Elaine Showalter was a leading feminist critic in the late 1970s who proposed three phases of female writing: the feminine phase from 1840-1880 where women wrote under male pseudonyms, the feminist phase from 1880-1920 where women wrote about the struggles of women, and the female phase from 1920 onward where women rejected social constructs of gender and dependency. Showalter developed the concept of gynocriticism, a feminist framework for analyzing women's literature using female-centered models like the biological, linguistic, psychoanalytic, and cultural approaches. Feminist criticism then expanded with different schools emerging from America, Britain, and France.

1. Elaine Showalter
A leading voice of feminist criticism
throughout the the late 1970s .

2. Showalter came up with 3 historical
phases of female writing:
1)Feminine phase (1840-1880)
2)Feminist phase (1880-1920)
3-female phase(1920-present)

3. Feminine phase
Charlotte Bronte George Sand George Eliot
These writers accepted the social construct that
defined women and started writing under male
pseudonyms so that their work would be
published.

4. Feminist phase
• In this phase the writers tried to show
the women's miserable life and the cruel and
harsh treatment of the women by men.

5. Female phase
In this phase writers rejected:
• 1) the social construct defining women(feminin
e phase)
• 2)miner position of women(feminist phase) and
women's dependency
And started to work on the understanding of
female experience in art and feminine analysis of
literary works and uncovering misogyny (male
hatred of women) in texts.

6. gynocriticism
Creating a female framework
for analysis of women's
literature instead of using
male models.

7. 4 Models of gynocriticism
1) Biological
2)Linguistic
3)Psychoanalytic
4)cultural

8. 1)Biological model:
emphasizes how the female body marks itself on
the text by providing literary images based on a
female view and her intimate tone.
2)Linguistic model:
Investigating the difference between how women
and men use the language.
3)Psychoanalytic model:
Analyzes the female psyche and demonstrates its
effects on the writing process.
4)Cultural model:
Investigates how society shapes women's goals
and view.

9. Geographical strains of feminism
Geography played an important role in
developing feminist criticism .
feminism emerged in America, Britain and
France.
The aim of all these groups was similar:
To rescue women from being
considered “the other”.

10. American feminism
Annette Kolodny is a feminist literary critic and activist .
she believes that the major concern for feminists is restoration and
inclusion of the writings of female writers to the literary canon.
(female writers must find a means to gain their voice in the society.)
Gilbert and susan Gubar ,feminist literary critics declare that the
male voice has been dominant for too long because of the power
of the pen and the press so they have defined and created images
Of women as they want.
The solution is that women make (women's sentence) which:
Sentences men to fear and literary banishment.
set the women free from being defined by men.
free women from being reduced to stereotypical images.

11. Stereotypical images
1)The angel in the house
Her goals in life are to please her husband and attend t
o his every comfort and serving the children.
2)Mad woman in the attic
 If the woman doesn’t play the angels' role then she is
a monster.
This unrealistic images of women must go away.

12. British feminism
Art, literature and life are inseparable
So
How a female is pictured in literature
Affects
How women will be treated in the society.
The west literature shows women economically
dependent and challenges economic and social
status of women .
Goal change the society and critique it self.

13. French feminism
French feminism is associated with psychoanalytic
theories of Freud and Lacan.
• Freud's theories were patriarchal .
• He believed that phallus is the power and shapes
our identity so women are incomplete men.
Lacan argues that its language that shapes our
identity and not phallus.
Then he introduces 3 developmental orders:
1)Imaginary
2)Symbolic
3)real

14. 1)Imaginary (mother is the dominant)
contains our wishes, our images, and our fantasies. We are
genderless because we cant differentiate our self from our mother.
Our image of ourselves is always in flux.
2)Symbolic (father is the dominant)
We pass from using a biological language to using socialized
language.
boy entrance into symbolic means obeying father and repressing
the imaginary order that is associated with mother.
girls the entrance into this order means submission to law of fath
er which brings subservience to males.
Being socialized through language ,girls become second-class citizen.
Because language for Lacan is psychological and not biological,
female can learn dominant discourse of symbolic and real order and
become tools of social, political and personal changes.
3)Real order
refer to golnaz seirani s presentation.

15. Julia Kristeva and Helen Cixous use Freuds and Lakans theories to
form their type of criticism.
Kristeva:
Imaginary order is the flow of fluidity which she calls
chora.
Symbolic order is when the boy and girl are separated
from chora and repress the feeling of fluidity.
Chora breaks through the real order and disturbs the
male dominant discourse.
Most important concept in her writingsmotherhood
Most important question of feminismhow can an
exploration into the nature of motherhood lead to a be
tter understanding of the part played in love by the wo
man?

16. Helen cixous believes that we should exorcise the words
(man-woman- feminine-masculine and…)from the
language.
There is a particular type of female writing that she calls
lecriture.
Lecritures are bio sexual (being both male and female at
the same time)and can fully be understood,
they are not limited by words, its writing by the voice.
So
Exploring this type of texts will transform the social and
cultural structures within the literature by freeing both
men and women from phallocentrism.

17. Present day feminism criticism
Feminism criticism is made of different ideologies each
one having its own concerns.
Scholars categorize feminism into 4 groups:
1)anglo-americam feminism
2)Post structuralist feminism
3)Materialist feminism
4)Post modern feminism

18. Feminism subcategories
Amazon feminism
Emphasizes on physical equality of both male and female.
Gender doesn’t characterize s.one physical abilities so gender
is not an issue in occupying a job.
Cultural feminism
Women and men have personality an biological differences.
Women are inherently kinder and gentler then men .
in the eyes of many cultural feminists women's ways are bett
er then men.
Ecofeminism
Patriarchal societies are new but originally they were
matriarchal.
Patriarchal societies dominate women and destroy nature
whereas matriarchal ones protect women and nature.

19. Material feminism
Aims to improve material condition of women by putting a
way the female traditional tasks like house work.
Separatist feminism
Women should separated from men for while to see who t
hey are as individuals.
Third world feminism, post colonial feminism
Women shouldn’t be reduced to stereotypes.
Woman is a word to show a gender not a characteristic so
women should be understood as individuals.