Here's to the Women!

Happy International Women's Day! A huge shoutout to all of the women out there kicking ass and shattering every glass ceiling they can find. This year feels like we really need to celebrate this day even more. We have a woman as the second in command of our country (if you're not reading this from the USA, hi, I'm in the USA haha). Monumental moments, I pulled my 5 year old son out of school to watch Kamala Harris take her vows. 

It constantly irks me that we are in 2021 and we are still having to shatter glass ceilings. More power to the women who are, but the fact that there are still ceilings left to shatter at all, upsets me, breaks my heart and angers me to no level. I am so grateful and proud of everything we as women have accomplished and continued to accomplish. 

I though today we could talk about some authors who didn't have it as easy. Authors whose work was not original able to be published under their own name due to their gender. Authors we consider classics, authors we maybe grew up reading. 

Charlotte Bronte. The author of Jane Eyre as we know it today. I shouldn't say "as we know it today" Bronte had always been the author of Jane Eyre, however it was originally published in 1847 under the pen name Currer Bell, as women authors were not taken as seriously. 

Mary Ann Evans, the author of "Middlemarch", originally published under the name George Elliot. To be 1000% honest, I have never read "Middlemarch", its supposed to be one of the all time great classics. I am unable to sit through most classics, Jane Eyre being my complete and total exception. 

Louisa May Alcott, a name I'm sure whether you read or not sounds
familiar...Little Women, which surprisingly was published under her name, however when she wanted to write more gothic thrillers as seems to be the pattern she used the male pseudonym A.M. Barnard  to not be laughed out of publishing houses. 

Nora Roberts, a pretty affluent romance
author and a more recent example. She and J.D. Robb an affluent crime and suspense novelist are the same person. J.D. Robb's website shows her name on some of the books now, but back in the 1990s her publishers decided she wasn't living up to her writing potential (aka they thought she had more books in her) and had her adopt the pseudonym for her new series. Once again, if it's not romance apparently it has to have a guy's name on it. But, you know what shoutouts to Roberts, she has more the 200+ books under her belt and based on the internet is actually getting credit for ALL of her work now. 

There's a ton more but these are a few I picked from my research as I recognized the name or the book and found it intriguing the hoops these brilliant women have jumped through to be recognized. The most recent incident I found was in 2012 when "Magnus Flyte" turned out to be Christina Lynch and Megan Howrey. I hope that's the most recent incident because by god we should be having women able to publish proudly under the own names without fear of not reaching their target audience, not being published etc simply because they are a woman. 

Shoutouts to ever single one of these women, for not letting societies thoughts on their gender stop them from getting their amazing stories out. Keep shattering glass ceilings my loves and happy International Women's Day to each and every one of you.