When people say “Oh, you can tell this was written by a woman,” what do they actually mean? 

Is there really a difference in how men and women write?  

According to Helene Cixous, there is. Renowned French literary critic and feminist, Cixous postulated the theory of écriture féminine in her essay The Laugh of the Medusa in 1975.  

The theory centres around the idea that “woman must write herself,” meaning that women’s writing has something about it that’s unconsciously feminine.  

Aiming to combat the male-dominated literary canon, écriture féminine created a new writing style that truly reflected women’s experiences and desires, rejecting linear and logical modes of writing in favour of a more fluid and experimental style.  

Eccentric language, disruptions in text, gaps, silences, puns. 

The theory, however, has been critiqued for reinforcing gender stereotypes, as well as promoting an experimental writing style which can be hard to read, doing the adverse of what it intended.  

So, is écriture féminine still a valid explanation for women’s writing today? Does it allow a place for all women, especially queer women?  

We asked a female UEA writer, Isabelle Kinch, to share her writing experiences, and whether she feels there’s something different about how she writes.  

Kinch identifies as queer and proposes that expectations of what readers want to read is influential to her writing process. 

“Thoughts of the marketability of idea[s],” Kinch said, has often led to her “abandoning [her] rogue prose prospects before [she’s] even written the first sentence.”  

The book market makes Kinch’s most authentic writing seem without audience, suggesting that true feminine expression, especially regarding queerness, is unwanted by readers. 

Kinch has a particular inclination for writing romance, “perhaps the most unoriginal sentence I have ever written,” she says.  

Romance is a typical form of feminine expression – what does that say? The way romance is received as fun, unchallenging literature says something larger about how feminine expression is treated in the book world – frankly, trivial. 

Kinch’s romance writing has “a special focus on LGBTQ+ themes,” but with the rise of popular books such as Heated Rivalry, about two male hockey players falling in love, readers “seem to only endorse gay books” while “lesbian stories are pushed to the background.” 

What she’d truly like to write about is two women “who have their souls intertwined in that dizzying and electrifying experience of falling in love.”  

But often, Kinch “stops [herself] from putting pen to paper.”

Why? “Because in [her] head, this imaginary novel has no opportunity to become any kind of bestseller,” not unless her two protagonists are men. 

This mental block, she says, “has come from years of observing” fictional sapphic love being given two fates: fading into the background or ending in catastrophic heartbreak. 

“I wish I could have some faith in the wider community outside of Lesbians and supportive, sapphic-loving allies to read what I wish to share with the world. I wish I could write with the confidence that the kind of love I am portraying isn’t seen as lesser or not as palatable to the wider market.” 

From Kinch’s perspective, it’s not only inherently feminine linguistic techniques that shields her writing from the literary world, but instead the turned-up noses at sapphic fiction.  

The limited applicability to Cixous’ theory of écriture féminine here proves exactly why we need to celebrate these stories.  

Queer feminine writing is still deemed as alien and unmarketable, simply for the fact that it’s related to women.  

Despite this, Kinch is hopeful “we can get there” and maybe, one day, Lesbian fiction can be held in high esteem by booksellers and readers alike. 

Image credit: Unsplash