Women Writers and Banned Books–Reflections from the Brooklyn Book Festival

Lois Lowry

“Lois Lowry is a WOMAN!?”

This surprised exclamation came from my best friend, looking at a bookmark I have tacked up on my wall from this year’s Brooklyn Book Festival. And her surprise came as no surprise to me.

What do these Y.A. authors have in common?

• S.E. Hinton
• K.A. Applegate
• J.K. Rowling

They’re all female. And they all used their first and middle initial for their pen name because they/their publisher were afraid that if consumers knew they were female, their books wouldn’t sell.

Perhaps things are changing, and female Y.A. authors don’t have to struggle as much to find success in spite of their gender. Stephanie Meyer hit it big with Twilight. Cassandra Clare’s City of Bones just got made into a film as well. And of course, there’s Suzanne Collins and The Hunger Games. But these books are all from the perspective of female characters, primarily marketed to female readers–in contrast to the authors listed above, who are know for The Outsiders, Animorphs and Harry Potter, respectively. No, Lois Lowry didn’t use a pen name, but perhaps the fact that her first name is gender-ambiguous helped allow for the commercial success of The Giver (and her many other critically acclaimed Y.A. novels). What’s the problem with reading books by women? Though Teresa de Lauretis was referring to academic texts when she quoted Elizabeth A. Flynn and Patrocinio P. Schweickart in her chapter “The Technology of Gender,” the quote rings true here: “it is not that men can’t read women’s texts; it is, rather, that they won’t.”

Though I missed what seemed like an awesome panel at the Brooklyn Book Festival called “The So-Called ‘Post-Feminist, Post-Racial’ Life in Publishing,” I did read Deborah Copaken Kogan’s article in The Nation that inspired it: “My So-Called ‘Post-Feminist’ Life in Arts and Letters” (I recommend taking the time to read it yourself. It’s worth it.). In the article, Kogan not only cites the quantitative data proving the patriarchy of publishing, but speaks to her personal experience as well. As she writes, “Men are still the arbiters of taste, the cultural gatekeepers, and the recipients of what little attention still gets paid to books.” Though her article was focused on adult literary fiction, watching Lois Lowry in a dialogue with K.A. Applegate–KATHERINE Applegate–forced me to consider how pervasive this problem is.

In thinking about Y.A. literature, is seems the issue of banned books is not altogether unrelated to issues of gender and sexuality in publishing. The Hunger Games itself, of course, was placed on many banned books lists–for being anti-ethnic; anti-family; insensitive; containing offensive language; being occult/satanic; and/or containing violence. However, the most dishonest and problematic aspect of The Hunger Games for me (a diehard fan) was the erasure of sexuality (as I mentioned in my post on Feminism and Health in The Hunger Games). But of course, had Katniss ever had sex with Peeta or Gale (or even considered it) in The Hunger Games series, not only would the novel have made it onto alot more banned books lists, it would never have been the commercial success it is. My mother didn’t ban me from reading Amelia Atwater-Rhodes as an 11-year-old because of the violence or offensive language–she banned it because of the sexual content (not that her ban was very effective given my access to the Brooklyn Public Library; or that the sexual content is graphic/distasteful/unnecessary–in my literary opinion, it isn’t).

[I’m still working through this connection between the discrimination faced by female writers and Y.A. books banned for their sexual content. But hopefully you see some of the same threads of connection that I do. My thinking on this was prompted by a panel I did get to attend at the Brooklyn Book Festival: “Celebrate Banned Books Week!” with who’ve had their books banned/censored over their sexual content (i.e. David Levithan, bestselling author of Two Boys Kissing).]

I’m tagging this post as a “Technology Diary” because I think books can be considered a kind of technology–and it seems in many ways they’re still dominantly created by men, for men. Of course, what we more traditionally think of as technology–eBooks, eReaders, and the widespread distribution and availability of writing via the internet–might be seen as breaking the male hold this field. What do you think?