Feminist literary criticism

What is it?

• A concern with:• Women's’ role in

society as portrayed through texts

• Woman as a construct through literature

• Definition:

• Unlike any other “isms” Feminism does not have

a theoretical conceptual base. The term

“Feminism” is derived from the Latin word.

• However a broad definition of feminism is “an

awareness of women’s oppression and

exploitation in society, at work and within the

family and conscious action by men and women

in changing the situation.

Evolution of the concept of feminism:

Feminism meant one thing in the 17th century and

meant something else in the 19 & 20th centuries. For

the former feminist, the struggle was fought for the

democratic rights of women, it included the Rights to

education & employment, right to own property, the

right to vote – the right to enter parliament. On the

whole they fought for legal reforms; the struggles were

essential outside home and family.

• Today the feminist have gone beyond mere reforms to end

discrimination. They work more towards their

emancipation. Feminism therefore now includes the

struggle against women’s subordination to the male within

the home, against their exploitation by the family, their

continuing low status at work & in burden in production

and reproduction.

• In essence the present day feminism is a struggle for the

achievement of women’s equality, dignity & freedom of

choice to control their life and bodies within and outside

home.

• Feminist consciousness arose in Asia during the early 20th century.

These voices demanded widow remarriage, ban on polygamy, and

ban of sati, purdah and demand for legal emancipation. In the

earliest agitator for women’s rights were men. Although women

today are becoming economically independent and are

educationally & occupationally mobile, we can still compare their

emotional world to that of Sita.

• A siege has been laid on women they have been captured by the

very institution which attempt to safeguard the life and interest

namely family, marriage, educational institution, employment

establishment, police outfits, legal machinery, etc.

• Whether it is child marriage, infanticide, feticide,

wife-battering, sati, widowhood, bigamy, polygamy,

sexual harassment (eve-teasing), physical torture,

mental cruelty, rape (by strangers, police, army,

paramilitary), dowry extortion, dowry murders. Pre-

marital and post-marital suicide – all these forms of

oppressions of Indian women manifest in the

decadent, capitalist, consumerist, corrupt, casteist,

communal, criminal and patriarchal society.

Theories of Feminism

Feminism

Socialist/Marxist

Radical

Liberal/Individual/

Moderate

• Social scientist and women activist both accept that women are not biologically inferior and her lower status to man is man-made. However their approach to the cause of women’s liberation differs. These approaches have resulted in the formulation of different theories.

• They all maintain that the social inequalities between man and women as creation of socio-cultural tradition. These theories have inspired several women liberal movement all over the world.

Moderate or Liberal Feminism or Individual Feminism:

• The inferior position of women according tothe supporters of this theory is due to culturaland psychological factor. J.S. Mill one of theearliest thinkers of this school championedthe cause of feminism. He was a liberal andindividualistic thinker. His book “Subjection ofWomen” (1861) has become a landmark in theHistory of women’s movement. According tohim the inferiority of women in the domainsof mental and intellectual production werenot natural but artificial.

• The Historical origin of Liberal feminism goes back to the 18th century “The enlightenment period of western Europe” – it was the age of reason. The thinkers of this period touched upon the nature and the role of women. An important aspect of liberal feminism was individualism, by which it was meant that individual possess the freedom to do what one wishes without interference of others.

• Mary Wollstonecraft as a liberal thinker is well known for her ardent support for women’s cause. Her work was known as “A Vindication of the rights of women” (1791). Her basic idea is that “Women are first and foremost human beings and not sexual beings” women are rational creatures. They are capable of governing themselves by reason.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT

Mary Wollstonecraft

• A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792)• formed the basis of modern thoughts of equality

• Called for the right for women to

– Have an equal education

“How can a rational being be ennobled by anything that is not obtained by its own exertions?”

– To be treated as equal partners not as ornamental wives

“Women are systematically degraded by receiving the trivial attentions which men think it manly to pay to the sex, when, in fact, men are insultingly supporting their own superiority”

• In “The feminine mystique” (1963) by Betty Friedan one of the founders of the liberal women’s movement in USA analyses the cause of the traditional male, female division of labor. She says if they are equal why one role fix for man and other for women. Such fixation which is social makes one superior or inferior.

• “Each suburban wife struggles with it alone. As she made the

beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate

peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub

Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night- she was

afraid to ask even of herself the silent question-- 'Is this all?”

― Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique

• Gandhi also took some of similar approach towards women’s problems. He strongly criticized excessive subordination of the wife to the husband. He said that women should enjoy equal status with man. Sex discrimination keeps half the population unproductive therefore women should be brought out from the four walls of the house.

• The liberal feminism which flourished in 1960s did not

provide more insight into the roots of women’s inferior

status. However the feminist began to extend the concept

of equality beyond the earlier emphasis on formal equality

in the civil and political sphere. Liberal feminism argued for

equal rights for women but accepted the existing social

order as valid and advocated for the improvement of social

customs, institutions, and laws. Without altering the social

structure particularly in family. They also subscribed to the

hope and accumulation of reforms will transform society,

but radical restructuring is not necessary.

