FEMINIST

THEORY
English 10
 Feminist Critical Approach

In broad definition: it is women’s movement in 1960s

to fight for the equality of rights as social class.

In literature: feminism pertains to the representation

of women in literature, paying attention to female’s
point of views, concerns, and values.
Feminism’s Goal
• Change the degrading view of women
• Help make all women realize that they are “significant”
• Make all women see that each woman is a valuable
person possessing the same privileges and rights as
every man
• Women must define their voices
• Hope to create a society in which the female voice is
valued equally with the male
What Can You See With Feminist Theory
• You can view female characters and deal with the
author’s treatment of those characters
• You can evaluate the significance of the female in
terms of her influence on the literary work
• You can decipher and manipulate patterns in text,
especially with the treatment of women
Types of Feminism
Radical Feminism
• RF arose within the second wave in the 1960s.
• RF focused on the theory of patriarchy as a system of
power.
• RF paid particular attention to oppression based on sex
and female bodily disadvantage.
Types of Feminism
Socialist Feminism
A central concern of socialist feminism therefore has been to
determine the ways in which the institution of the family and
women’s domestic labor are structured by and reproduce the
sexual division of labor.
Types of Feminism

Liberal feminism
 LF aims to achieve equal legal, political, and social rights
for women.
 It wishes to bring women equality into all public institution
and to extend the creation of knowledge so that women’s
issues can no longer be ignored.
Feminist Critical questions:
1. To what extent does the representation of women (and men) in the work
reflect the time and place in which the work was written?
2. How are the relationships between men and women presented in the work?
3.Does the author present the work from within a predominantly male or
female perspective?
4 .How do the facts of the author’s life relate to the presentation of men and
women in the work?
5. How do other works by the author correspond to this one in their depiction
of the power relationships between men and women?
1. How is the relationship between men and women portrayed?
2. What are the power relationships between men and women (or
characters assuming male/female roles)?
3. How are male and female roles defined?
4. What constitutes masculinity and femininity?
5. How do characters embody these traits?
6. Do characters take on traits from opposite genders? How so? How
does this change others’ reactions to them?” (Brizee and Tompkins)
Outside the classroom, the feminist literary
theory helps you...
• examine your life and the world from an informative
perspective;
• become politically aware of your society;
• remove constraints society places on gender roles; and
• analyze mass media.
Must-Read Feminist Female Authors
• Anna Akhmatova • Fanny Burney
• Isabel Allende • Emily Dickinson
• Maya Angelou • George Eliot
• Margaret Atwood • Sylvia Plath
• Jane Austen • Sappho
• Charlotte Bronte • Alice Walker
• Emily Bronte • Virginia Woolf
• Elizabeth Barrett Browning