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Feminism is the struggle to end sexist oppression - bell hooks

Term coined in 1895

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History/Rise of Feminist Theory and Criticism

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History/Rise of Feminist Theory and Criticism

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Various independent and sporadic activities of 18th-century feminists which led to organized feminist activity in Britain and the USA.

Major concerns: education, employment, marriage (among middle and upper class women).

Advice manuals, literature books and public sermons contributed to the perpetuation of a cult of domesticity which ascribed to women a strictly private function and to men a public role.

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Simone de Beauvoir - interpretation of the social construction of femininity as Other paved the way for the theoretical discussions of the second wave.

"One is not born a woman, but becomes a woman"

Existentialism proposes that one exists first, and through one's acts, one becomes something. But since men have claimed the category of Self, of Subject, for themselves, woman is relegated to the status of Other.

Challenging the myth of universal feminine experience - feminisms

"The personal is political" - woman's private life affected by and can itself affect the political situation

Varieties of Feminisms: 1) Lesbian feminism 2) Socialist feminism (uniting women into bonds of sisterhood), 3) Marxist feminism 4) Radical feminism (questioned language as well), 5) Female supremacists, 6) Humanist feminism, 7) Ecofeminism, 8) Psychoanalytic feminism, 9) Post feminism

Two key political movements - Women's Rights Movement (WRM - practical and socially driven) and Women's Liberation Movement (WLM - theoretical solutions)

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Late 20th Century

Widened scope of feminist discourse to women of colour, women from all social strata, women outside of the West.

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Essentialism (similar to biological determinism) - ideas about gender which maintained that women's and men's differences are a result of biology. Male/Female -> Masculine/Feminine traits -> particular patterns of thought, feeling and behaviour specific to each gender

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Independent churches and reinterpreting the Bible

Political events (especially supporting the ascension of Queen Elizabeth I)

"Society of Friends" by Quakers - no hierarchy among all people

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Age of Enlightenment - use reason as opposed to faith to discover any truth about our existence

"Free enquiry" - Finding things out individually rather than unquestioningly following tradition

"Relational Perspective" - non-hierarchical gender difference with the male-female couple

Rise of Individualism - individual as the basic unit of society

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Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (written against Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Emile) - protect civil liberties like right to vote, the right to own property and freedom of speech

Seneca Falls Convention (discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman)

John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor Mill "The Enfranchisement of Women," "The Subjection of Women"

Abigail Adams - "Remembering the Ladies"

Angelina Grimké, Sarah Grimké (USA) - abolitionist cause and women's rights

Matthew Carey "Rules for Husbands and Wives" - advised husbands to treat their wives as equals

Caroline Norton - question of property, alimony, and child custody

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony (USA) - reproduction, sexuality, divorce law, suffrage

Harriet Martineau, Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon - education, divorce, property rights

"Langham Place" circle was a group of middle-class activist women who discussed and published their views on women's rights

Emmeline Pankhurst - founded the Woman's Social and Political Union - right to vote - became militant

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20th Century - backlash against "feminists" for being immoral, bad mothers and lesbians.

William Lee Howard - The Perverts, which equated feminism with lesbianism and degenerate morality.

Surplus of highly educated, under-employed women.

Virginia Woolf - A Room of One's Own - explored cultural and economic constraints on female creativity and pondered the historical and political obstacles which have hampered the establishing of a female literary tradition.

Woolf's ideas - more relevant to later feminists who pursued consciousness-raising; establishing a female literary tradition later taken up by the gynocritics

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Germaine Greer - The Female Eunuch - criticized traditional family structures and the mechanism of the nuclear family

Betty Friedan - The Feminine Mystique - refers to the idealization of traditional roles ascribed to women (as wives and mothers) which is interpreted as a means of keeping women subordinate to men (the problem that has no name) - instrumental in consciousness-raising; Criticisms - 1) Did not identity source of women's oppression, 2) Did not consider women's varied access to education, 3) Focused on the experiences of middle-class, heterosexual, white women, 4) Tendency to blame women themselves for their subordinate position and not acknowledging societal changes required to accommodate women's changing lives

Consciousness raising and Rap groups - brought women from various backgrounds together to interact and compare their common concerns

Shulamith Firestone - The Dialectic of Sex - women's capacity for reproduction the source of their oppression; to eradicate social inequality, a biological revolution is needed

Kate Millet - Sexual Politics - sex is political because the relationship between males and females underlies all power relations; Patriarchy ascribes a particular sexual status, role and temperament for each gender, ensuring the sex/gender hierarchy

Ann Oakley - Women's Work - "myth of biological motherhood" that all women need to be mothers, all mothers need their children and all children need their mothers (fallacy of maternal instinct)

Gynocriticism - Elaine Showalter - A Literature of their Own - a form of critical practice whereby the "psychodynamics of female creativity" is explored and recorded - 3 phases of female literary history: the feminine, the feminist, the female; associated with Gilbert and Gubar's The Madwoman in the Attic

