Since the beginning of times, human beings have found various ways to expressthemselves and more specifically how to declare their feelings and emotions. Weall know that art (in a general term) is supposed to be the tool used forexpression. People from different communities, cultural backgrounds, andreligions, have been appealed to manifest and share their uniqueness throughart. Art, whether it was music, painting, sculpting or writing has been highlycensured through time because of its contents of truth. The majorities of asociety did not allow minorities to fully express themselves with fear ofmanifestations and revolts .
Women, as a minority have fought to tell the truth. In order to understand better the meaning of Womens writing, we will firstanalyze the factors that pushed women to write, then we will go over theobstacles that women encountered and finally, we will discuss what the writerswanted to achieve through their writing. Factors that pushed women to write”There are writers who need to make sense of the world theylive”(Dorothy Allison, Trash, p. 19.
) This sentence shows that the writerneeded to write to see and understand herself through writing. This young whitewoman was living a life filled with alcohol and drug addiction, she tried toescape that trap by fooling herself and by rebuilding a total new idealisticimage of her person (working as a social worker. ) However, throughout herprogression, she has been writing everything about herself on a yellow pad,whatever she would do, wherever she would be, those yellow pads were there, as arepresentation of her truth. She could fool herself, but not her yellow pads,her truth was written there. Allison as many women in the world has been tryingto hide her suffering. Constantly fooling herself, she still had to yell out hertruth, this, by spreading her pain on paper.
However, the papers were taboo,just like someone would litter an embarrassing amount of trash. Allison had totake out her story and anger, even if they were full of shame. She could notlive without writing, it was a matter of survival. This urge to write was sharedby some other women writers. The search of an understanding was the factor thatpushed Bell Hooks to write “I began to feel uncertain, displaced, estrangedeven, this was the condition of my spirit when I decided to be a writer, to seekfor that light in words” (Bell Hooks, remembered ruptures, p.
15) after thatshe declares “Searching for a space were writing could be understood, Iasked for a diary” (Bell Hooks, remembered ruptures, p. 15. ) Writing was away to understand herself a little like Dorothy Allison, a way to look atones own person in a global manner, from a different angle, in other words, away to be objective about oneself situation. Not only do women write forthemselves with the thought that nobody can understand them, but they also writefor others, a way to make a declaration to the world, a way to change the truthby saying it .
In her writings, Sandra Cisneros implies that she wants to changethe world. In her book “The House on Mango Street” she declares thatshe wants to leave the unpleasant neighborhood of Mango street, however, shesays that she will come back, probably not physically, but at least trough herbook. Coming back might mean that she wanted to do something to change Mangostreet, and that is trough her book, thats why she wrote it. Edwidge Danticattells us how her desire to write was consuming her in a society where Womenswriting was absolutely forbidden, something to do in the corner. Danticatlearned how her female ancestors have been expressing themselves through nothingelse than cooking, hair braiding or even carving potatoes.
But she wanted toperpetuate the creativity of her ancestors, she just needed to do it throughwriting. “It was their whispers that pushed you, their murmurs over potssizzling in your head. A thousand women urging you to speak through the blunttip of your pencil. ” (Edwidge Danticat, Kirk? Krak! p. 8.
) By writing, shewould have passed along a culture, just like braiding or cooking. However, herwriting was threatening “the natural functioning” of a patriarchalsociety. Whether women write for themselves or for others, the main matter isthat they write for an urge of understanding. There is a clear desire ofcomprehension. Obstacles that women encountered In her paper “A Room
