When looking at English as a discipline and the literature created as a byproduct of that discipline, sadly, one will come across ethnocentrism, bigotry and misogyny, all in canonized literature. In giving someone a pen and the ability to encapsulate their consciousness in text, you take on the contemplative and composed areas of human thought, while also prodding the surface of the unconscious mind; and within the dregs of human thought we can glean unpleasant facets of the mind courtesy of the id. With imperfect minds we can only expect imperfect text, but beauty isn’t in perfection but in the pursuit of it.
In order to strive toward perfection we need to be willing and zealous to hear all stories and in allotting all of those who wish to speak a mouthpiece via literature. English as an art form has been and should continue to be a platform for discourse between cultures, between sexes, between beliefs; and now that education and progressive thinking are becoming more ample in society, more voices have the opportunity to be heard.
For instance, look at our English class; I am one of four males in a class that is predominantly made up of women. When in history, women have for the most part been cast a side in academia. Women now dominate English as a major in college, seeing as 67.9 percent of English majors are women (Forbes/ Goudreau 2010). It’s uplifting to see women breaking down the patriarchal barriers of the old world; It’s a privilege to sit in class amongst so many talented women in class and I’m humbled every day by how their ability exceeds and dwarfs my own. It’s distressing to think of all of the unmet potential and all of the untold stories that potential writers could have told to us, but weren’t able to because of our unyielding gender roles.
“The birth of a new discipline is always partly dependent on the accumulation of intellectual prestige (Moran 2010).” The birth of a new discipline is like the inclusion of a sex in academia, women arduously crawled their way into the academic world on the basis of their work; often taking up a false male pen name to be heard. Authors like Charlotte Bronte, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Jane Austen and many others began to gain ground on the merit of their work and women were more included in actual academics and not just filling niches in gender roles. Although, This is not to say that women are even close to obtaining true equality; which is a ludicrous reality that we are conscious of and continue to perpetuate as a society.
