From whispers to roars: The changing voice of women’s fiction

I’ve always been fascinated by what stories can tell us about the inner lives (what men like to call the private sphere) of women throughout history. As I took a little dive into women’s fiction from the last few centuries, what struck me most was the dramatic shift in what female authors said—or could say. It was like the difference between a whispered conversation in a drawing room and a roar in an empty space. This piece explores the literary works of female authors who moved from writing about social rights to exploring private desires, hunger, and the body.

The early feminist writers’ battle was for a place in the world, in education, legal rights, and being seen as human beings. Their writings desired recognition and equal footing in society. Moving into the 21st century, the conversation has turned inwards and downwards, into the body itself. Contemporary novels don’t just ask for a room of one’s own; they boldly explore what a woman does in that room alone—her hunger, desire for intimacy, and often other taboos. This is the journey from the societal to the carnal.

The first wave of feminism can be dated from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s, beginning with the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention and culminating in the 19th Amendment in 1920 in the United States. This wave primarily focused on securing fundamental rights for women, including property rights, education, and most notably, the right to vote, which we call suffrage. The earliest work of feminist texts is considered to be Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), who is considered the pioneer of feminism, or what we know today as ‘liberal feminism’. If you still have not figured it out, Mary Wollstonecraft was the mother of Mary Shelley, who wrote the famous Gothic novel Frankenstein (1818). The earliest works here couldn’t tackle bodily desire head-on because the social price was too high. Instead, they masterfully laid the groundwork by arguing for a woman’s right to a mind and the foundation of a self. Wollstonecraft’s work is pioneering literature. Her argument was revolutionary yet practical: giving women a proper education will make them capable partners in life and society. While she doesn’t talk about physical desire explicitly, her manifesto is about desire in a broader sense, which is hunger for knowledge, purpose, and a life beyond the separate spheres. By insisting women were rational beings, she was quietly challenging the idea that they were merely bodies designed for reproduction and pleasure.

Jane Austen, in her book Pride and Prejudice (1813), is a sharp critique of a system that forced women to marry for security, not love, in Regency England. Austen’s genius was her subtlety. Elizabeth Bennet’s desire is for intellectual and emotional compatibility; her rejection of Mr. Collins and initial rejection of Darcy are considered acts of profound boldness—a radical idea at the time. Even the disastrous little sister Lydia Bennet shows a different side. Her “desire” is reckless and physical, leading to scandal. Austen uses her as a warning of what happens when a woman’s hunger for excitement isn’t approved by society’s strict rules. The message was clear: a woman’s personal desires, even misguided ones, had immense power to disrupt the entire social order.

Virginia Woolf’s seminal essay work A Room of One’s Own (1929) acts as a crucial bridge between the two eras. She made the direct link between material reality and creative freedom. The “room” is both literal and metaphorical. It represents the financial independence and the private space a woman needs to think, create, and explore her inner world. She moved the conversation from “we need rights” to “we need a space to be creative, to be our full, complex selves.” She opened the door for the next generation to walk through and start exploring what those ‘selves’ truly wanted.

This foundational need for a room—a sanctuary for the self—found a powerful and poignant echo in the Bengali literary world through the work of Selina Hossain. In her landmark novel Onnobhubon (1987), she builds an entire inner universe for her protagonist, Moyna. The universe is set against the strictures of rural Bangladeshi society, Moyna’s battle is not for the vote or property rights, but for what can be termed the suffrage of the soul: the right to her own intellectual passions, profound emotional attachments, and a unique way of seeing the world. Her fierce intelligence and emotional depth chart a “hunger” that is entirely her own—a craving for knowledge and self-expression that defines her interiority. Onnobhubon carefully details the work of building an “inner room” brick by brick, long before one might own a physical door. Selina Hossain, like Virginia Woolf, moved the story inward, proving that the space to nurture a complex and desiring self was the essential next frontier to intellectual freedom.

With that inner space claimed in literature, however tentatively, the stage was set for the contemporary exploration of what fills it. The authors of the 21st century did not just walk through Woolf’s door; they began to document, with terrifying and glorious detail, exactly what a woman does in that room alone.

Contemporary readers, witnessing the fourth wave of feminism, encounter literary pieces that centre on female bodily rebellion. The fourth wave’s critique is that it transfers the goal from communal strength to individualism. Take Nobel Laureate Han Kang's The Vegetarian (2007). From my recent reads, this novel was one of the terrifying ones. This is a masterpiece of solitary bodily rebellion. The protagonist Yeong-hye's decision to stop eating meat is not a diet; it's a violent rejection of patriarchal control. Her hunger becomes a form of protest. By refusing to consume, she attempts to purify herself from a world she finds brutal and oppressive. The book ties her sexual repression, mental health crisis, and physical hunger into one powerful narrative about a woman's attempt to claim absolute autonomy over her own body. It's a far cry from Elizabeth Bennet's desire for a respectful marriage; this is a desire to cease being human on society's terms altogether.

Another recent read, Ottessa Moshfegh's My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018), explores a different kind of taboo: not the desire for intimacy, but the profound desire to opt out of the performance of femininity entirely, also from the society entirely. If Yeong-hye from The Vegetarian rejects consumption, Moshfegh's unnamed protagonist rejects consciousness itself. Overwhelmed by the emptiness of modern life and the expectations placed upon her beautiful body, she desires nothing but escape. Her lust is for oblivion. She sleeps for a year, a radical act of withdrawing any connection from the world, which portrays the  individualism of the fourth wave of feminism. Her relationship with her body is one of neglect and anger. 

Following this, Asako Yuzuki’s Butter (2024) is a fascinating look at female hunger. The story follows a journalist who becomes fascinated by a female convict, a talented cook accused of seducing and fatally poisoning several men. The book uses food, especially butter, as a powerful symbol of desire, pleasure, and sin. Rika, the protagonist, learns to cook and eat with passion. This awakening of her physical hunger for food is directly tied to her other desires: for recognition in her career, for friendship, and for a life that feels full and satisfying. This book boldly talks about a woman’s appetite, whether for food, for success, or for life itself, is not something to be hidden. 

The evolution, or the journey from Wollstonecraft to Yuzuki, is one of incredible boldness. Throughout history, women used the form of hunger as a form of protest, even in the literary scape. Although the forms of protest have changed, as we can see from the evolution of these texts, the strength and will remain the same. Whether the first wave of literary feminism focuses on the desire to be seen as equals, a bridge figure like Woolf argued for the space to explore, the contemporary or fourth wave fearlessly documents the discoveries made in that space. Such declarations include: I desire to reject your rules, to reclaim my body from your gaze, to sleep, to hunger, to refuse, and to feel—even if it destroys me. 

Today's authors aren't just talking about female desire; they are dissecting it in all its messy, terrifying, and glorious forms. They use the body as the ultimate site of rebellion, exploring taboos not for shock value. Nonetheless, to show true freedom isn't just about winning a place in society. It's about having absolute sovereignty over the very flesh you are living in. 

Nazmun Afrad Sheetol is an IR graduate and a contributor at The Daily Star. She can be reached at sheetolafrad@gmail.com.