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# 41 - Joanna Russ, How to Suppress Women's Writing (1984)
I love this work for its subversive overview of literature. Russ talks about why women's writing doesn't make the canon of 'great' literature, about why the idea of a canon is ridiculous. The book bristles with anecdotes and glimpses of lost women writers.
And it's a snappy, funny read, which is unusual in the area of literary criticism (with the exception of Marxist Terry Eagleton).
But the racism! Oh dear, the racism! Russ gets to the end of her book and then, in the Afterword, realises she has left out black people so she adds a series of quotes from black writers compiled at the last minute (and not actually about the experience of writing).
I am conflicted here. On one hand, kudos to her for realising (albeit belatedly) that she had overlooked a massive group of writers. On the other, couldn't she have done more? It's really the very definition of tokenism. But on my third hand, she does do a waaaaay better job of incorporating race in her later work - *What Are We Fighting For?: Sex, Race, Class, and the Future of Feminism* (1997) - so maybe that is where we should turn.
I love this work for its subversive overview of literature. Russ talks about why women's writing doesn't make the canon of 'great' literature, about why the idea of a canon is ridiculous. The book bristles with anecdotes and glimpses of lost women writers.
And it's a snappy, funny read, which is unusual in the area of literary criticism (with the exception of Marxist Terry Eagleton).
But the racism! Oh dear, the racism! Russ gets to the end of her book and then, in the Afterword, realises she has left out black people so she adds a series of quotes from black writers compiled at the last minute (and not actually about the experience of writing).
I am conflicted here. On one hand, kudos to her for realising (albeit belatedly) that she had overlooked a massive group of writers. On the other, couldn't she have done more? It's really the very definition of tokenism. But on my third hand, she does do a waaaaay better job of incorporating race in her later work - *What Are We Fighting For?: Sex, Race, Class, and the Future of Feminism* (1997) - so maybe that is where we should turn.
