Friday, April 15, 2016
Concerto A (DoubleTree by Hilton Philadelphia Center City)
Women’s presence in the history of literature has been particularly conditioned by their place in society and by the limited spheres in which their production was expected to appear (e.g. the sentimental novel, romances or children’s literature). In contemporary society -digital, open and connected- women continue to face visibility problems in the publishing industry and in the online spaces that grant presence and agency. The visibility of women’s role in cultural creations is still hindered by vertical powers that operate as main censors and that determine what or how a woman should write. This circumstance takes place even if in the virtual space -whose rhizomatic and decentralized nature can be seen as an advantage- it has been highlighted by dissident discourses, although without enough discursive power to create a full disruption in those monolithic powers capable of isolating and making invisible whole social and cultural sectors. Forcing women’s invisibility, or limitating the scope of their production, in cultural spheres results in adverse, when not downright traumatic, situations for these authors. The present study addresses the phenomenon of the neutralization of the female author and the strategies developed by women writers in Europe (the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, and Portugal) in order to turn this situation around. It will pay special attention to Spanish case studies and their repercussions with regard to the social role of women writers in other fields.