Adrienne Rich - Of Woman Born - women's experiences of pregnancy, childbirth and mothering are increasingly controlled by male doctors; would be less alienated from their bodies, spirits and institution of motherhood if no interference from patriarchal establishment; coined the term "compulsory heterosexuality"

Mary Daly - Gyn/Ecology, God the Father - rejected the term "God" - function of God in all religions is to "act as a legitimating paradigm for the institution of patriarchy"; advocated revising language, which mainly represents men's experience of the world

Psychoanalysis -

Criticism: castigated Freud for his theory of penis envy; argued that women's social status of powerless Other had little to do with biology (gender) and much to do with social constructs of femininity;

Use in Feminism: Dorothy Dinnerstein and Nancy Chodorow used the concept of pre-Oedipal stage of psychosexual development to show how sexuality and gender are constructed to give primacy to men over women

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- Black Feminism - central concern is the inseparability of race and gender

Audre Lorde - achieve a sense of Oneness, and escape the incessant feeling of Otherness by "integrating all parts of who I am"

bell hooks - Ain't I a Woman - recalls Sojourner Truth's speech - examines marginalization of black women in contemporary feminist activism and theory; need to recognize and celebrate women's diversity and to fight against the "exclusionary use of the term feminism" by white middle-class women

Alice Walker - coined the term "womanist": "woman of color who was committed to the wholeness of the entire people, male and female"; In Search of Our Mother's Gardens: Womanist Prose - black gynocriticism

- Popular Fiction in the 1980s - The Female Eunuch, Germaine Greer - romance novels "invention of women cherishing the chains of their own bondage"; Ann Douglas - increase in mass-market romance a symptom of "soft-porn culture"

Tania Modleski - Marxist feminist - representation of women in the popular media - reading romantic fiction as an expression of resistance

Anti-pornography position - all sexually explicit material defamatory to women - Andrea Dworkin, Catherine MacKinnon; Libertarian position - Nancy Friday

- Body: Challenged society's definition of femininity and its insistence on equating men with "mind" and women with nature and "body"; feminists were also aware of the power of the male gaze

Susie Orbach Fat is a Feminist Issue - discussed eating disorders as mechanisms for refusing sexual objectification

Identify and analyse the underlying ideology and the social conditions which produced images of women as commodities

Naomi Wolf The Beauty Myth - strong influence of the media, especially the fashion industry, on women's perception of their bodies

Cross-dressing and postmodern conceptions of the grotesque body; Mikhail Bakhtin - grotesque as any entity which transgresses the social order and is exiled into the margins of propriety and decorum; Mary Russo - any practice which is seen as grotesque can be read as a "feminized" practice as female body has traditionally been seen as corrupt and impure; English short story writer Angela Carter - appropriates images of the grotesque in her depiction of female bodies which do not conform to social expectations

- Gender Studies - Elaine Showalter - type of thinking about the dynamics of female and male experiences; declaring it was time to begin reading texts written by men; Critiqued by Tania Modleski - discipline of gender studies could deprive women of a crucial element of collective solidarity

- Deconstructive Feminism - Judith Butler - disagrees with the sex/gender split; cross-dressing giving a wider concept of gender identity which does not "normalize male/female dualism"

- Girl Power - by pop group Spice Girls - asserted that women are sexual subjects who should lay claim to male privileges while performing their femininity; Criticism - Germaine Greer - cynical marketing of traditional trappings of sexualized femininity to young girls

- Feminism and the Developing World - often universalised as "women in the Third World"; misunderstanding and misinterpretation of their struggle, their aims and goals as they do not often coincide with Western feminist efforts

Chandra Talpade Mohanty - critiques how so-called "First World" feminists represent women in the "Third World" as sexually constrained, ignorant and helpless

Gayatri Spivak - subaltern - denounces Western feminism for speaking for non-Western women and robbing them of a political voice

Nawal Saadawi, Fatima Mernissi - complicated social and cultural implications of challenging rituals which are often mistakenly associated with religious practice

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Mary Sidney Herbert : Renaissance era; Contributed to literature and advocated for women's intellectual abilities

Aphra Behn: One of the first professional female writers, her work often explored themes of female agency and independence

Eliza Haywood: Her novels and periodicals often highlighted women's experiences and challenged societal norms

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Enlightenment and Early Feminist Thought

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Enlightenment and Early Feminist Thought

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Fanny Burney: Her novels offered keen social commentary on women's roles and experiences

Mary Wollstonecraft: Her seminal work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, argued for women's education and equality, laying the groundwork for later feminist thought

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Jane Austen: Her novels subtly critiqued gender roles and the limited opportunities available to women

Mary Shelley: Explored themes of creation, power, and gender in Frankenstein

The Brontë Sisters: Their novels featured strong, complex female protagonists and addressed women's struggles in a patriarchal society

Charlotte Brontë : Jane Eyre

Emily Brontë: Wuthering Heights

Anne Brontë: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Elizabeth Gaskell: Her novels, such as North and South, addressed social issues and women's roles in society

