Nothing to Declare

As a child, I would immerse myself in storybooks that told of wild adventures and ambitious crusades. Too often, these stories told of a princess saved by a knight in shining armour or a hero embarking on his quest. Stories have the power to captivate. The stories that we hear and read as children subconsciously mould us into who we are today. Children are particularly impressionable. I wished I had discovered more stories of strong, powerful heroines so their stories could empower me. Women have facilitated storytelling for centuries. They have passed important values down through word of mouth, serving as storytellers and keepers of stories. Yet historically, women’s perspectives and stories have been disproportionately underrepresented in literature and media. Our patriarchal society forces women to take a backseat and often treats female characters as extras to glorify the male hero. Women have told stories for generations but until the late nineteenth century, they were not granted the same access to publishers as men due to their lack of access to education and resources. They were also not recognised or legally allowed to become publishing professionals. Countless women worked under the guise of a male relative’s name or obliged to use the most invent ive pen names to gain respect. In A Room of One’s Own , Virginia Woolf invents a fictional sister for Shakespeare, Judith, who was just as gifted as William. However, unlike William, as a girl she is deprived of the same opportunities. Forced marriage silenced her gifts and her life ends tragically in suicide. Judith is the embodiment of the thousands of intelligent women who were never given a chance to the tell their stories or publish their work. Some even had their work stolen from them. One of these women is the great Zelda Fitzgerald. Most would be familiar with her husband’s novel The Great Gatsby . Arguably its most poignant line, “I hope she’ll be a fool – that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool,” was taken from Zelda’s mouth as she uttered those words when their daughter was born. Zelda also recognised parts of her diary entries and letters in her husband’s work. She was not the only one who was overshadowed by her male counterpart. The most influential English philosopher of the nineteenth century, John Stuart