Why did kana contribute to a flowering of literature by Heian court women?

The development of kana—a phonetic syllabary derived from Chinese characters—was the primary catalyst for the flowering of literature among Heian court women.

During the Heian period, men typically used Chinese for official documents and formal writing. Because women were generally not expected to master the complex Chinese script, the emergence of the cursive, graceful hiragana script provided them with an accessible and expressive medium for writing in the Japanese language.12

This script, which became known as onna-de ("woman’s hand"), allowed aristocratic women to document their lives, emotions, and observations with unprecedented freedom. This accessibility led to the creation of masterpieces such as Murasaki Shikibu’s The Tale of Genji and Sei Shōnagon’s Pillow Book. By facilitating the expression of nuanced Japanese prose and poetry, kana transformed the literary landscape, enabling women to become the central figures of the era's most enduring cultural achievements.213