On Reversing the Legacy of Struggles for Women: One Story at a Time

by Mandira Pattnaik

Briana Tozour

Greetings on International Women’s Day, dear friends! I hope you’re finding ways to celebrate, no matter where you are. While this may not feel like a time to celebrate anything, let us remember that the hope and connection we foster with one another can bring comfort and light.

It is not a holiday in India, where I live, and honestly, I’m baffled that it isn’t. How can we claim to honor women when several Asian nations, including China, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan, have the decency to recognize it with an official holiday? Do we really not care about our women in India? Perhaps we do, but not enough. Sure, we’ve made strides in women’s empowerment since independence, but the patriarchal mindset that plagues both men and women remains stubbornly intact. I faced my most humiliating experience at work — yes, from a woman, my boss — on International Women’s Day many years ago. And honestly, I still can’t erase that memory. But thankfully, I have consolation in a quote attributed to Toni Morrison, delivered in 1979 in an address to the Barnard class: “I am alarmed by the willingness of women to enslave other women.”

To observe IWD meaningfully, I engage with narratives crafted by women. In 2022, I highlighted five such accounts in a blog post — International Women’s Day 2022: 5 Stories You Must Read — each representing a significant contribution to flash fiction by esteemed female writers. The positive reception underscores the fact that there are profound experiences uniquely understood by women. In this context, it is fair to mention that stories and essays by women and/or about women have long captivated female readers. Women authors have some truly devoted women followers. On top of this list, arguably, is Sylvia Plath. It is widely recognized that Sylvia Plath’s audience was mainly composed of women, though some critics refer to these readers as “cultists” or “misguided young women.” The complex reality is that Ted Hughes and Plath were married from 1956 until her untimely death in 1963. After her passing, Hughes assumed control over her entire oeuvre — both published and unpublished — pointing to the troubling implications of male ownership and appropriation in society. Hughes, it is alleged, deliberately constructed an image of Plath as a troubled, death-obsessed artist while advancing his own literary career. Emily Van Duyne, in her essay “Communion of Women Who Know What She Went Through,” critiques Hughes for promoting this skewed portrayal of Plath to the public and subsequently shifting blame for the resulting misconceptions onto others, including her friends, family, and her women readers and followers in general.

Agatha Christie, Jane Austen and Margaret Atwood have had a similar kind of almost maniacally devoted readership as Plath. Therefore, women writers have a prominent percentage of women readers to cater to, as proven multiple times. A 2021 study by Nielsen Book Research found that, of the 10 bestselling male authors, readership was roughly evenly divided by gender, with 55% male readers and 45% female readers. In contrast, only 19% of the 10 bestselling female authors’ readers were male, compared to 81% female. The same article suggests that women-majority judging panels in literary contests are more likely to choose both men and women as winners, but sadly, it says, quoting novelist Kamila Shamsie: “And the male judges are largely putting forward books by other men.”

I believe that points us to two directions as reflected in our society. For one, men, because of their restricted reading experience, might not have the knowledge or understanding of the same issues that women around the world face, which might hamper relationships, jeopardize policy-framing by our leaders (also, largely constituting of men) and thereby, most importantly, keep women in a secondary position to men. And secondly, this statistic might point to the state and condition of women worldwide. They are historically repressed, more inner-looking and more in need of a sisterhood than men, which is why they are looking at women writers to provide them the stories they want to read, and read stories about themselves no one has said aloud before.

It is intriguing why women aren’t as supportive of women as they should or could be in real life though. Say, if in the book awards Shamsie is talking about, if male judges are empirically choosing men as winners, why aren’t women doing the same as some sort of retaliatory as well as fair-balancing measure?

Coming back to my commitment of reading stories exclusively by women on International Women’s Day and spotlighting them in whatever way possible, I’m excited to celebrate this inspiring literary tradition. Allow me to share a few remarkable stories by and about contemporary women writers, some of whom I’ve known personally. The remarkable Frances Ogamba is one such writer, someone whose journey is genuinely inspiring. I’ve followed her work for over three years now, but only recently discovered her 2023 award-winning nonfiction piece Here’s to the Breed of Flying Hens! — which partially traces her difficult journey from Nigeria to where she’s now. Ogamba tells the story of her own mother who left to attend graduate school, and her diluted memories of her mother during that time. She recalls her mother’s insistence on valuing her self-worth in a world that forces women into having to make some terrible choices, including between one’s ambition and societal obligations. The piece then portrays her own dilemma: Ogamba must take up a fellowship abroad she has been offered but she must leave her two toddler sons behind — and the maternal love is tearing her apart. I’m happy Ogamba was offered the choice and she succeeded in realizing her dreams through the support and understanding of her immediate family. Sadly, as women, many of us can’t say the same about our mothers or our immediate families. Since Ogamba is an alumna of Purple Hibiscus Creative Writing Workshop taught by Chimamanda Adichie, and we’re talking of contemporary women writers, Adichie herself must receive spotlighting. Her debut novel, titled Purple Hibiscus, tells the story of a 15 year old Nigerian teenage girl who struggles in the shadow of her father, Eugene. The father figure is a successful businessman, a beloved philanthropist, and a devout Catholic, who nevertheless violently abuses his family. We are, once again, sadly reminded that we are confronted with the issues of gender, familial violence and repression that can no longer be shoved under the carpet.

The connection between these two accomplished Nigerian women writers lies in their relocation to the United States, where they pursued their aspirations while also dedicating efforts to support and cultivate talent from their home country. In contrast, I am pained to note that Indian women writers who have gained recognition abroad lack a similar sense of community and advocacy; only a limited number actively promote emerging voices from India. The proactive stance taken by Nigerian women writers ensures the advancement of future generations.

Third on my list is a story about grief by a woman writer I’ve only just discovered. Kiely Todd Roska is a hospice chaplain from Minnesota. In “Grief Is A Question,” Roska has a very interesting structure, with a set of questions in each section. The questions are hard-hitting and thought-provoking, forcing a reaction from readers based on what stage of life one might be in, and response might be prompted from their cumulative set of experiences. Similarly thought-provoking, and at the same time, disturbing, is Shlagha Borah’s Devotee. It mentions several Hindu temples in India while chronicling the devotion of a mother to her religion. The mother is accompanied by her daughter, who watches helplessly as her mother is ill-treated by men. The mother’s one wish is for a son (again, gender injustice) for which she endures these vile acts, creating a deep irony. Borah is from Assam, India, and she’s an MFA candidate in poetry at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. I found both these pieces to be texts that only women could have written. Such is the intimacy in these pieces that readers feel drawn in, even as the writing subtly nudges discerning readers to consider the underlying issues.

Finally, let us read together Lucy Zhang’s 2021 Doro Böhme Memorial Contest winner How to Get Married at 22. Elegantly told, and replete with nanoscopic details, this nonfiction work has stayed with me for a very long time. As a woman, the narrative is perfectly relatable on multiple levels, and speaks to several pressing gender issues. I’ll end by quoting the final lines of Zhang’s piece. It’ll give us a lot to think about this IWD — gender, mental makeup, conditioning, societal expectations, to name just a few:

Get married sixteen days before your birthday. Somehow it means more, that you get married while some of your peers are still in school. A wife at twenty-two rather than twenty-three is one more year’s worth of wife experience, not sixteen days more. You’ve always been efficient like that.