WHY WOMEN'S FICTION IS SO IMPORTANT

I'm such a fan of history and I bask in the opportunity every time I get a chance to go to the museum and step inside of an old train car that feels like it literally transports me back to the 1800's or seeing exhibits of how people hunted for food or even the clothing they wore. Even though, I'm what you would consider an 80's baby; also a product of Baby Boomers, I am still excited and eager to learn more about the past. It tells a story on so many levels for which I can make more sense of my existence.

But sometimes, I find it extremely saddening that history continues to repeat itself in a way that we have yet seemed to learn from. In the wake of the recent Abortion Laws of 2019, women are still being forced to make decisions about their well-being at the hands of their male counterparts. This is why I feel women's literature/fiction is so important. Even in literature, women are not always taken seriously and the value appears to decrease even in the positioning of women's literature in the bookstores. Now when I speak of value, I'm not speaking in terms of who actually purchases these books because statistics show that women are the majority novel purchasers, but with regards to pricing. So much can be said about what a person values when the pricing standards are much lower than books written by men.

The disparity between men and women has been so ingrained in our psyches that we just assume that a woman really has nothing to talk about of substance in a women's fiction book so it might as well be priced lower. But women's fiction is so much more than that. Women's fiction provides a space to share experiences, empathy, understanding, and for your voice to be heard because we all know that fiction is still based upon some truth. If women's literature was praised and valued more, maybe that would spark a deeper understanding of the woman's experience and maybe even change the political landscape of our country. I don't have all the answers but maybe if those stories were valued more, we would be less likely to repeat those cycles that have proven to be detrimental to society as a whole.