How to Suppress Women's Writing 1st Edition

by Joanna Russ (Author)

10 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-0292724457

ISBN-10: 9780292724457

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"She didn't write it. She wrote it but she shouldn't have. She wrote it but look what she wrote about. She wrote it but she isn't really an artist, and it isn't really art. She wrote it but she had help. She wrote it but she's an anomaly. She wrote it BUT..." How to Suppress Women's Writing is a meticulously researched and humorously written "guidebook" to the many ways women and other "minorities" have been barred from producing written art. In chapters entitled "Prohibitions," "Bad Faith," "Denial of Agency," Pollution of Agency," "The Double Standard of Content," "False Categorization," "Isolation," "Anomalousness," "Lack of Models," Responses," and "Aesthetics" Joanna Russ names, defines, and illustrates those barriers to art-making we may have felt but which tend to remain unnamed and thus insolvable. With the apparent proliferation of women writers in the last decade, is this book still relevant? Ask yourself how many women you know who are trying to make art? And how many find the time, resources, and support to succeed? So long as poverty, lack of leisure, and sexism - those "powerful, informal prohibitions against committing art" - exist, How to Suppress Women's Writing remains timely. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14. -- From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Jesse Larsen

Review

"A quirky, irreverent, iconoclastic, idiosyncratic piece of work. It catalogues all the various attitudinal problems and misconceptions ...that allow us to disregard or even discard the artistic productions of women. By defining these patterns so clearly and succinctly, Russ holds a mirror before usa mirror in which we can see ourselves anew." (Annette Kolodny)

"A book of the most profound and original clarity. Like all clear-sighted people who look and see what has been much mystified and much lied about, Russ is quite excitingly subversive. The study of literature should never be the same again . . ." (Marge Piercy)

"Extraordinary and original ...feminist literary criticism rarely explores the social context in which literature is selected for posterity. This, Russ does persuasively, movingly, and in the finest of critical traditions." (Phyllis Chesler)

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Product details

Paperback: 160 pages
Publisher: University of Texas Press; 1 edition (September 1, 1983)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9780292724457
ISBN-13: 978-0292724457
ASIN: 0292724454
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.5 x 8.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 7.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 10 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #102,896 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #33 in Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Women Authors
- #51 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Women's Studies > Women Writers
- #71 in Books > Textbooks > Social Sciences > Gender Studies

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B R Sanders

You do not need to be steeped in literary criticism or feminist theory to read and understand Russ’ arguments

April 16, 2014

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

For reasons both good and bad, HOW TO SUPPRESS WOMEN'S WRITING by Joanna Russ reads like it could have been written yesterday. Actually, the book is older than me—published in 1983—but Russ’ smirking, clear-eyed perspective is still relevant.

HOW TO SUPPRESS WOMEN'S WRITING investigates historical and social reasons that may have kept whole generations of women from writing in the first place (things like differential rates of literacy, disparate access to education, women’s historical lack of leisure time and position as wife as a second work shift). She also interrogates how it is that when women somehow do manage to write that women’s writing is ignored, slandered or undercut. The book was published by the University of Texas Press, which puts it squarely in the realm of academic works, but the writing is colloquial and accessible throughout. You do not need to be steeped in literary criticism or feminist theory to read and understand Russ’ arguments here, which is a great strength.

She argues that what is considered “good” or “worthy” literature (and by extension, that which is taught and thus survives across generations) is designated as such by privileged groups who have a vested interest in keeping themselves privileged. The ways in which they limit entrance or access to literature are by mental acrobatics such as assuming women writers didn’t really write their works, or that it doesn’t matter if they wrote it because it’s the wrong kind of work, or that maybe they wrote it and maybe it’s good but it’s the only good thing she ever wrote. Some of this is deliberate, but just as much is unconscious bias. Each chapter is broken into one tactic that has been used to suppress women’s writing, and Russ packs her chapters full of anecdotes, survey results, and historical examples to support her claims. And, somehow, she does it with a wry and witty voice that makes the writing lively.