• Radical Feminism:• Radical feminism is an offshoot of moderate

feminism. The radical feminist believes that the women’s subjection is due to sexual aggression by men.

• Male supremacy is the oldest, the most basic form of domination, all other forms of exploitation and oppression. (Racism, Capitalism, Imperialism, etc) are extension of male supremacy.

• Radical feminist also argued that the History of the world was not the struggle of the classes but it was a struggle between men and women.

RADICAL FEMINISM

• For radical feminist – The roots of subordination lies in the biological family.

• Radical feminist main plea is not only the removal of sex distinctions but the removal of men in their life – sexual preferences, control over one’s body, free sex experience and collective child care are some of the action programs outlined by the radical feminist.

• The radical feminist argue that women have always been economically exploited for them marriage turns to be a contract where by sex and service (house work) are provided by women to men in return for support.

• The same thing happened in the feudal society where the lord provided security to the slaves in return for their services. Women and slaves are equivalent due to sexual politics.

• Similarly virginity is held important and essential for the female only.

• When a woman marries the custom requires her to change the title from “miss” to “mrs’. All this she has to do in order to proclaim her belonging to a man – which implies that she has no independent existence of her own.

• Her income is regarded as part of husband’s income. Moreover when both partners earn it is a wife who is expected to take care of the domestic work such as cooking and housekeeping.

• In the west the radical feminism adopted novel protest methods to draw the attention of the male oppressors.

• In the 1970 an army of women marched through the New York streets and placed what they thought “freedom trash cans” at important points. In this they threw their cosmetics and false eyelashes.

• Through this they wanted to show that women cannot be considered as sex objects. They also shouted slogans “marriage if legalized rape”.

In India the Delhi University girls students formed a society called “Power” – Progressive Organisation for

Women’s Equal Rights. The posters reading “we are not chapathi making machines” were pasted on the walls of

the college.

• Among the radical feminist the very aggressive group formed societies whose chief aim was not only liberation of women but also the annihilation of men.

• Valarie Solanas was given 3 years imprisonment for shooting men. She also started a society called SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men).

• Another such society was called WITCH (Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell). In UK the feminist picketed the Miss World contest and carried banners displaying – “miss used, “miss conception” and “miss guided”.

• Man being the enemy of the radical feminist, they stood to put an end to the subordination and they seem to be no place for men in their life.

• Socialist or Marxist Feminism :

• Another approach to the status of women is Historical materialism or Socialist feminism. All to this approach the root cause of the lower status of women lies in the family.

• The family is the result of the private property in the means of production therefore complete equality of women is possible when private property in the means of production is abolished.

• The concept of private property brought a basic change in the family.

• “Men are from Earth, women are from Earth. Deal with it.” ― George Carlin

• In a capitalist society, family relations are reduced to more money relations. Karl Marx and Engels observed that by abolishing private means of production the family system will be abolished this is the only way in which the status of women can be raised.

• Feminist within the socialist fold have been struggling to come to grips with the reality of gender oppression in society.

• According to socialist view power is derived from sex and class and this is manifested materially and ideologically in patriarchy and class relations. The major task is to discover the interdependence of class and patriarchy.

• It would be necessary to organize struggle simultaneously against capitalism and patriarchy.

• Patriarchal system cannot vanish by nearly abolishing private property.

• A struggle against patriarchal is a struggle against the present structure of the family system dominated by men.

• The liberation of women would not be complete without a change in the patriarchal social system and all the social values that go with them.

• The socialist feminist have also raised the whole debate of domestic work. They argue that women’s oppression is based on unpaid house work.

• Child bearing, child care and house work are material activities resulting in products.

• Like radical feminist the socialist feminist are not anti-man. But they believe in collaborating with men if the latter support their cause.

“Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.”

― Gloria Steinem

• CONCLUSION

• These 3 main approaches have been used for understanding women’s subordinate status and also for evolving strategies to establish women’s equality.

• In India feminism and nationalism was closely inter-linked. The women’s movement in India had none of the man-women antagonism characteristic of women’s movement of the west.

• In the Indian context the dominant approach has been liberal feminism, moreover Indian women could not come out of their homes to fight oppression because it is the family that is a sole supportive institution. Hence it is not possible for many women to leave the security of the family.

• “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.” ― Gloria Steinem

• Indian feminism is entirely different from western feminism. Indian women in the absence of economic independence have to depend solely on the family.

• While in the west 50 to 5 % of the women are employed and those who are unemployed get benefits from social welfare schemes provided by the state.

• Hence they have an alternative if they decide to come out of oppressive family situations.

• Moreover the higher level of education of the women in the

west makes them more confident to struggle against social

odds while in Asia the high level of illiteracy, sheer struggle

for survival, make women extremely helpless to fight against

oppression with the family.

• This is one of the major reasons why Indian feminist had to

confine their struggle mainly to issues like rape, dowry,

murder, sexism in the media, etc.,

• The feminists seek the removal of all forms of inequality,

domination and oppression through the creation of a just,

social and economic order, in the home, nationally and

internationally.

Virginia Woolf

• A Room of One’s Own (1929)

– Women’s need for economic and social freedom

“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction”

“It would have been impossible, completely and entirely, for any woman to have written the plays of Shakespeare in the age of Shakespeare”

– Forego the traditional role as a mirror for man’s ability

"Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of a man at twice its natural size."

