignores women's experiences and blinds us to women's points of view. Do we agree? I do. I wouldn't exactly consider myself a feminist, but I do believe that it is just as easy to write 'they' or 'them' or 'us' as it is to write 'he' or 'she.' Why does there have to be a distinction in gender when the population as a whole is being discussed.
Another area that is affected by this attitude is the fact that before the struggle for women's equality finally emerged in literary studies in the late 1960s, the literary works of white male authors describing experience from a white male point of view was considered the standard of universality (representative of the experience of all readers) and universality was considered a major criterion of greatness. Those holding up this standard of greatness didn't believe that they were being unfairly discriminatory; they simply believed they were rejecting literary texts that were not universal, that were not great. This is understandable because at the time, white males dominated everything about the American culture. However, now that women have the same equal rights as men, I believe that women should also have an equal say in the universality of literature. Do we agree? I do.
I agree with you on both points. I would consider myself a feminist and I agree that women are often oppressed in literature. Unfortunately, the oppression is often not thought about. For your second point, the idea of promoting women's point of view in literature, I think that is very important. Many of the books that we consider classics and that we read now are from a male perspective. We can look at the classics such as The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye, The Sun Also Rises, and other great American classics that are taught in the classroom. Books that are common today such as Harry Potter and Eragon are written from a male point of view. We as future educators need to make sure our students (both male and female) have the option to read books from both perspectives, and make sure that there are several different types of genres from both points of views as well.
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