The Origins of a Free Press in Prerevolutionary ... - Web Publishing

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wider economic classes, Warner suggests, the wider discourse did not include
women, but a closer look at women and print in the Chesapeake colonies suggests
that civic discourse did sometimes include women. 47 Whether authors or not, their
presence is plain. While writing as a woman, any author gave up the potentially
liberating quality of anonymity, allowing readers appreciation to be colored by
assumptions of feminine abilities. The fact that so many writers willingly did so is
revealing. In contrast to Linda Kerber’s idea that print combined with the gender
literacy gap was a hurdle for women before the Revolution, the pseudonymous
world of print as seen here is actually empowering. As Kerber notes, in oral
communication the gender difference is automatically conveyed, while the
anonymity of print can disguise that difference, as needed. 48 It is quite possible that
women contributed essays, even serious political discourse, while not revealing their
gender.
The Virginia Gazette published a large number of letters apparently from
women in the newspaper’s first several years. While some were matters of the heart,
a number of the letters dealt with public issues. The pseudonymous “Andromache”
wrote criticizing the author of a letter published earlier, and with some wit,
suggested that the earlier correspondent’s quality of writing exceeded that of Joseph
Addison and Richard Steele, demonstrating that the presumably female author was
familiar with political writers in London. She deferentially noted her lack of writing
skills and suggested that most of her fellow women could not write, “… since it so
happens that most of us are illiterate, it is certainly the greatest Piece of Friendship
to give us seasonable Instruction. At the same Time I cannot forbear thinking it
hard we should be attacked with a Weapon we are unacquainted with. (I mean the
47 Warner, Letters of the Republic, 41-49.
48 Kerber, Women of the Republic, 191-196.