Feminism is the struggle to end sexist oppression - bell hooks

Term coined in 1895

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.

"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)

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

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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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