El documento analiza cómo la literatura influye en la construcción de identidades y roles de género, enfatizando las limitaciones impuestas a las mujeres en cuanto a la lectura. Se discuten estereotipos de género, así como la resistencia de las lectoras a través de narrativas que desafían la representación tradicional femenina. También se menciona la evolución del papel de la mujer lectora desde la Edad Media hasta la actualidad, incluyendo ejemplos de obras que rompen con los estereotipos de belleza y poder.

1. “Do not open these
books”
Women and girls as
readers
Mercedes Arriaga Flórez
University of Seville
marriaga@us.es

2. — Literature is a social discourse, and reading shapes us
as both subjects and individuals, also helping us to
build the content of the everyday life and experiences
by means of value projections. The starting point is
that a literary text has an important role in the
transmission of culture.
It provides certain
images (identities and
identifications) through
which individuals
shape their lives and
attitudes, and which
are communicated and
transmitted to the next
generations (Zavala,
1993: 48).

3. Female readers are
dangerous…
But dangerous for
who?

4. 1. Women don’t need to read
because culture is not for them.
A cultured woman ceases to be
considered a woman, or
becomes despicable.
2. Women are only allowed to
read “controlled” readings.

5. — Moliere: Les femmes savantes
(1671)
— Francisco de Quevedo: “La
culta
la)niparla”,
“las
hembrila)nas”
(in
English
they
are
called
bluestocking
ladies),
“damas
Jerigonzas”,
(“slang-­‐speaker
ladies”),
“las
polillas
graduadas”
(“graduate
moths”)
de
Quevedo
(1629);
“las
batracias”
(“she-­‐frogs”).
— The Taming of the Shrew,
William Shakespeare

6. — “A woman who reads is a lost woman”, Spanish and Portuguese saying.
— “A woman’s wisdom destroys the house”, Russian proverb.
— “Woman’s wisdom, monkey’s wisdom”, Japanese proverb.
— “Men finally leaves their childhood, but women do never become adults”,
African proverb.
— “A wise woman is doubly foolish”, English saying.
— “Virtuous is the woman without knowledge”, Chinese proverb.
— “The woman has only half a brain”, Arabic proverb.

7. 2.
Controlled
readings
Sexual
difference
(the
vital
experiences
of
women
and
their
life
condi)ons)
results
into
literary
difference:
men
are
readers
of
a
certain
type
of
texts,
and
women
of
other
types.
Literature
specifically
addressed
to
women:
Training
for
inferiority.

8. TRAINING FOR INFERIORITY
By means of codes and handbooks of behaviour
• Religious misogyny from the Church Fathers
• Lay misogyny: literature oriented to create
female stereotypes and to defend the social
and symbolic masculine order

9. Filippo da Novara, Des quatre tenz d’age d’ome
(1228)
“For a woman, learning to read and to write is not
necessary, because women who read and write have
caused so much damage”
Francesco de Barberino, Reggimento e costumi di
donna (1320) and Documenti d’amore (1309)
“A wise woman is the one who knows how to keep
her opinion inside so that nobody can notice it.”
Paolo da Certaldo, “Libro dei buoni costumi” (1360)
“If a girl is born, put her to sew; it is not good for a
woman to know how to read”.

10. — For the pedagogue Karl
Bauer (1791), the act of
reading entails:
— “Drowsiness, obstruction,
flatulence and occlusion of
the intestines with well-
known consequences on the
sexual health of both sexes,
especially the
feminine” (Bollmann, 2001:
25).

11. The female readers, or the simple public of women who listen to
stories, are responsible for the birth or survival of other literary
genres, such as medieval novels or exempla, which constitute a type
of literature intended to be read, interpreted or sung.
Medieval women are not linked to an individual or solitary reading,
but to aloud lecture, in collective and domestic spaces where they
can be heard, as well as they help circulating the books by means
of borrowing and exchange.

12. Lay women are the main
listeners of preachers in the
squares, and also of the
sermon collections.
With the arrival of the printing
press, they became promoters
and investors of this kind of
texts, which have been
preserved until today, thanks to
the contributions, conservation
and dissemination among an
almost exclusively female
audience.

13. Since the Renaissance
period: embroidery
books, cooking recipes,
cosmetics and medicine,
secrets and tips for home
management or food
preservation.

14. Since the Counter-Reformation, the
Catholic Church tries to restrict the
circulation of books and to control the
reading themes.
While women were aware of the
importance and usefulness of reading,
the Church considered them as "simple"
"naive“, unable to understand what they
read, and exposed to error and heresy
by their own ignorance, more than
malice.
Hence, the educational programs of the
Renaissance in whose books the female
readers had to identify themselves with
exempla, lives of saints, blessed women
or virgins; in general, illustrious and
chaste role models, in order to become
"perfect readers“.

15. The female reader is associated with forbidden and
censored books –as a reaction to the intellectual limitations
that society imposed on them, and the search for more
open and free readings.
The Church’s control policies between 1520 and 1650 were
reflected in the declarations of many women in inquisitorial
processes, in which the accused appealed to “the inferiority
of women“ to get rid of their responsibility.

