This document discusses the history and key concepts of feminism. It defines feminism as the belief that women should have equal rights to men. It also defines phallocentrism as the belief that identifies the phallus as the source of power in culture and literature. The document then provides examples of quotes from historical male figures that are discriminatory towards women. It discusses the development of feminism over time, from ancient Greece to the 19th century women's suffrage movement. Key feminist thinkers and their works criticizing patriarchal systems are also summarized, such as Woolf, Beauvoir and Millet. Different geographical strains of feminism including American, British and French feminism are outlined. The document concludes with examples
2. What is Feminism?
• Feminism is the belief that women should
have equal rights to men.
3. What is Phallocentrism?
• The belief that identifies the phallus as the
source of power in culture and literature.
Phallus: a penis, especially when erect (typically used with
reference to male potency or dominance).
4. How has the male mind, with its
accompanying phallocentric belief
system, been implanted in us?
• Through its literature and its acclaimed writers,
philosophers, and scholars, most of whom are
male.
5. Examples of quotations by men
concerning women
• “Do not let a woman with a sexy rump deceive you with wheedling
and coaxing words; she is after your barn. The man who trusts a
woman trusts a deceiver.” Hesiod, poet 8th century B.C.E
• Plato thanks the gods for two things: that he had not been a slave
and that he had not been born a woman. Plato (c. 427-c. 347 B.C.E)
• “Silence gives the proper grace to woman.” Sophocles (497-406
B.C.E)
6. Examples of quotations by men
concerning women
• “The male is by nature superior, and female inferior; and the one
rules and the other is ruled….. Man consequently plays a major part
in reproduction; the woman is merely the passive incubator of his
seed.” Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E)
• Frailty, thy name is woman. Shakespeare (1564-1616).
7. Historical development of
Feminism:
• The ancient Greeks abetted gender discrimination
declaring the male to be the superior and the female the
inferior
• *Charles Darwin – “The Descent of Man”
8. • A Century after, the defender of feminism, Christine
Pisan critiques some scholars like Jean de Meun’s
▫ God created men and woman as equal beings
• French revolution
▫ the woman should have a voice in the public arena
• until 1900s the woman gained the right to vote
▫ activist in the social issues.
9. Major Feminist criticism on the early
1900s:
• Virgina Woolf: A Room of One’s own (1929)
• She hypothesizes the existence of Shakespeare’s sister
who is equally as gifted writer but dies without any
acknowledgment for being a woman
10. • Simone de Beauvoir: The second sex
(1949)
• Men= the absolute. Women= the other
• Beauvoir believes that being subordinated to the male;
the female is a secondary or not existence player
11. • Kate Millet: Sexual Politics (1969)
• She argues that a female is born but a woman is
created.
12. Feminist in the 1960’s, 1970’s, and
1980s:
• 1960’s: Women asserted political pressure in Congress and state
legislative houses across America for reforms.
• 1970’s: Feminists theorists and critics began to examine the literary
Canon.
• 1980’s: Elaine Showalter asserts that “feminist theorists must
construct new female models to analyze women’s literature.”
13. Geographical Strains of Feminism:
• Literary Canon: It is a term used widely to refer to a group of literary works
that are considered the most important of a particular time period or place.
• American: Stressing repression.
• feminism’s major concern:
• the restoration and inclusion of the writings of female writers to the
literary canon.
14. •British:
• Stressed oppression. Saw art, literature and life as
inseparable
• literature directly affects how women will be treated in
real life.
• the goal of feminist criticism is to change society, not
simply critique it
15. • French:
• Stressed female oppression
• French feminism is associated with the theoretical and
applications of psychoanalysis
• ultimately denied women the power of literature and
writing.
17. Examples Feminist quotations:
• Feminism is the radical notion that women are
people.” Cheris Karamarae.
• “Feminism is an entire world view or gestalt, not
just a laundry list of women issues.” Charlotte
Bunch.
18. Examples Feminist quotations:
• “Feminism never harmed anybody unless it was some
feminist. The danger is that the study and contemplation
of ourselves may become so absorbing that it builds by
so slow degrees a high wall that shuts out the great world
of thought” Rheta Childe Dorr.”
