Munro's Place in History

It is a worthy premise to mention the role of the study of literature. Literature contains all of the wisdom of the past, all of the original stories, all the smiles and tears of millennium. So asking what the purpose and benefits are is a borderline useless question. As well as being able to enjoy the things that kept thousands entertained without electricity, add the facts that it allows you to see literally into the past and through the eyes of other, and contain the wisdom of generations, to see your answer.
Women's literature is a small category amongst millions, a pebble on a rocky beach. It is literature about women, for women, and mostly by women, though that has some exceptions. And no, I cannot define it better than that because, to be honest, I have little exposure to it. But what I have seen is something akin to a passionate debate against many for things one should have by default. Almost like fighting your brother so you can sleep on YOUR bed. We should have achieved equality in experience and every other ring long ago, so the fact that this genre needs to exist to this day is shameful. But there is value in studying it. It is an important chronicle of the adversities faced by half the population for centuries, it is one of the many ways people become aware of the problems around them every day, and it informs of a shadow within our society that one might not otherwise see. So it is very valuable a course of study, though it may be better if it's content was ancient history.
Alice Munro, a critically acclaimed writer since before I was born, has penciled more masterpieces than can be counted and has won the highest honor achievable for short stories something like three times now. But what is it that made her work such a hit? What made her a voice to feminism despite claiming not to be? It was the very fact that she did not identify as a feminist, and that she, like so few other women, had managed to make her voice heard, that gave her the brand she has made on history. She wrote only of her experiences, and crafted beautifully evolving characters for each story she wrote. It was only circumstance that made her experiences into the things feminists sought. That chance fact is perhaps the only reason that the feminist movement made it so far at the time. Her work made leaps in bounds in the direction of equality, and I have thoroughly enjoyed her short stories, or at least the ones I have read. She, through the characters on the farm in Boys and Girls, informed me of a struggle I could not have even imagined.