Marija Ivanauskaitė-Lastauskienė is considered the pioneer of the feminist movement in Lithuania - in the novel Lights and Shadows. She was the first to raise the idea of an independent, self-seeking, liberated woman. With her sister Sofija Ivanauskaitė-Pšibiliauskienė, they created the tandem Lazdynų Pelėda (Hazel Owl).
In Lithuanian literature, Lazdynų Pelėda has created new types of women who are seduced, and dependent on the will of their husbands. Creativity is characterized by a painful contrast of experiences, a spontaneous narrative, and light and dark moods. The idea of women's freedom has been developed in the works, and modern feminist problems have been introduced in principle.
Both sisters have experienced from an early age how the stigmatizing, restrictive definition of gender works, mainly related to society's culture towards the different social roles of women and men and their possibilities. Therefore, Sofija and Marija Ivanauskaitė-Lastauskienė encouraged them to look at this entrenched tradition and write about it critically.
Other Lithuanian women writers of the same period were Žemaitė, Gabrielė Petkevičaitė-Bitė, Liudvika Didžiulienė-Žmona and Šatrijos Ragana.