1. Feminist literary criticism examines representations of women in texts and challenges traditional gender roles and stereotypes. 2. Early feminist critics analyzed how women authors faced barriers and how female characters were portrayed in limited, stereotypical ways. 3. More recent criticism looks at the intersection of gender with other identities like race and sexuality, and how cultural factors shape concepts of masculinity and femininity.

2.  Advocacy of equality of the sexes and the
establishment of the political, social, and
economic rights of the female sex; the
movement associated with this (Oxford
English Dictionary)

3.  First Wave: political, ends in 1920 when
women got the vote
 Second Wave: cultural and political, 1960s
feminist movement
 essentialist vs. constructivist arguments
 Third Wave: 1980s & 90s international
movement

4.  1960’s & 70’s : critique of representations of
women in male-authored texts
 1970’s & 80’s: expanding the canon &
recovering of texts by women
 Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “Yellow Wallpaper” & Zora
Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God
 Gilbert & Gubar’s Madwoman in the Attic (1979)
 1990’s – Present: women & agency

5. A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists
from Brontë to Lessing. Princeton: Princeton
UP, 1977.
 Three phases:
Feminine: 1840-80 women writing like men
Feminist: 1880-1920 women advocating for their rights
Female: 1920-present women examining biological,
linguistic, psychoanalytic, and cultural differences
 Gynocriticism: women need to study writing
by women, their “mothers”

6. The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer
and the Nineteenth-Century Literary
Imagination. New Haven: Yale UP, 1979.
 “anxiety of influence”: Bloom’s patriarchal model in
The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry (1973)
doesn’t fit woman writer’s experience:
 Precursors are male
 Models as written are angel/demon stereotypes
 “anxiety of authorship”: fear of writing at all
 women taught to be self effacing
 female authors as madwomen hiding from
publication

7.  Essentialist
 gender reflects a natural difference between men
and women that is as much psychological, even
linguistic, as it is biological
 Constructivist
 accepting of the idea that gender is made by
culture in history

8.  “An analysis of gender that ‘ignores’ race, class,
nationality, and sexuality is one that assumes a
white, middle-class, heterosexual woman
inclined toward motherhood as the subject of
feminism; only by questioning the status of the
subject of feminism – ‘woman’ – does a
feminist criticism avoid replicating the
masculinist cultural error of taking the
dominant for the universal” (765).

9.  Womanism is a feminist term coined by Alice
Walker
 It is a reaction to the realization that feminism
does not fully encompass the perspectives of
black women
 A Womanist is a woman who loves women and
appreciates women’s culture and power as
something that is incorporated into the world
as a whole

10.  Addresses the racist and classist aspects of
white feminism and actively opposes separatist
ideologies
 It includes the word “man”, recognizing that
black men are an integral part of black
women’s lives as their children, lovers, and
family members

11.  Accounts for the ways in which black women
support and empower black men
 Serves as a tool for understanding the Black
woman’s relationship to men as different from
the white woman’s due to a shared history of
racial oppression
 Used as a means for analyzing black women’s
literature, as it marks the place where race,
class, gender, and sexuality intersect

12.  A philosophy that advocates living in sexual
and social equality and in harmony with nature
 Humans should reject current male-
dominated, warlike cultures and return to the
egalitarian societal model of the past –the true
path of human cultural evolution
 Humans must rediscover and reaffirm the
ancient Mother Goddess, who represents the
feminine aspect of the divine and the union of
nature and spirituality

13.  Most people assume that the only alternative
to patriarchy is matriarchies – in other words,
if men do not dominate women, then women
must dominate men – this is a dominator
society worldview
 The real alternative to patriarchy is not
matriarchy which is only the other side of the
dominator coin
 The alternative is a Partnership Society

14.  1. Rethink the canon—the accepted
“greats” of all-time—to include women
authors, poets, directors, actors
 2. Examine representations of women in
literature and film by male and female
authors & moviemakers

15.  3. Challenge representations of women
as “other,” as “lack,” as part of “nature”
(whereas men are part of “culture” and
better than “natural” or “emotional”)
 4. Raise the question of whether men and
women are “essentially” different because
of biology, or are socially constructed as
different (subjugating women as “worse”
than men in the important ways)

16. 1. Are there “natural” roles men and women fill?
2. To what extent are our roles created by culture?
Nature vs. nurture
3. Who puts limitations on genders?
4. Who grants privileges to a gender?
5. Examines these two statements:
A “woman” is/has ______________ (adjective, image, trait, ability…)

A “man” is/has _______________ (adjective, image, trait, ability…)
6. Should we scrap our created gender roles and
stereotypes?
7. How does a creator’s gender affect a piece?
8. What are the social expectations of men and women in
this piece?
9. Are the social norms different for men and women?
10. How does society value men and women differently?
What about men is valued? What about women is valued?

17.  Essential Questions:
 How does gender matter/function in this
piece?
 How are women portrayed/depicted in this
piece?
 This lens helps examine how gender is a
factor in a piece - the main focus is on
how women are portrayed, how they
function, behave, are limited/privileged
for being women - however, also
examines how maleness defines roles &
limits men.

18.  subjugate
 “other”
 gender roles
 hegemony
 oppression
 gender expectations
 exploitation
 relative meaning