Still, the book is not a perfect one. It’s centered very squarely on white middle class women’s experiences. Russ occasionally throws in an anecdote about her friend and colleague, Samuel Delany, a Black scifi writer, but he himself is tokenized in the doing. Clearly throughout the text she attempts to draw parallels between gendered exclusions in literary circles and race-based exclusions, but Delany pops up over and over again as if he is the only Black writer she knows (and as if Black writers are the only voices who can counterpart the voices of white writers). White lesbian authors pop up far more frequently than writers of color, and women writers of color are virtually never mentioned in the main body of the text. This lack of intersectional focus irked me while I read it—it’s such a good book, and also such a clear example of the failings of second wave feminism. Russ uses the Afterword to acknowledge her failing here, directly addressing her unfamiliarity with and inability to capture the struggles of women writers of color. She talks about stumbling across a beautiful, rich treasure trove of writing by women of color—a parallel canon, as it were—which unintentional struck me as fetishizing and exoticizing of women of color’s experiences.

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Kelly Jensen (STACKED Books blog)

Still Relevant

May 9, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

How can a book written about sexism and suppressing the writing and work of women written in 1983 still be so relevant? More, Russ was keen on the intersections of oppression and spoke not just to sexism but also racism and classism. Should be read by those interested in reading and writing culture, as well as feminism.

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Hilary L. Hayes

Five Stars

September 8, 2015

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Brilliant. You will never look at culture the same way again.

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Trixie

Five Stars

January 20, 2016

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Interesting.

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Beth

Clear and honest and intelligent

June 23, 2016

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Clear and honest and intelligent. The only problem is that Russ's critique is still relevant decades later.

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Shadow Woman

FUNNY, INSIGHTFUL BOOK

September 7, 2000

Format: Paperback

This book about women and art is a very accurate commentary, peppered with plenty of humour. All of what Joanna Russ writes about rings true with me, and at the same time I wished it wasn't so. I've always known what she says to be as it is, but I just accepted it, and didn't really give it much thought. All narrow-minded literary scholars (and I've met plenty...so many college profs. are) should read this book, and hopefully it will open their mind.

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Jenny M. Raja

Spot on -

January 13, 2006

Format: Paperback

Having read the book (and the online reviews) I must comment that Russ's book is not a personal response to her own situation. Yes SF was male dominated (James Tiptree Jr. was a psuedonym used by a woman in the 50's and '60's so she could get published) but Russ is talking about womens' reception in the literary world in GENERAL. I find it interesting that the two negative reviews are not from people brave enough to sign in - they are also worded in a suspiciously similar fashion. It seems even books about feminist issues will be attacked by men who cannot understand the difference between general, historical issues and personal vendettas. Oye.

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Katherine A. Keller

The truth. The bitter, aching, naked truth.

November 30, 1998

Format: Paperback

Despite Russ' bitingly funny commentary and withering asides, in reading this book I found articulated so many things that I had always known and understood as givens. Women's writings have been systematically devalued, and so have women's contributions to academia. And, barring radical change, these trends will continue. (If nothing else, it explained the [outmoded and loathsome] world view of the English Department at my university.)
An important and eye opening work that should be read by all students and teachers of the Fine and Liberal Arts, but won't be, because, well, a woman wrote it. She wrote it, but...

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Most recent customer reviews

Amazon Customer

Monumental.

Had to read this for a master's class and was blown away by how good it was. If you like to challenge your patterns of thought, this is the book for you. Feminist masterpiece.

Published on April 2, 2001

afarmar@iol.ie K.R. Farmar

It will change the way you think. It's brilliant.

This book is amazing. I won't bore you with a list of superlatives (which would take up this entire review if I did) but I will simply say that Russ's insights into the...Read more

Published on September 5, 1998

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