Gender aspect in autobiographical works (based on Vaye Musk’s novel “A woman makes a plan”)

Abstract

The gender peculiarities of female autobiographical writing on the basis of Maye Musk’s autobiographical novel “A woman makes a plan” are studied in the article. Special attention has been payed to the analyses of the gender writing studies of prominent scientists, namely the special features of the gender identity concept at the thematic level, male and female themes and the peculiarities of their presentation in the text. The results of research are supported by the examples and presented in two diagrams that show the correlation of male and female themes represented in the Maye Musk’s autobiographical novel “A woman makes a plan”. As it has been determined forbidden thematics which include description of women’s health, pregnancy, childbirth, violence in family are the most actively revealed in the novel and make up 23.5% of the total amount of themes. The theme of femininity, where the author focuses on describing female attractiveness, rejecting stereotypes about women, and describes her relationship with her mother, covers 22.9%. The career theme, which is typical for male writing, is represented by 17.0% and reveals the professional path of the author, highlighting victories and drawbacks in her career. The following themes namely the description of crisis situation and inner feelings (15.0%), the theme of family and childhood (9.2%) and the theme of motherhood and children (8.5%) are typical for female writing and belong to less presented thematics. The idealized description of father, which belongs to characteristic features of male writing, covers only 3.9%. It has been established that May Musk’s autobiographical novel combines themes of both male and female writing with female themes prevailing. Female thematics make up 79.1% and mаle themes cover only 20.9%. Among female thematics forbidden themes are the most actively revealed and among male thematics the theme of carreer prevails. This indicates that the author is a strong personality who overcomes the stereotypes of an ordinary woman and is able to update the model of a classical woman, demonstrating the strength of her character.