Today's average reader does not usually stop to ponder the gender of an author and what impact a male or female hand may have on a body of literature. However, if analyzed closely, any given text may expose a distinct structural element associated with the author's gender. Femininity or masculinity within a written work is not so simple to identify, and once identified it is not so easy to pass-off as an by-product of one's sex. Nevertheless, women's literature tends to lend a much more prominent distinction of gender through the structure of poetry. Female writers such as Gertrude Stein, Dorothy Parker, and Elizabeth Bowen utilize a poetic license in a gallivant manner to illustrate a story as it unfolds to them. .
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In her composition "Ada"", Gertrude Stein uses a specific structure to symbolize a virgin thought or stream of consciousness. She narrates, "Barnes Colhard did not say he would not do it but he did not do it. He did it and then he did not do it, he did not ever think about it. He just thought some time he might do something (Stein, 165). Stein epitomizes the female thought processes in a poetic ramble. Although her prose can be described as feminine in this aspect, it does not stand guilelessly in it's characterization, instead her gallivant manner acts as a telescope to the mind of the individual she is depicting. Stein's innate ability to let her thoughts roll from the imagination to the pen and onto paper allow her to act as a ventriloquist to the dummy she has designed. .
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Similarly, the writer Dorothy Parker takes a satirical swing at the fickle and meandering rumination of a character in her story "The Waltz"". Parker depicts a woman who is thrust into a silent dread by a shameless, dancing man who bounces over to ask her to join him. Though she tells herself she does not want to dance with him, she quickly poses, "Why, thank you so much. I'd adore to", while to herself she answers, "I'd love to waltz with you.
