"Averse to personal publicity, we veiled our own names under those of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell; the ambiguous choice being dictated by a sort of conscientious scruple at assuming Christian names positively masculine, while we did not like to declare ourselves women, because—without at that time suspecting that our mode of writing and thinking was not what is called 'feminine' -- we had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice; we had noticed how critics sometimes use for their chastisement the weapon of personality, and for their reward, a flattery, which is not true praise." (from "The Biographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell, from the preface of the 1910 edition of Wuthering Heights.
“Feminafesto”
In the “Feminafesto”, Anne Waldman argues for the complete overhaul of modern discourse. Waldman claims that all language is inherently male and ultimately alienating of female writers and feminine audiences. Waldman points out that, “much feminist criticism has centered on the misogyny of literary practice”. Throughout literature women are portrayed as wither good or evil. We women are either “angels or nuns, mothers or nuns, daughters or whores.” Waldman would like to completely change use of the feminine in our language. Women should not be judged first against their own femininity before even being criticized fairly against their male counterparts. An author is first defined as male or female. Male authors are simple Mark Twain or Charles Bukowski. Their gender is not made glaringly obvious in the way that it is for female authors. Anne Waldman would not just be writer Anne Waldman, but female author Anne Waldman. The inclusion of the author’s sex causes the audience to pause and possibly even second guess the credibility of the female author. This double standard for women, Waldman argues, needs to be stopped completely. She proposes, “…a utopian creative field where we [women] are defined by our energy, not by our gender”.
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