Maybe I Was Wrong...

I wrote my first blog amazed and proud of how far women had come in the area of literature, glad of that fact that women don't have to hide behind pseudonyms but now I see I may be wrong. Don't get me wrong women have come a long way from the restrictions they had but it may not be as far as I thought. Despite the advancements women have made, as a woman writer you can't help but wonder what you are losing out on just because of your name. There's always the possibility that you're not getting paid as much, published as much, or getting as much attention as you would if you were writing under the name of a man, especially in certain areas such as political writing, sports writing or other subjects that are normally male dominated. This concern extends farther than just writing too as Kirsten Anderberg says in her article she has always had jobs in male dominated fields.

http://users.resist.ca/~kirstena/pagewomenpseudonyms.html

"In the past, when women picked up a pen, they often picked up a pen name, too. "

Women have come a long way in all different areas of life. One such area where advancements are clear is in literature. In the past women could not publish their work under their name simply because people would not buy their books if it was written by a woman. Many great writers were forced to hide behind pseudonyms.

Today, women writers don't have to pretend to be men in order to get published. Any girl or woman (even one named Mudpie) can use her own name. Thanks to women like George Eliot and A. M. Barnard, girls and women can write what they want and be whoever they want to be.

Thanks to women such as Mary Ann Evans (George Elion) and Louisa May Alcott (A.M. Barnard) we can write and be published today. These women proved that they could write just as well as men despite the fact that they weren't men. They helped pave they way for so many women to come but their success did not come without a price. Both these women (and I'll go into more detail about each in later blogs) suffered criticism from friends, family, and the public for "writing books inappropriate for a woman".
Today we take what these women did for granted.

http://search.rdsinc.com/texis/rds/suite2/+cdehtTveoxbtqA68n+9hhnW+xFqnwcMwNFqnh1cc/full.html

Here's a list of just some of the many women who paved the way for women writers today with pseudonyms.

http://www.gurl.com/showoff/spotlight/pages/0,,670630,00.html