Feminist Criticism

Presented by :
Nebal Ziyad Jwaid
Malék Kadri Benlahcene
-The outline of the presentation

- Definition of Feminist Criticism

- Developmental stages of Feminism and Feminist

Criticism

- Interests, needs , and purposes of Feminism

-Feminist Rubrics

- Important Concepts within Feminism

- Post feminist Criticism

I-Definition of Feminist Criticism:

 Feminism is a political and a cultural perception based on the

premise that gender differences are the basis of inequality
between men and women. This biological essentialism is the
basis for the deterministic explanation for women’s inferiority.
 Feminist Criticism is not a 2Oth century phenomenon, but its
origins go back to Greek literature ,e.g.( Sappho and
Aristophanes Play , Lysistra).
However, it is only during the 20th century that Feminist
criticism appeared in a systematic way. It is so wide in scope
including writers and critics from different nations: Fatima
Merinssi, Leila Ahmed, Alice Walker, ...etc.
 Feminist criticism was influenced by: Marxism, Psychology,
Hegel’s opposition of logic, Bergson’s subjection of reason
to body needs,...etc.
 Some important Feminist works during the 20 th century:
Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own (1929)
Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949)
Kate Millet’s Sexual Politics (1970) (p252)
 20th century Feminist Criticism focused on :
the recognition of women as writers with a distinguished
identity, purposes, way of writing (gynocriticism); the
inclusion of the cultural perception concerning gender issues;
the dissection of the intertwined rapport between the
previously this previously mentioned issues and male’s
monopoly with emphasis on the expunction of such patterns;
the rejection of the previous theories because of their
limited vision and scope.( p 215)
 Three kinds of Feminist Criticism should be known; French
Feminism where Feminists like Anne Lerlec, Marguerite
Daras, Julia Kristeva, Luce Iragaray and Hélène Cixous
participated in l’ écriture feminine; American Feminism which
 was stimulated by the civil right’s movement in the 1960’s aiming at
liberating women, raising Black, Lesbian, and minority literature to a
better status; and British feminism which can be said to start with
Virginia Woolf focusing on the social and economic context of women’s
writing, their special use of language, and their heritage.

 American feminist criticism: textual, stressing repression

 British feminist criticism : Marxist, stressing oppression
 French feminist criticism : psychoanalytic, stressing repression
 II-The Developmental Stages of Feminist criticism

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.

In Britain, feminism finds its beginnings in the mid-1600s when a

political voice of and for women began to be heard.

One of the major development in literary studies in the past twenty years
or so has been the emergence of the feminist criticism both theoretically
and practically. Initially , feminist criticism reflected the political goals of
feminism in that authors and texts were judged in accordance with how far
they could be reconciled with feminist ideology.
 Goal of Feminism

Therefore, feminism’s 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.

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.”
 According to feminist criticism, the roots of prejudice against women
have long been embedded in Western culture.
 Religious leaders: Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine

 women were merely “imperfect men”

 Spiritually weak creatures
 Possessed a sensual nature that lures men away from spiritual
truths, thereby preventing males from attaining their spiritual
potential
 According to feminist criticism, the roots of prejudice against women
have long been embedded in Western culture.
 Darwin (The Descent of Man – 1871)

 “women are of a characteristic of … a past and lower state of

civilization.”
 Are inferior to men, who are physically, intellectually, and
artistically superior
 How does feminist critique start taking an action ?
 The combination of being intellectually talented but institutionally
marginal is one of the characteristics of the history of women ,
education, and literary studies. Indeed, a women’s movement, whatever
its specific name and historical context, arises when enough women and
men find this combination unbearable
 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
 Waves of Feminism
 First-wave feminism is used to refer to the
movement which emerged in the late 9th century and the early 20th
century, more concerned with gaining equal rights for women,
particularly the right of suffrage. Jane Addam,Sojourner Truth,
Frances Wright, and Virginia Woolf were some of the well-known
feminists who belonged to this first wave.

