Chapter Strong female protagonists in literature

Plan:

Chapter 1. Strong female protagonists in literature
1.1 The Evolution of Women Characters in American and English Literature
1.2 Women Characters and Writers in Contemporary Literature
Chapter 2. Women Portrayal In Contemporary Fiction
2.1 The Emergence of Realism in Fiction by American Women
2.2 Most influential women authors in English and America literature.

Introduction
Women’s literature presents a unique glimpse into the female American experience. In the aftermath of the Civil War, the country was in a period of transformation that included political, economic, social, and literary shifts. As the country emerged into the Industrial Revolution, female authors were forging a place for themselves in the literary canon. The feminist movement called into question the role of women in society, and female authors responded by creating works presenting strong, self-reliant, intelligent women.
The academic discipline of women's writing is a discrete area of literary studies which is based on the notion that the experience of women, historically, has been shaped by their sex, and so women writers by definition are a group worthy of separate study: "Their texts emerge from and intervene in conditions usually very different from those which produced most writing by men. It is not a question of the subject matter or political stance of a particular author, but of her sex, i.e. her position as a woman within the literary world.
Women's writing, as a discrete area of literary studies and practice, is recognized explicitly by the numbers of dedicated journals, organizations, awards, and conferences which focus mainly or exclusively on texts produced by women. Women's writing as a recognized area of study has been developing since the 1970s. The majority of English and American literature programs offer courses on specific aspects of literature by women, and women's writing is generally considered an area of specialization in its own right.