Are Women Capable of Writing “Big Idea” Books?

January 9th, 2009 · 7 Comments · General

Why are all the “big idea” books written by men? And for that matter, why isn’t any of the “serious” travel literature written by women? Book reviewer Geraldine Greer has an opinion on the first question. When talking about Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book, Outliers: The Story of Success, Greer commented:

“His maleness resounds from every monomaniacal sentence. There is no answer to everything, and only a deluded male would spend his life trying to find it.” Women, she said, are too sensible to try to write such broad-sweep theses. “They are more interested in understanding than explaining, in describing rather than accounting for.”

I don’t really care for the old fashioned feminist world view that determines the value of something by looking at the gender of the person who said it or invented it. But at the same time, it does seem that women tend to write certain types of books, while men stick to others. Of course there is overlap. But why is it, do you think, that women don’t tend to write “big idea” books or, more relevant to this blog, travel literature to less traveled countries or that are more analytical in nature (as opposed to those more akin to a memoir).

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7 responses so far ↓

1 Roberta // Jan 10, 2009 at 2:10 pm

Recognizing that a generalization is just that, I would say that in general women tend to be focused on micro issues and men on macro.
2 Fern // Jan 11, 2009 at 8:03 pm

Hmmm, interesting insight. I think you could be right.
3 Anna // Jan 12, 2009 at 12:23 pm

In general I think women do and have written “big idea” books but their recognition may pass quickly. I can’t think of several “big idea” books, but they aren’t travel type books.

More specifically to travel I wonder if Westerners see more danger in travel than they used too. As a woman, your gender can sometimes be a determinant in where you travel. I once, as a single woman, would venture to far-flung small countries. But now, I would not. All based on the state of the world.
4 Anna // Jan 12, 2009 at 12:24 pm

Ack~ I meant to say: “I can think of several…” not *can’t*
5 Fern // Jan 12, 2009 at 8:18 pm

Anna — Just out of curiosity, what books are you thinking of? I think you’re right about gender determining where you travel. I think the only countries I’d travel to alone are European or North American. Even Mexico outside of the really touristy areas is a little nerve rattling for me. They are having a really big problem with kidnapping.
6 Mimi // Jan 12, 2009 at 11:32 pm

The first name that springs to mind is that of Freya Stark, a British explorer who traveled extensively in the Middle East during the late 1920s and 30s. She wrote over 24 books that opened windows to the history, cartography, and archeology of areas that Western MEN had never attempted to access. I love her writing, too. She made no apology for being a woman with a woman’s interests - in getting harem wives to talk, she’d fall back on “the thrice-blessed subject of clothes” (National Geographic Magazine would love an article on harem wives today, I’ll bet). Yet she was so strong in her self as to identify her emotion on realizing that she was the only “white” person within hundreds of kilometers: happiness.

Here are a couple of links that may interest you, Fern.

http://www.iexplore.com/res/explorer_stark.jhtml

and
http://www.womenwriters.net/editorials/index.htm

While Freya Stark was an exceptional person, women are living lives dedicated to big ideas, and writing about them, all the time. Philosopher/essayist Susan Sontag, naturalist Diane Fossey, historian Barbara Tuchman in our times - Virginia Woolfe, whose quiet voice advocating a woman’s right to personal space magnified over time into a seminal call for women’s right to an identity of our own - and earlier, Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose work seems incredibly old-fashioned now, but whose “Uncle Tom” helped change the fate of Black people in the U.S.

OK, this is turning into an essay - I just hope it’s interesting to you. But to wind up, I think it’s women’s style of writing that seems less legitimate to publishers, and that’s why we hear less of women with big ideas. Here’s another link, to an article titled “Can Women Writers Survive the Creative Writing Workshop?”

http://www.womenwriters.net/editorials/Weiser1.htm
7 Fern // Jan 15, 2009 at 3:19 pm

Mimi — Funnily enough. Freya Stark was mentioned several times in Eastward to Tartary. I’ll have to check her out. Maybe I’ll read one of her books at the same time as reading a contemporary book about the same region and compare and contrast the two author’s experiences.