The Beat Generation is so named for American writers of the 1950s and 1960s. While most of the writers who gained fame during that time are men, there were some great women Beat writers as well.

Use the controls below to listen to Joanne Kyger, Bobbie Louise Hawkins, Hettie Jones, and Janine Pommy Vega discuss their own Beat Generation work and their role within it. (Thanks to archive.org for making this available.)

Were the women writers of the Beat Generation more than just muses for the male writers? Many think so. In an anthology of essays titled, "Girls Who Wore Black: Women Writing the Beat Generation," the co-editors, Nancy Grace and Ronna Johnson argue that: "the women writers were often as free-spirited as the male Beats, bringing defiance, distrust, and gender dissent to the forefront of 1950s culture, rendering women Beat writers precursors of the women’s movement of the 1960s" (1).

So what took so long for these women to be recognized for their work? Some believe the writings of these wome were largely ignored because their authors were female--sexism typical of the time. Others believe that the behavior of men during those years, while very anti-establishment, did not usually result in the men being dragged of to a mental institute. Women, however, were sometimes seen as being mentally disturbed for similar behavior, and did end up being locked up for their own protection (2).