When reading Helene Cixous, I can see how she relates to Virginia Woolf. Cixous talks about male writing on pg. 2042 of her essay, and says, "I maintain unequivocally that there is such a thing as marked writing; that, until now, far more extensively and repressively than is ever suspected or admitted, writing has been run by a libidinal and cultural - hence political, typically masculine - economy." I see this in relation to Virginia Woolf's argument that women are depicted literature on in their relationships to males. Since historically men have been the dominant writers, writing has been subjected to their conventions. If men are driven to write by their libido, as Cixous seems to suggest, then it makes sense for women in literature to be connected only to males, especially when the women tend to be primarily lovers of the men.



Cixous observes that literature has a history of being phallocentric and that women are usually repressed by this and feel awkward when they try to write. Women have written in secret and then have felt