FEMINISM

FEMINISM

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🔴  Simone de Beauvior 🔴

o 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

• Woman must break the bonds of her patriarchal society and define herself 

if she wishes to become a significant human being in her own right and 

defy male classification as the Other.

• Must ask herself, “What is a woman?�

🔴  Kate Millet🔴 

o SEXUAL POLITICS (1969)

• 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)

• 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

• 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.

• Examines works of D.H. Lawrence, Henry Miller, Norman Mailer, and 

Jean Genet and argues that even these “liberal” modern writers still 

perpetuate the sexual stereotypes by portraying male power and 

domination as natural and desirable.

Ideological 

Biological 

Sociological 

Class 

Economic and Educational 

Force 

Anthropological: myth

🔴Elaine Showalter🔴

o A LITERATURE OF THEIR OWN (1977) 

o TOWARDS A FEMINIST POETICS

• Chronicles three historical or evolutionary phases of female writing

Feminine phase (1840-1880)

o Writers accepted their role as female writers

o Wrote under pseudonyms

Charlotte Bronte

George Eliot

George Sand

Feminist phase (1880-1920)

o Female authors dramatized the plight of the “slighted” 

woman

o Depicted the harsh or cruel treatment of female characters

Female phase (1920-present)

o Feminist critics now concern themselves with developing a 

particularly female understanding of the female experiences 

in arts, including a feminine analysis of literary forms and 

techniques.

o Uncovering of misogyny in male texts

  Coined term gynocritics or gynocriticism 

o Label given to the study of women as writers 

o Subjects it deals with: the history, style, themes, genres, and structures of writings 

by women 

o Process of “constructing a female framework for analysis of women’s literature to 

develop new models based on the study of female experience, rather than to adapt 

to male models and theories.”

o Provided critics with four models that address the nature of women’s writing 

The biological �

Emphasizes how the female body marks itself upon a text by 

providing a host of literary images and a personal, intimate tone.

The linguistic 

Concerns itself with the need for a female discourse.

Investigates the differences between how women and men use 

language.

Asserts that women can and do create a language peculiar to their 

gender and addresses the way in which this language can be 

utilized in their writings.

The psychoanalytic 

Based on an analysis of the female psyche and how such an 

analysis affects the writing process.

Emphasizes the flux and fluidity of female writings as opposed to 

male rigidity and structure.

The cultural 

Investigates how the society in which female authors work and 

functions shapes women’s goals, responses, and points.

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