Frauen Literatur

After Nicole Seifert spent several years exclusively reading literature by women, it became clear: the often-cited quality is not the problem. On the contrary: we miss out on the best when we do not finally implement a female quota in our bookshelves. Banal, kitschy, trivial – three adjectives that have been used to devalue the literary work of women for centuries. While male authors fill thousands of pages with descriptions of everyday life and are celebrated for it, female writers who undertake similar endeavors are accused of writing merely about their feelings. Nicole Seifert aims to highlight the misogynistic structures within the literary world. Many books written by women go unheard because newspaper, radio, and television editorial teams, and even before that, publishing houses, make a corresponding pre-selection. From German classes to German studies, the proportion of female authors remains minuscule, and so we learn from the very beginning: what is considered literarily valuable comes from men.