The Feminist Approach

By: Apurva, Pooja, Jen, Summer, Sarah, Kruti

Phases

Elaine Showalter, leading feminine critic in U.S., came up with these three phases:

1. “Feminine” phase (1840-1880) Women writers imitated the dominant tradition

2. “Feminist” phase (1880-1920) Women advocated rights and protested

3. “Female” phase (1920-present) Rediscovery of woman's’ texts and women

Feminist Critics

See the very act of speaking- of having a language- as a focus for studying women writers, so often silenced in the past.

Goal: To promote discovery and reevaluation of literature by women, and to examine social and cultural contexts of literature and literary criticisms.

Feminist Criticism

Different modelsBiological model

women are more than just bodies. (thoughts and opinions matter too)

Linguistic model

If women continue to speak as men do, whatever they say will be alienated

Psychoanalytic model

Identifies gender difference as the basis of the psyche

Cultural modelPlaces feminist concerns in social contexts, acknowledging class, racial, national, and historical differences and determinants among women, but offering a collective experience that unites women over time and space- a “binding force.”

There are four significant current practices…

Gender studies

The entire concept of the female difference is what caused female oppression

They wish to move beyond “difference” altogether

Marxist Feminism

Focuses on the relation between reading and social realities

Marxist feminists attack the prevailing capitalistic system of the West, which they view as sexually as well as economically exploitative

They direct their attention toward conditions of production of literary texts- economics of publishing and distributing texts

Matter vs. manner of a text

Psychoanalytic Feminism

Practical and not terminology-ridden French= most innovative and far-reaching of this

English feminist critics (Marxists) stress oppression French feminist critics (psychoanalytic) stress

repression Reject the idea that art is representational- merely effects

of language

Myth- appeals to women because of their identification with nature (women goddesses- Ceres, Medea)

Minority Feminism

Black and lesbian feminists Their work tends to use irony as a primary

literary device to focus on their self-definition- their “coming out”- for they often reject classic literary tradition as oppressive

They accuse other feminist critics of developing their ideas only in reference to white, upper-middle-class women who practice feminism only in order to become a part of the patriarchal power structure. Women who want to be considered equal to men (equal

rights)

THE END!!!