Feminist Criticism.
Feminist criticism appears in the late
1970s, as a result of the feminist movement, which emerged in the 1960s.
feminist criticism is interdiscipline, formed from other literary theories,
such as psychoanalysis, sociology, historicism or deconstruction. Among the different
approaches that we can find in the feminist criticism, they only share their
theory based in the distinction of a masculin and a feminine genre, and a
theory about a patriarchal culture ruled by the men, organised in order to
satisfy the interests of the men, and in which the women are oppressed and/or
excluded. They state that the gender has an important role in the construction
of literary works and speech. All the cultural expressions are marked and
oriented by the gender, mostly by the male sex. The main idea is that all the
literature, every literary value is manipulated by men, and the objective of
the feminist criticism is to reveal the way in which the literature and society
is marked by the gender and the content of those works and their construction,
which reflect attitudes that support the patriarchal ideology. For this purpose
they analyse how the feminin characters are represented in the works in order
to uncover the implicit patriarchal culture
in different aspects of the work (Ana García).
We could classify the feminist theories in
three main groups:
a)
Theories having an
essentialist focus, such as psychoanalytic and French feminism.
b)
Theories aimed at defining and
establishing a femnist literary canon or theories searching and re-interpret
and re-vise literature from a less patriarchal point of view.
c)
Theories concentrating on sexual difference and sexual politics, for
example, gender and lesbian studies, nad cultural and radical feminism (Kristi
Siegel).
Now we are going to expose some of the
several groups in the feminist criticism:
North American feminist critics of the
1970s and early 1980s started to analyseliterary text through close reading and
historical scholarship. One group practised
feminist critique. Feminist critique examined how women women
characters are depicted, exposing the patriarchal ideology implicit in the
classics, and indicating that traditions and attitudes supporting systematic
masculine domination are inscribed in the literary canon (Ross Murfin and
Supriya M. Ray).
Another goup, gynocristicism, studied texts
written by women and the female literary tradition to see how women perceive
themselves across the ages (Ross Murfin and Supriya M. Ray).
At the same time, British feminist critics
rejected the methods of North American femnist critics, arguing that
differences of class, race and culture caused great difference among women
across space and time. British feminist critics stated that their own critical
practice as more political than North American practice, focusing on an
engagement with historical process to promote social range (Ross Murfin and
Supriya M. Ray).
Psychoanalytic feminism is based on
psychoanalytic theories of Freud. Psychoanalytic feminism sustains that gender
is not biological but is based on the psycho sexual development of the individual,
and that gender inequality comes from childhood experiences, which lead men to
think that they have to be masculine, and woman to think that they have to be
feminine. They also maintain that gender leads to a social system where men
have the supremacy, which in turn
influences the individual
psycho-sexual development (Wikipedia) .
There are some terms that we can find in
feminist theories:
Androgyny
(taken from Women Studies
page of Drew University). Androgyny suggests a world in which sex roles are not
rigdly defined, in which ‘the man in every woman' and the ‘woman in every man'
could be integrated and freely expressed' (Kristi Siegel).
Écriture
féminine. Écriture
féminine promote women’s experiences and feelings to the point that it makes
stronger the work (Kristi Siegel).
Gynocentrics
(Elaine Showalter).
Gynocentrics is a term used to define the 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 (Kristi Siegel).
Patriarchy.
"Sexism is perpetuated by systems of patriarchy where
male-dominated structures and social arrangements elaborate the oppression of
women. Patriarchy almost by definition also exhibits androcentrism, meaning male
centered. Coupled with patriarchy, androcentrism assumes that male norms
operate through out all social institutions and become the standard to which
all persons adhere" (Joe Santillan - University of California at Davis)
(Kristi Siegel).
Phallologocentrism. This term refers to a language ordered an
absolute Word which is masculine systematically excludes, disqualifies,
denigrates, diminishes, silences the “feminine” (Nikita Dhawan)
(Kristi Siegel).
Bibliography.
ü
Bedfordstmartins.com
http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/Virtualit/poetry/critical_define/critfemin.html
20.05.06
Article adapted from the The Bedford Glossary of Critical and
Literary Terms by Ross
Murfin and Supriya M. Ray. Copyright 1998 by Bedford Books.
ü Bailiwick.lib.uiowa.edu
http://bailiwick.lib.uiowa.edu/wstudies/theory.html
23.05.06
Karla-Tonella@uiowa.edu
ü Ana García. English Fiction of 19th
and 20th Century. 2005 – 2006.
ü Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_theory 20.05.06
Wikipedia®
ü Kristisiegel.com
http://www.kristisiegel.com/theory.htm#feminism
20.05.06
© Kristi Siegel