| Marilyn French | |
|---|---|
| Born | November 21, 1929 Brooklyn, New York, U.S. |
| Died | May 2, 2009 (aged 79) Manhattan, New York, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Hofstra, Harvard |
| Occupation | Author, lecturer |
Marilyn French (née Edwards) (November 21, 1929 – May 2, 2009) was an American author.
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French was born in Brooklyn to E. Charles Edwards, an engineer and Isabel Hazz Edwards who worked as a department store clerk. She received a bachelor's degree from Hofstra University (then Hofstra College) in 1951, on Long Island and studied philosophy and English literature. She also received a master's degree in English in 1964 from Hofstra. She married Robert M. French Jr. in 1950; the couple divorced in 1967. She later attended Harvard University, earning a Ph.D in 1972.[1]. She was an English instructor at Hofstra from 1964 to 1968 and was an assistant professor of English at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., from 1972 to 1976[2].
In her work, French asserted that women's oppression is an intrinsic part of the male-dominated global culture. For instance in her first non-fiction works, Beyond Power: On Women, Men and Morals, (1985) is a historical examination of the effects of patriarchy on the world.
French's 1977 novel, The Women's Room, follows the lives of Mira and her friends in 1950s and 1960s America, including Val, a militant radical feminist. The novel portrays the details of the lives of women at this time and also the feminist movement of this era in the United States. At one point in the book the character Val says "all men are rapists". This quote has often been incorrectly attributed to Marilyn French herself. French's first book was a thesis on James Joyce.[1]
French was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in 1992. This experience was the basis for her book A Season in Hell: A Memoir (1998). She survived cancer and later died from heart failure at age 79 on May 2, 2009, in Manhattan, New York City.[3]
French took issue with the expectations of married women in the post-World War II era and become a leading, if controversial, opinionmaker on gender issues who decried the patriarchal society she saw around her. “My goal in life is to change the entire social and economic structure of Western civilization, to make it a feminist world,” she once declared[4].
Her first and best-known novel, “The Women’s Room,” released in 1977, sold more than 20 million copies and was translated into 20 languages. Gloria Steinem, a close friend, compared the impact of the book on the discussion surrounding women’s rights to the one that Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man” had had on racial equality 25 years earlier.
Critics accused Marilyn French of being anti-male, frequently citing a female character in “The Women’s Room” who declares, after her daughter has been raped: “All men are rapists, and that’s all they are[5].”
Her most significant work in later life was the four-volume “From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women,” published by Feminist Press in 2002 and built around the premise that exclusion from the prevailing intellectual histories denied women their past, present and future. Despite carefully chronicling a long history of oppression, the last volume ends on an optimistic note, said Florence Howe, who recently retired as director of the publishing house. “For the first time women have history,” she said of Ms. French’s work. “The world changed and she helped change it.”
While Ms. French was pleased by significant gains made by women in the three decades since her landmark novel, The Women's Room, she was also just as quick to point out lingering deficiencies in gender equality[6].”