by Madeleine Nesbitt

Despite the fact that the first known novel was penned by a woman, the devaluation of female-produced literature has presided over the literary arts since they came to exist. Women continue to go by initials in hopes of being taken for a man (example a: J.K. Rowling), and the 2013 VIDA Count points out that women are only 29% of book reviewers in Harper’s, and a notably awful 21% of authors reviewed in The New York Times Book Review.

In January, the hashtag #ReadWomen2014 called for recognition of the merits of women’s writing, and since then, other movements, like We Need Diverse Books, have noted further flaws in the publishing industry.

The fact remains, however, that the majority of books deemed ‘classic’ are written by men, and that female writers have a long way to go before the supposed meritocracy of the literary arts actually becomes one.

Take, for example, my English curriculum. I have been reading books for school since seventh grade, which gives me a solid four years of experience. In that time, it’s no struggle to count the number of women’s voices included in that mix: two. That’s right, besides Harper Lee and Mary Ann Evans, women authors are nonexistent.

So: the texts that teenagers are compulsed to read are rarely written by women. These are the books that teens are most likely to be exposed to, the books that we are forced to take in whether we like it or not. These are the books that supposedly have academic merit.

What this means for students, and especially girls, is that women’s voices aren’t necessary or wanted in academics. It means that women’s writing is seen as less valid, and that if you are woman who writes, you can never be as good as a man.

The omission of women authors is not based on how much well-written, academically appropriate material by women is available– while there may not be as much female-authored literature as there is male, there is plenty enough that having an English curriculum completely devoid of any women’s voices, as I did this year (my sophomore year of high school) is incomprehensible.

Every book by a woman read in school validates a teenage girl who might have thought her writing wasn’t good enough, and that is exactly what is needed. At a time where publishers complain that the disparity between published works by male and female authors is due to a lack of female writing, representation of female writing in high school curriculums is necessary to validate and inspire the next generation of female authors.

A woman’s voice is incredibly important to girls in the classroom– and even though we didn’t read any books by women in class this year, I saw the change that a woman can effect– it’s just that she was within the text, and not writing it.

There are a total of three boys in my English class, which means our many of our class discussions a feminist slant, and never was this more evident than when we read The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. At this point in the year, we had been starved completely of female characters– we had read three books about groups of teenage boys, which had probably had a grand total of five female characters combined, none of whom had come anywhere near to being “main.” We didn’t all love Hawthorne’s style, but everyone wanted to talk about Hester Prynne, the stubborn protagonist.

Our discussions about Hester and her on-and-off beau, Arthur Dimmesdale, were probably the best we had all year. We talked about slut-shaming and the stigma of female sexuality (albeit in less overt terms), about the trials of being a single mother, and about now Arthur Dimmesdale is a man-pain jerkbag. The presence of this one well-developed female character lit up the classroom for a few weeks– imagine what more women’s voices could do for a room full of teenage girls.

This is why we need to #readwomen– not just 2014, but every year. I need, and my peers need to hear from female authors, need to know that women’s writing will and should be taken just as seriously as men’s. We need to see our future in writing, and that future comes with an understanding that recognition is not solely for men.