Feminist Criticism

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Feminist Criticism

• Examines ways in which literature reinforces or
  undermines the oppression of women.
• Economically
• Socially
• Politically
• Psychologically

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Traditional Gender Roles

• Men
• Rational
• Strong
• Protective
• Decisive

• Women
• Emotional (irrational)
• Weak
• Nurturing
• Submissive

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• Traditional gender roles have been used
  successfully to justify inequities such as
  excluding women from equal access to leadership
  and decision-making positions and paying men
  higher wages than women for doing the same job.

4

• Biological Essentialism
• Belief of inborn inferiority
• based on biological differences between the
  sexes that are part of our unchanging essence as
  men and women
• Example hysteria

5

• Feminists dont deny biological differences
• dont agree that differences in physical size,
  shape, and body chemistry make men naturally
  superior to women
• more intelligent
• more logical
• better leaders

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• The inferior position long occupied by women in a
  patriarchal society has been culturally, not
  biologically, produced.

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Arguments Against Feminist Premises

• Western society has actually been structured to
  protect women from the brutalities of war and
  commerce, allowing them to be nurturers, mothers,
  and homemakers.
• Rather than exploiting or suppressing women, it
  actually celebrates and cherishes them.

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Counter Argument by Feminists

• Assumes suppression and exclusion.
• If a woman is put on a pedestal, she cant do
  much of anything up there.
• Assumes women are weaker sex, needing protection.
• Assumes women are unable to compete with men.
• Disallows for the fact that some women are
  physically and mentally stronger than some men.

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Roots of Feminism

• Men have oppressed women.
• allowing them little or no voice in the
  political, social, or economic issues of their
  society

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Roots of Feminism

• By not giving voice and value to womens
  opinions, responses, and writings, men have
  therefore suppressed the female, defined what it
  means to be feminine, and thereby de-voiced,
  devalued, and trivialized what it means to be a
  woman and

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Goal of Feminism

• Therefore, feminisms goal is to change these
  degrading views of women so that all women will
  realize they are not a nonsignificant Other and
  will realize that each woman is a valuable person
  possessing the same privileges and rights as
  every man.

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Roots of Feminism

• Women must define themselves and assert their own
  voices in the arenas of politics, society,
  education, and the arts.
• By personally committing themselves to fostering
  such change, feminists hope to create a society
  in which not only the male but also the female
  voice is equally valued.

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Historical Roots of Feminism

• According to feminist criticism, the roots of
  prejudice against women have long been embedded
  in Western culture.
• Some say it originated with biblical narrative
  where the fall of man is blamed on Eve, not Adam.

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Historical Roots of Feminism

• According to feminist criticism, the roots of
  prejudice against women have long been embedded
  in Western culture.
• Ancient Greeks (Aristotle) The man is by nature
  superior, and the female inferior and the one
  rules and the other is ruled.

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Roots of Feminism

• Not until the early 1900s (Progressive Era) that
  the major roots of feminist criticism began to
  grow.
• Women gained the right to vote
• Women became prominent activists in the social
  issues of the day
• Health care
• Education
• Politics
• literature

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History of Feminist Criticism

• Feminism in 1960s and 1970s
• Feminist critics began to examine the traditional
  literary canon
• Discovered examples that supported assertions of
  Beauvoir and Millet
• that males considered the female the Other
• male dominance and prejudice

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History of Feminist Criticism

• Feminism in 1960s and 1970s
• Feminist critics began to examine the traditional
  literary canon
• Stereotypes of women
• Sex maniacs
• Goddesses of beauty
• Mindless entities
• Old spinsters

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History of Feminist Criticism

• Feminism in 1960s and 1970s
• Feminist critics began to examine the traditional
  literary canon
• found male authors in established literary canon
  Dickens, Wordsworth, Hawthorne, Thoreau, Twain,
  etc.
• Found few females achieved such status
• Roles of female, fictionalized characters were
  limited to secondary positions
• More frequently than not as minor parts within
  story or as stereotypical images
• Female scholars such as Woolf and Beauvior were
  ignored
• Works seldom referred to by male critics of
  literary canon

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History of Feminist Criticism

• Feminism in 1960s and 1970s
• Feminist critics began to examine the traditional
  literary canon
• Asserted that the males who created and gained
  prominence in canon assumed all readers were
  male.
• Most university professors were males
• Women reading such works were trained to read as
  if they were males.

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History of Feminist Criticism

• Feminism in 1960s and 1970s
• Feminist critics began to examine the traditional
  literary canon
• Brought about existence of a female reader who
  was affronted by the male prejudices abounding in
  the canon.
• Brought about questions concerning the male and
  female qualities of literary form, style, voice,
  and theme.
• By 1970s, books that defined womens writings in
  feminine terms flourished.

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History of Feminist Criticism

• Feminism in 1960s and 1970s
• Having highlighted the importance of gender
• Feminist critics began to rediscover literary
  works authored by females that had been dismissed
  or deemed inferior by their male counterparts,
  unworthy to be a part of the canon.
• Kate Chopins The Awakening (1899)
• Doris Lessings The Golden Notebook (1962)

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Feminist Criticism

• No one critical theory of writing dominates
  feminist criticism few theorists agree upon a
  unifying feminist approach to textual analysis.
• American textual, stressing repression
• British Marxist, stressing oppression
• French psychoanalytic, stressing repression

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Feminist Criticism

• Asserts that most of our literature presents a
  masculine-patriarchal view in which the role of
  women is negated or at best minimized.

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Feminist View

• Attempts to show that writers of traditional
  literature have ignored women and have
  transmitted misguided and prejudiced views of
  them
• Attempts to stimulate the creation of a critical
  environment that reflects a balanced view of the
  nature and value of women

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Feminist View

• Attempts to recover the works of women writers of
  past times and to encourage the publication of
  present women writers so that the literary canon
  may be expanded to recognize women as thinkers
  and artists and
• Urges transformations in the language to
  eliminate inequities and inequalities that result
  from linguistic distortions.

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Questions for Analysis

• Is the author male or female?
• Is the text narrated by a male or female?
• What types of roles do women have in the text?
• Are the female characters the protagonists or
  secondary and minor characters?
• Do any stereotypical characterizations of women
  appear?
• What are the attitudes toward women held by the
  male characters?
• What is the authors attitude toward women in
  society?
• How does the authors culture influence his or
  her attitude?
• Is feminine imagery used? If so, what is the
  significance of such imagery?
• Do the female characters speak differently than
  do the male characters? In your investigation,
  compare the frequency of speech for the male
  characters to the frequency of speech for the
  female characters.