George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans): Wrote under a male pseudonym to be taken seriously, her works like Middlemarch offered deep psychological insight and social critique

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Kate Chopin: The Awakening explored themes of female independence and sexuality

Virginia Woolf: Her works, including Mrs. Dalloway and A Room of One's Own, addressed issues of gender, identity, and women's intellectual freedom

Zora Neale Hurston: Their Eyes Were Watching God is a seminal work in African American and feminist literature

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Sylvia Plath: Her poetry and novel The Bell Jar explored themes of mental illness, identity, and gender

Toni Morrison: Her works, including The Bluest Eye and Beloved, explored African American experiences, particularly those of women, and addressed themes of racism, identity, and trauma

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Late 20th and Early 21st Centuries: Intersectional Feminism

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Late 20th and Early 21st Centuries: Intersectional Feminism

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Alice Walker: Her novel The Color Purple is a landmark in African American and feminist literature

Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid's Tale is a seminal work of speculative fiction exploring feminist themes

Jeanette Winterson: Her works often explore themes of gender, sexuality, and identity, with Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit being a notable example

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Her novels, such as Half of a Yellow Sun and Americanah, address themes of post-colonialism, identity, and feminism

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Roxane Gay: Her works, including Bad Feminist and Hunger, explore themes of body image, feminism, and identity

Elif Shafak: Her novels, such as The Bastard of Istanbul and 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World, delve into cultural identity, gender, and politics

Bernardine Evaristo: Her novel Girl, Woman, Other explores the lives of black women in Britain, weaving together multiple narratives and perspectives

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16th Century:

Christine de Pizan's The Book of the City of Ladies:

One of the earliest feminist texts, defending women's intellectual capabilities and moral virtues against misogynistic stereotypes

17th Century:

Mary Astell's A Serious Proposal to the Ladies:

Advocates for women's education and intellectual development, arguing for the establishment of a women's college

18th Century:

Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman:

A foundational feminist text, calling for equal education and opportunities for women and challenging the notion that women are inherently inferior to men

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19th Century: The Rise of Women's Rights Movements

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19th Century: The Rise of Women's Rights Movements

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1848: Seneca Falls Convention:

The first women's rights convention in the USA, leading to the Declaration of Sentiments, which calls for equal rights for women, including the right to vote

1869: John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women:

Advocates for legal and social equality between men and women, emphasizing women's suffrage and education

1892: Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper:

A short story highlighting the oppressive effects of the patriarchal medical treatment on women's mental health and autonomy

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1929: Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own:

Explores the need for financial independence and personal space for women writers, arguing that material conditions are crucial for women's literary creativity

1949: Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex:

A seminal work in existentialist feminism, analyzing the construction of women as the "Other" and exploring the societal oppression of women

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1963: Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique:

Critiques the idealization of domesticity and motherhood, sparking the second-wave feminist movement and leading to the formation of the National Organization for Women (NOW)

1970: Kate Millett's Sexual Politics:

Analyzes the power dynamics in sexual relationships and literature, laying the groundwork for feminist literary criticism

1970: Shulamith Firestone's The Dialectic of Sex:

Argues for the radical restructuring of society to eliminate gender inequality, emphasizing the role of technology in liberating women from biological constraints

1975: Hélène Cixous' The Laugh of the Medusa:

Advocates for women's writing and expression as a means of liberation, contributing to French feminist theory and the concept of écriture féminine (feminine writing)

1978: Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar's The Madwoman in the Attic:

Examines the representation of women writers in the 19th century and their subversion of patriarchal norms, a foundational text in feminist literary criticism

1984: Audre Lorde's Sister Outsider:

Addresses issues of race, sexuality, and feminist theory from a black lesbian perspective, highlighting the intersections of multiple identities

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1990: Judith Butler's Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity:

Introduces the concept of gender performativity, challenging traditional notions of gender and identity and influencing queer theory

1991: Kimberlé Crenshaw's Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color:

Coins the term "intersectionality" and examines how overlapping identities impact experiences of oppression and privilege

1994: Rebecca Walker's To Be Real: Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of Feminism:

A collection of essays reflecting the diversity and complexity of third-wave feminism, emphasizing the personal and political aspects of feminist identity

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2000: bell hooks' Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics:

An accessible introduction to feminist theory, emphasizing its relevance to everyday life and advocating for an inclusive, intersectional feminism

2010: Judith Butler's Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable?:

Examines how society frames and values certain lives over others, with implications for gender and feminist theory

2014: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's "We Should All Be Feminists":

An essay adapted from her TEDx talk, advocating for a more inclusive and globally aware understanding of feminism

2014: Roxane Gay's Bad Feminist:

A collection of essays exploring feminism, race, and pop culture with humor and insight, reflecting the diversity of contemporary feminist thought

2020: Mikki Kendall's Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot:

Critiques mainstream feminism for overlooking the needs of marginalized women, addressing issues like poverty, education, and violence