At a time when marriage was society's end-all for women, Jane Austen refused quite a few proposals. In spite of financial need, this country pastor's daughter not only stayed single but wrote about it in her artfully constructed comedies of manners. Her novels show an uncanny aptitude for subtle but

18th century literature, Charming, Clean, Feminist, Pathos, Witty

The first Surrealist filmmaker. The first female French filmmaker. The first female-French-Surrealist filmmaker. Add to this the fact that "Germaine Dulac" was an ardent feminist (some say lesbian, too), and we've got quite a title. Like her Hollywood contemporary Dorothy Arzner, Dulac upheld each pa

Composed, Dreamy, Feminist, French impressionism, Pathos, Surreal

Dorothy Arzner claimed she didn't have to rely on directing to keep food on the table. She always insisted she could do what she wanted, how she wanted, and filmmaking was just one area in which she would have her way. Arzner grew up in Los Angeles where her parents owned a restaurant frequented b

Corporate, Feminist, Pioneering, Political

In "A Room of One's Own," Virginia Woolf asks her readers to imagine that Shakespeare had a sister. Woolf contends that such a woman, regardless of how gifted she might have been, would have had no chance to be Shakespeare's equal; she would have been denied the education afforded her brother and lef

Contemplative, Feminist, Lush, Medieval era, Pioneering, Religious