 Second-wave feminism refers to the revival of feminist activity in the

late 1960s and 1970s, when protests centered again on the same issue
of women’s inequality. It lasted till the 1980s, has continued to exist
since that time, and coexists with what is termed third-wave feminism.

 The third wave, beginning in the 1990s, is both a continuation of the

second-wave feminism and a reaction against the failures of the former
movement. While Simone de Beauvoir, Oprah Winfrey, Angela Davis,
Susan Faludi, Betty Friedan, Germaine Greer, and Kate Millet added
new dimensions to the second-wave feminist movement, Judith Butler,
Margaret Atwood and Bell Hooks were the more prominent figures
belonging to the third school.
 Virginia Woolf
 A Room of One’s Own (1919)
 Declares men have and continue to treat women as inferiors.
 The male defines what is means to be female and controls the
political, economic, social and literary structures.
 This kind of loss of artistic talent and personal worthiness is the
direct result of society’s opinion of women: they are intellectually
inferior to men.
 Women must reject this social construct and establish their own
identity.
 Women must challenge the prevailing, false cultural notions about
their gender identity and develop a female discourse that will
accurately portray their relationship “to the world of reality and
not to the world of men.”
 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

 * In 1957, Carolyn G. Heilbrun had reread Hamlet and
Shakespearean criticism.

 * In the 1960s, most feminist critics were young and making their way.
They were graduate students, nontenured faculty member, journalists,
writers, editors Thus, there was a growing awareness of women’s
inequality and subjugation. But, itwould be wrong to conclude that only
women’s writing voiced these protests.

 As early as1869, Mill wrote about the problems of women’s inequality in

society, and pointed out:
“What is now called the nature of women is an eminently artificial thing
—the result offorced repression in some directions ...” (Mill, 1970, p.
22). Since then, ‘feminism’ has been interpreted in numerous shades of
meaning, reminding us of the classical onion peel image.
 Simone de Beauvior
 The Second Sex (1949)

 “foundational work of 20th century feminism”

 Declares that French society (and Western societies in general)
are PATRIARCHAL, controlled by males.
 Like Woolf, believed that the male defines what it means to be
human, including, therefore, what it means to be female.
 Since the female is not the male, she becomes the Other, finding
herself a nonexistent player in the major social institutions of
her culture
 Church

 Government

 Educational systems
 Simone de Beauvoir had published The Second Sex, her narrative of
women‘s existentential otherness. A mark of otherness is one’s inability
to shape one’s psychology, social, and cultural identity. Beauvoir
analyzes men’s depiction of women in biology, psychoanalysis, history,
and literature. she started a debate that would boost feminist thinking
for the next 50 years or more
 “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman. No biological,
psychological, or economic fate determines the figure that the human
female presents in society; it is civilization as a
whole that produces this creature …” (Beauvoir , 1997, p. 295)
 Kate Millet
 Sexual Politics (1970)
 challenges the social ideological characteristics of both
the male and the female.
 “A female is born but a woman is created.”
 One’s sex is determined at birth (male or female)
 One’s gender is a social construct created by cultural ideals
and norms (masculine or feminine)
 Kate Millet
 Sexual Politics (1970)
 challenges the social ideological characteristics of both
the male and the female.
 Women and men (consciously and unconsciously) conform
to the cultural ideas established for them by society.
 Cultural norms and expectations are transmitted through
media: television, movies, songs, and literature.
 Boys must be aggressive, self-assertive, domineering
 Girls must be passive, meek, humble
 Kate Millet
 Sexual Politics (1970)

 Women must revolt against the power center of their culture: male
dominance.
 Women must establish female social conventions for themselves by
establishing and articulating female discourse, literary studies, and
feminist theory.
 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 Chopin’s The Awakening (1899)

 Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook (1962)

 As early as 1975, Carolyn Heilbrun and Catherine Stimpson associated
such readings with the “righteous, angry” first stage of feminist criticism

How does feminist critique start taking an action?

*Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopa, a Venetian noblewoman,

was on the the women who struggle successfully for a formal
education. She was the first woman to earn a doctorate of
philosophy in 1678.

*Sarah Fyge Field Egerton was one of those feminist who

broadly legitimated the notion of women as thinking beings.
These ideas postulated that women were capable of
-self- definition
-life of mind
-In “The Emulation” she declares:

And shall we Women now sit tamely by,

Make no excursions in Philosophy,
Or grace our thoughts in tuneful Poetry?
We will our rights in Learning’s World maintain,
Wits empire,now,shall know a Female Reign…
 II.A. Elaine Showalter’ s division:

1. Feminine/Imitative: During the 19th century women imitated

male’s aesthetic because of the long held belief of women’s
inferiority in terms of their mental and creative powers.
2. Feminist: Between 1880’s and 1980’s, women experienced a
striking political awareness. Thus, calls for autonomy and
rejection of the existing cultural stereotypes were their main
concern.
3. Female/ Self-discovery( 1920-1960’s): women freed
themselves, neglected the patriarchal entourage, and turned
to discover themselves.

II.B. Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar:
1. In their works The Mad Women in the Attic: The Women Writer and the
Nineteenth Century Literary Imagination (1979), they explained how women
through their writing expressed a sense of anxiety and pathologies caused by
men’s oppression.
2. They explained the hidden message behind the apparent conforming women’s
literary texts.
3. The development of what is called « affiliation complex » in the developed stage
of Feminist criticism.
 They analyze literature in relationship to the myths created by men and challenge
such patterns;
 Passive, submissive “angel”
 Destructive, sinister “monster”
VI-Feminist Rubrics:

 Defiance of Difference:
Sexual difference is the source of discrimintaion. women writers
should utilize a new terminology to protray this dire state of affairs.
This discrimination should be detected throughout history. The latter
showed that this marginalisation is due to the non-conforming attitude
of women in their writing to the canonized texts of men. The only
resort was to rewriting history and reforming educational curricula.
 Celebration of Difference:
women experienced what is called « the joy of difference ».This
celebration resulted in a prolific varied literary production
prduction.They went further in posing questions upon the nature of
differences, its effect on reading and writing, especially on women’s
writing(écriture feminine) stylistic and thematic features.Many writers
develop a comparative mode focusing on their heritage and theirliterary
maturity.(p 259-262)

 The recognition of differences

In the 1970s, feminist critics divided into several different critical
communities “Critical community”
This means both
-a cluster that unites the principles of feminism and feminist criticism
with participation in a particular social group, primarily one that claims
minority or marginal status.
-the theoretical affinity
 V. Some important key concepts within Feminist Criticism

-Appropiation: is related women’s bodies and their assigned funtions by men.

-Authority: how women were deprived from authority in different fields by men.

-Authorship: the significance and importance of writing for women. « is the pen a metaphorical
penis? »

- Body: an ambivalent concept being a source of weakenss and at the same time of strength.

-Conciousness raising: is based on exchanging experiences of suffernings, and oppression.

-Essentialism: a term based on the biological charactersistics of women.

- Hysteria: during the 19th century, it was believed that the majority of women suffer from
nervous disorders if they consume a lot of energy.
-Marginalization: refers to women’s state within patriarchal societies.

-Patriarchy: refers to male dominance over women.

-Gynocriticsm:a term coined by Elaine Showalter referring to putting

emphasis on women’ s writing throughout history rather than adapting
male models.

-Gynesis: is developed by Alice Jardine focusing on the woman as a

“writing effect”.
VI- Post feminism

 Different feminist groups appear depending on the recognition of the

differences such as

Liberal feminism
Marxist feminism
Black feminism
Womanism
Multiracial feminism
Individualist feminism
Post structuralism and post-modern
Ecofeminism