Simone de Beauvoir

– The Second Sex (1949)

– Woman as a social construction

– No “natural” distinction between the sexes

“one is not born, one becomes a woman”

Woman as a construct

“If the definition provided for this concept [of the eternal

feminine] is contradicted by the behavior of flesh-and-

blood women, it is the latter who are wrong: we are told

not that Femininity is a false entity, but that the women

concerned are not feminine.”

• What does this advert mean?

• What is the underlying suggestion?

Men's contributions?

• Freidrich Engels– The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State

(1884)

1960s

• Focus lay in the images of women in literature

• A need to combat the authority of these images

1970s

• Focus developed to explore the “mechanisms of patriarchy”

• Language, science and social structures that reproduced inequality

1980s

• Eclectic development –drawing on other disciplines eg– Marxism– psychoanalysis

• Exploration of female experience

• Rewriting of the canon (rediscovering female writers)

What feminist critics do

• Rediscover texts written by women

• Revalue women’s experience

• Examine representations of women in literature

• Challenge the view of woman as “Other”

• Examine and challenge patriarchal roles

• Examine language as a tool of gender construction

• Discuss social versus biological difference

• Question the “death of the author”

• Question the neutrality of mainstream interpretation

Feminist terminology

• Patriarchy – in a society the male is the centre of authority

– This is what is meant by a patriarchal society

Feminist terminology

• Hegemony – leadership; predominance.

– A hegemony is a dominant group or a system that creates the rules we live by

• Gender – term used when distinguishing male and female in a variety of disciplines

Identity and agency

• Words commonly employed when discussing women and their rights:

• Agency: the capacity for a person to act in the world, make decisions

– If you do not have the power to speak up for yourself then you have no agency, or the capacity to act for your own benefit

The “Other”

• The opposite of “the same”

• Used to exclude a group

• To subordinate those who do not fit in

• Gives justification for the dominance and exploitation of “inferior” groups

Phallocentrism

• a doctrine or belief centred on the phallus, especially a belief in the superiority of the male sex.

– In other words we can say that a patriarchal society is phallocentric

– In literature it is common to search for phallic symbols – symbols of male dominance

– This overlaps with psychoanalytic Freudian theory

FIRST WAVE FEMINISM

• The “First Wave” of feminism began in the late 19th and early 20th

Century.

• Focused mainly on opening up various opportunities for women,

especially the right to vote (women’s suffrage) and property rights.

• Concerns of First wave Feminism:

Education, Employment, Reformation in Marriage laws and the

plight of intelligent middle class single women.

• British women fought against the idea of ‘Angel in the House’

First Wave Feminism (Cont..)

• In USA: First wave feminism (1848-1960) focused on right to

vote and right to practice birth control.

• July 13, 1848: USA, Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized the

Seneca Convention- to discuss about the social, civil and

religious condition and rights of woman.

• Issued ‘Declaration of sentiments’

• Key Thinkers of this phase: Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady

Stanton, Lucy Stone, Sojourner Truth.

• Major achievements: Voting rights, property rights and birth control

Second wave Feminism

• The “Second Wave” of feminism is typically seen as starting

in the 1960s and continuing into the 1990s .

• It was particularly connected to other social movements

occurring at the time, such as the anti-Vietnam protests and

the civil rights movement.

• The “new social movement” dedicated to raising

consciousness about sexism and patriarchy, legalizing

abortion and birth control, attaining equal rights in political

and economic realms, and gaining sexual liberation

Second Wave Feminism (cont..)

• Important books: The Second Sex and Betty Friedan’s The Feminine

Mystique (1963)

• The Second Wave of feminism, although it did stress such important

social and economic issues as equality in employment and sexual

harassment, was also driven by other, more theoretical interests, such as

the differences between men and women and the political consequences

of those differences. As in First Wave feminist thought, however, there

was still a prevailing belief that men and women were essentially

different, and that due to their nurturing and collaborative natures women

would be able to bring about a peaceful world.

• Major achievements: Sexual freedom, integration in the workplace and

into the political arena, equal funding

Third Wave Feminism

• shares many of the interests of the first two waves (such as the empowerment of

women,)

• also characterized by a desire of young women to find a voice of their own and

to include various diverse groups in the fold of feminist thought.

• Rebecca Walker, who coined the term “Third Wave,” is one of the most

prominent figures in this wave of feminism.

• includes various groups of women, including women of color; lesbian, bisexual,

and transgendered women; and low income women.

• often seen as a critique Second Wave feminism for either excluding or

overlooking these disempowered groups.

• Major concerns: sexual freedom, inclusion of women of color and women from

other cultures, including the issues of the 1st and the 2nd wave feminism.

Three phases according to Elaine Showalter

The history of women’s writing in the West is divided into three phases according to Elaine Showalter:

• A feminine phase (1840-1880) :

in which women writers imitated the male writers in their norms and artistic standards

• A feminist phase (1880-1920):

in which a different and often a separate position was maintained.

• A female phase (1920 onwards):

which has a different female identity, style and content