Quoted: Cynthia Ozick on "Women Writers"

Women who write with an overriding consciousness that they write as women writers are engaged not in aspiration toward writing, but chiefly in a politics of sex. A new political term makes its appearance: woman writer, not used descriptive -- as one would say "a lanky brown-haired writer -- but as part of the language of politics. [...] The political term woman writer signals in advance a whole set of premises: that for instance there are "male" and "female"states of intellect and feeling hence of prose; that individuality of condition and temperament do not apply, or at least not that much, and that all writing women possess -- not by virtue of being writers, but by virtue of being women -- an instantly perceived common ground; that writers who are women can best nourish other writers who are women. -- Cynthia Ozick from Literature and the Politics of Sex: a Dissent.

I can imagine this being as unpopular with contemporary feminists as it was when she wrote it more than thirty years ago, and yet, its still speaks to the problems of universalizing experience. Later in the essay, Ozick says that "literature universalizes," and I believe her because we are not solely defined along the axes of race, sex, and class, but the many disparate things that make up who we are and how we connect with other people.