The roles of women in Murray Leinster’s Med Ship stories

Abstract

The role of women in literature has been a source of constant debate since the early twentieth century. Feminist critics have made a massive contribution to challenging the notion of a received literary canon inscribed by male authors. Simone de Beauvoir proposed a radical approach to the canon, arguing in The Second Sex (1949) that women’s roles have been socially constructed wholly in relation to men: men are depicted as “the Absolute” while women are “the Other.” French critic Hélène Cixous proclaims the possibility of a feminine writing— écriture feminine—which would break down the barriers excluding women from public speech. Cixous’s argument converges with Jean-Paul Sartre’s point of departure when he claims that “the committed writer knows that words are action.” From this point of view, we may conclude that the writer has chosen to reveal the world so that the reader “may assume full responsibility before the object which has been laid bare”.