March 2022

Anonymous was a Woman

  • Posted on: 1 March 2022
  • By: Olivia Carroll

 

"I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman." – Virginia Woolf

 

This quote from Virginia Woolf is more commonly recognized in its iconic rephrasing, “For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.” But why is that the case?

Simply put: Female writers were often denied the freedom of claiming their own words.