FEMINIST LITERARY CRITICISM
Feminism:
belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes
-movement organized around this belief
Feminist:
A person whose beliefs and behaviour are based on feminism
Femme fatale: (archetype) a seductive women who leads men into dangerous situations
-Alluring mysterious woman
Key Feminist Assumptions
 Women are oppressed by patriarchy economically, politically, socially and
psychologically. Patriarchy is meant to do this
 In every patriarchal domain women are marginalized and defined by what she lacks that
men have
 The development of great literature was a product of patriarchal ideology
 Biology determines our sex (male/female), culture determines our gender
(masculine/feminine), and the traits we associate with masculine and feminine are
learned behaviour, not inborn
 Feminist activity and theory/literary criticism has as its goal gender equality
Feminist criticism examines the way literature reinforces the economic, political, social, and
psychological oppression of women. It stemmed from the idea that, in the past, literary works of
male authors describing experiences from male points of view were considered the standard
and represented the experience of all readers when, in fact, this wasn’t the case. Works of
female authors did not describe an experience from a male point of view, and were not
considered universal, therefore not literary classics.
Feminist criticism became dominant in the West (North America) in the 1970-80’s. In 1949
Simone de Beauvior wrote a book called The Second Sex that argued that by associating
humanity (generally) as male, women are relegated to an inferior position in society. Her ideas
fueled the study of all literature, especially the role language plays. Language was analyzed as
a tool of male domination, analyzing the ways in which it represents the world from a male point
of view. It was argued that children learn language that is biased and that male language is
associated with light, reason, and activity, whereas female language is associated with passivity
and emotion. Language, as it existed, it was argued, was structured to value reason over
emotion, therefore creating a masculine-dominated culture. Language is phallocentric,
privileging masculinity.
In the simplest terms, language, it is argued, forces females to choose between adopting maledominated discourse(writing, speaking, talking) or opting out entirely and remaining silent.
Women can only represent themselves as men see them, with the language men created, thus
being the “invisible and unheard sex”! Language gives women a narrow range of choices, and
women have different life experiences and write differently, therefore there is a need to develop
a feminine language. Classics by women only appeared on post-secondary syllabi beginning in
the mid-1970’s and are still not represented on an equal basis as (white) male authors. Women
writers have been marginalized in literary history.
Women have their own themes and celebrate female style. As a result of Feminist criticism
historical classics written by male writers were reread, rewritten, and reinterpreted from a female
perspective…called revisionist. Female literary criticism examines how female characters are
portrayed, how they are represented, their roles, their identities. Feminist criticism focuses on
women and women’s issues reinforcing the fact that the cultural habit of seeing the male
experience as a universal one is exclusionary and wrong.
Patriarchy: a culture that privileges men by promoting traditional gender roles. It determines
the norms and values of a society.
Patriarchy is sexist and promotes the belief that women are innately inferior to men. Patriarchy
presents women with internalized norms and values that are defined by a male culture.
Gender roles have been very successful in justifying inequalities. There exists the belief that
men are superior to woman and has been used, feminists have observed, to justify and maintain
the male monopoly of positions of economic, political, and social powers to keep women
powerless by denying them the educational and occupational means of acquiring economic,
political and social power.
Men = rational
Women =
irrational
Strong
weak
Protective
submissive/nurturing
Decisive
emotional
Feminism and Literature
When using this literary theory it needs to be understood that some works lend themselves
more readily than others to certain kinds of feminist analysis. How this applies to a novel is to
look at:
 The ways which the text reinforces patriarchy and therefore see how patriarchal
ideologies operate in the society the novel presents
 Look at the unconscious sexist ideology the text promotes
 Examine the sexist behaviours and attitudes in the texts
 Look at how women are presented in the text and what role and value is associate with
them, and why
 What does the text reveal about the patriarchy- economic, political, social and
psychological? How are women portrayed? How do these portrayals relate to the
gender issues of the period in which the novel was written or is set?
 How does the work reinforce or undermine patriarchal ideology?
 What does the work imply about the ways in which women’s situations in the world –
economic, political, social, or psychological might be improved?
 What does the work suggest about the ways in which race, class, and/or other cultural
factors relate and produce women’s experience?
 What role does the work play in terms of women’s literary history and literary tradition?
 How does the work characterize women? What is the view of women and traditional
values?
 How is patriarchal ideology seen through the attitude toward women and the sexist
representations of the female characters?
 What female archetypes are represented in the text?