Your tributes to Marilyn French

French's novel The Women's Room sold more than 20 million copies

Marilyn French, widely regarded as one the great feminist writers, has died of heart failure in New York City, aged 79.
BBC News readers have been sending us their thoughts on her life and work.

French was an academic in 1977 when her first novel, The Women's Room, was published.

The landmark book, which has since been translated into more than 20 languages, details the journey to independence of a 1950s housewife who gets divorced and decides to start a new life by enrolling to Harvard University.

In a 2004 poll of listeners to BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour, The Woman's Room was voted one of the five books that have most changed the way women see themselves.

Below is a selection of comments and tributes to Marilyn French.

I was coming of age when feminism was starting to blossom in the late 1960s. I was getting mixed messages from my mother, a traditionalist who inside was, I believe, trying to break out, and from our popular culture. I read the Women's Room and was appropriately outraged as well as enlightened. It was only one of numerous feminist publications I read around that time which heightened my awareness (not to mention the hair on the back of my neck). I grew up to be very successful in business as did one of my other sisters. My two other sisters got PhDs and were very successful in academia. Thanks Marilyn for leading the charge!
Ellen Watson, Tacoma, WA

I first read The Women's Room at university - at women's Sacred Heart school. I was older than the traditional students (27) and enjoyed the intellectual environment more than my young, single classmates. They couldn't understand the real world of feminist writing, but a few of us old women did. Bless Ms French's wonderful work and her life. We have all been enriched and empowered.
Marms, Lake Forest, IL, USA

When I first read the Women's Room, I realised that she had seen into my life and put it on paper. As a published writer, I've always considered her one of my role models.

As a feminist I've taken much of her rhetoric to heart although put my own touch to it.

She was important in my life although we never met.
D-L Nelson, Geneva, Switzerland

French's book was amongst the three I read about feminism; the other being Engel's The Origin of the family, Private Property and the State and Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex . The way French was able to reflect on the emotions and anxieties of American women in 50s had an emotional resonance, although a minor one in a young Finnish girl's experiences. I understood a lot more of the sufferings of women in other, less fortunate countries outside my Scandinavian circles. She was able to touch my young heart with compassion, which I couldn't feel in Engel's or de Beauvoir's writings.
Kati Blom, Finnish but lives in UK

I was in my late thirties when I read "The Women's Room". Reading the book enabled me to see the world in ways I never thought possible. The oppression from parents, boyfriends, teachers and male friends caused me to suffer depression. Marilyn French opened my eyes to the possibilities I had as an individual. I have never forgotten the lessons I gleaned from her writings. To me reading Marilyn French was empowering. Her star shines bright.
Liliana Petrovic, Toronto, Canada

Two of French's books changed my ways of thinking: her novel the Woman's Room and her work Shakespeare's Division of Experience. These works altered my view of the world and gave me a way forward for my own work - I went on to write a history of the actress in Western culture and French was sitting on my shoulder during its genesis and its fruition. Thank you Marilyn!
Lesley Ferris, Columbus, Ohio

I discovered this book (Women's Room) at a library sale in the early 1990s. I was a teenager and budding feminist. My parent's marriages were not good examples of domesticity to say the least and this book scared the heck out of me, too. I vowed never to live under a man's thumb. Of course, I did for awhile and made my escape eventually. I also learned about balance within myself (don't give too much) and balance within the household. Balance is not just a bonus - it is necessary for a successful relationship. It helps that I've found an angel of a man to marry. I will happily marry him this October. But I remember WR with fondness and oddly enough was just talking about it with a girlfriend a couple of days ago. Vaya con dios Marilyn and thank you.
Cherie, Painted Post, U.S.

French obviously had an obsession with the feminist idea that women are oppressed by men, since all her books kicked that idea over and over. Seems she was obsessed by it.
GE Jones, Prescott, USA

I would like to express my condolences to her family and friends. Although I'm male; I do not take offence at her conclusions in her (fictional) works, I find it a daring conclusion in those times. Did you know she didn't find a publisher in the US for her first book until it became a bestseller in the Netherlands? I hope history won't forget her.
Geert Demeester, Belgium

I read the book when I was 13 on the advice of my father. I found it captivating. It certainly influenced my life choices. I became a professor and have had a rich and independent life. She will be missed. My condolences to her family and friends.
Lex Tyler, Chicago, USA

I identify a great deal with French. I'm an undergraduate English and philosophy student. Although I have never read her I believe her writings inspired a lot of women, especially those from Africa where the phenomenon of male patriarchy is yet to be overcome. Condolence to her family for their loss.
Tina Aikins, Accra, Ghana

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