“This Novel Changes Lives”: Are Women's Novels Feminist Novels? A Response to Rebecca O'Rourke's Article ‘Summer Reading’

Abstract

Over recent years we have been witness to a strange phenomenon, the emergence of what we may loosely call the 'feminist novel'. This phenomenon has involved the immense commercial success and popular appeal of some novels which claim explicit allegiance to the women's liberation movement. Some of these novels, like Marilyn French's The Women's Room and Sara Davison's Loose Change, even use the practice of 'consciousness-raising' as framing devices. These novels have been published alike by feminist publishing groups and commercial publishers yet the number printed of such novels is far in excess of the number printed of other forms of feminist writing: magazines, journals and political tracts. Accompanying the appearance of novels like these has been a practice, initiated by feminist publishing groups, of reprinting novels written by women who have fallen into relative oblivion. All these novels are read with pleasure and interest by feminists; they are frequently discussed informally. It seems as though, unlike many other contemporary political movements, feminism is accompanied by the development of a 'feminist culture'-something which is not confined to literature but is also evidenced by the proliferation of feminist theatre and film groups.