16. — In the modern age: women
readers are linked to
genres such as the
feuilletons from the early
twentieth century.
Romance novels and
television genres as the
soap opera.
— Gossip magazines, beauty
and fashion magazines.

17. WOMEN READERS’ PROBLEMS
If women readers accept the feminine image
shown by the literary writings of our culture,
they can only recognize their own inferiority.
The impossibility to identify themselves with
some "universal" characters.
Mythology couples:
Ulises-Penelope / Circe-Penelope
Heroes: Zeus, Don Juan, Casanova
Pygmalion- Galathea
My fair Lady: Bernard Shaw

18. Female
characters
in
literature
only
exist
depending
on
their
rela)onships
with
the
male
protagonist:
Penelope,
Medea,
Jimena,
etc.
The
main
plots
are
cultural
products
imposed
to
reality,
and
only
give
value
to
certain
experiences
instead
of
others.
What
can
a
heroine
do?
What
kind
of
myths,
plots
and
ac)ons
are
available
for
a
female
protagonist?

19. Virginia Woolf argues that,
instead of looking for women’s
desire in literature’s
protagonists or in heroines, it
should be sought in characters
and icons such as witches,
possessed women, or wise
women who sell medicinal
herbs.
Female readers identify
themselves with anti-heroines.

21. On deconstruction,
Jonathan Culler:
“Reading like a
Woman”
The reader wants to
identify herself with
the text.
Reading from the
margins, reading from
the dissent.

22. Adrien Rich: “To challenge it all”
in “When the Dead wakes: Writing
as a Review” (1971).
1) Against discrimination.
2) Challenging norms, values and
images of women established in
art.
3) Criticizing the androcentric
hegemony.

23. I do not remember
reading any book
that does not talk
a b o u t w o m a n ' s
instability. Perhaps
because they were
all written by men.
(Jane Austen)

24. — On paper, the number of
female readers (64.1%)
surpasses the number of
male (54.0%).
— On digital reading, we find a
65.6% of men versus a
50.4% of women.
— The gap is further increased
in a scope from 14 to 24
years old: there we find the
largest presence of readers
in digital format, with
88.6%.

25. — To tell other stories:
In Argentina two publishers
launched a proposal: the
anti-princesses collection.
They aim to break the
stereotype of women whose
beauty is based on their
external appearance, and to
show examples of women
who have “inner beauty”.
The anti-princesses are real
women, as such Frida Kahlo
or Violeta Parra.

26. In Italy was published in 2016:
"Storie della buonanotte per
bambine ribelli", Good Night
Stories for Rebel Girls, a book
born through crowdfunding,
which tells 100 real women
stories.
It’s a picture book that teach
little girls that it is possible to
follow their own dreams, by
means of women’s examples
who realized it in more difficult
periods and more hostile
circumstances than nowadays.

27. Among the female
protagonists in this book:
Astrid Lindgren, the author
of Pippi Longstocking, Frida
Kahlo, the Nobel prize Rita
Levi Montalcini, the soprano
Maria Callas, sportswomen
as Misty Copeland or
scientists as Hypatia.

29. BIBLIOGRAPHY
— BARANDA, Nieves (2003) "Las mujeres lectoras” en
Historia de la edición y la lectura en España 1472-1914,
ed." Víctor Infantes, Madrid, Fundación Sánchez Rupérez.
— BOLLMANN, S. (2006) Las mujeres que leen son
peligrosas, Madrid, Maeva.
— CABRE, María Angeles (2013) Leer y escribir en
femenino, Aresta, Barcelona,
— JACK, Belinda (2012) The Woman Reader, Yale
University Press.
— LYONS, Martyn (1998) "I nuovi lettori nel XIX secolo:
donne, fanciulli, operai" in Guglielmo Cavallo, Roger
Chartier (a cura di) Storia della lettura nel mondo
occidentale, Roma, Laterza.

30. — PLEBANI, T. (1996): Nascita e caratteristiche del
pubblico di lettrici tra Medioevo e prima Età Moderna,
en ZARRI G., Donna, disciplina, creanza cristiana dal XV al
XVII. Roma: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, pp. 24-44.
— PLEBANI, Tiziana, “All’origine della rappresentazione
della lettrice e della scrittrice: Christine de Pizan”, in
Christine de Pizan. Una città per sé, a cura di P. Caraffi,
Roma 2003, pp. 47-58.
— PLEBANI, Tiziana, “Scritture di donne nel Rinascimento
italiano”, in Il Rinascimento italiano e l’Europa, vol II:
Umanesimo ed educazione, Verona, 2007, pp. 243-263.
— PLEBANI, Tiziana, Il “Genere” dei libri. Storie e
rappresentazioni della lettura al femminile e al maschile tra
Medioevo e età moderna, Franco Angeli, Milano, 2001.
— PIZAN DE, C. (2003): La città delle dame, a cura di
Patrizia Caraffi. Roma: Carocci, XXVII, p.153.