Écriture féminine

Écriture féminine (Fr; Eng. "women's writing") is a term from French feminist literary analysis, first used by Hélène Cixous in her 1981 essay, "La rire de la méduse" (eng: The Laugh of the Medusa). It was in some sense a political movement, an urging and exhortation for women to write their experiences. In this sense, it was a response to Freudian and Lacanian deconstructionist analysis which saw writing as a phallic endeavor, with the pen a metaphor for the phallus.

It could be spun as a form of difference feminism, the idea in this context that some forms of writing or expression are inherently masculine, and women would have a different way of writing. It is thus related to Carol Gilligan's thinking on the ways that men and women express themselves differently.

Alternately, écriture féminine was not necessarily essentialist; it could simply be seen as the assessment of and attempt to redress the lack of women's experiences in published writings.

Either way, the movement urged not just more works by women, but experimental forms of prose. Monique Wittig's Les guérillères (1969) can be seen in this light, although it preceded the articulation of the movement by more than a decade.