FEMINISM

FEMINISM

INTRODUCTION

The Women's movement, also known as the women's liberation, or feminism, refers to a series of campaigns for reforms on issues such as reproductive rights, domestic violence, maternity leave, equal pay, women's suffrage, sexual harassment, and sexual violence, all of which fall under the label of feminism. The movement's priorities vary among nations and communities and range from opposition to female genital mutilation in one country to opposition to the glass ceiling in another.

DEFINITION

Feminism is a diverse collection of social theories, political movements, and moral philosophies, largely motivated by or concerning the experiences of women....concerned with social, political, and economic inequality between men and women; ... gendered and sexed identities socially constructed. Feminists differ over the sources of inequality, how to attain equality, and the extent to which gender and sexual identities should be questioned and critiqued.

First wave of feminism:(1848) Men's Treatment of Women “First-wave feminism refers to a period of feminist activity during the nineteenth century and early twentieth century in the United Kingdom and the United States. The goal of this wave was to open up opportunities for women, with a focus on their suffrage. The term, "first-wave," was coined retroactively (taking effect from past date) after the term second-wave feminism began to be used to describe a newer feminist movement.” “In the UK, Mary Wollstonecraft published the first feminist treatise A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792), in which she advocated the social and moral equality of the sexes. Her later unfinished work Maria, or the Wrongs of Women earned her considerable criticism as she dared to acknowledge the existence of women's sexual desires, almost certainly becoming the first published woman writer to do so.”

In the early stage of feminist criticism, critics consider male novelists' demeaning treatment or marginalization of female characters. First wave feminist criticism includes books like Marry Ellman's Thinking About Women (1968) Kate Millet's Sexual Politics (1969), and Germaine Greer's The Female Eunuch (1970). An example of first wave feminist literary analysis would be a critique of William Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew for Petruchio's abuse of Katherina.

Second Wave Feminism: Gynocriticism (1960) sexuality and reproductive rights

The period of the second-wave feminist movement was concerned with the issue of economic and other forms of equality (including the ability to have careers in addition to motherhood, or the right to choose not to have children)”.

Elaine Showalter pioneered gynocriticism with her book A Literature of Their Own (1977). Gynocriticism involves three major aspects.

The first is the examination of female writers and their place in literary history.

The second is the consideration of the treatment of female characters in books by both male and female writers.

The third and most important aspect of gynocriticism is the discovery and exploration of a canon (rules and principle) of literature written by women; gynocriticism seeks to appropriate a female literary tradition.

In Showalter's A Literature of Their Own, she proposes the following three phases of women's writing:

The 'Feminine' Phase - in the feminine phase, female writers tried to adhere to male values, writing as men, and usually did not enter into debate regarding women's place in society. Female writers often employed male pseudonyms during this period.

The 'Feminist' Phase - in the feminist phase, the central theme of works by female writers was the criticism of the role of women in society and the oppression of women.

The 'Female' Phase - during the 'female' phase, women writers were no longer trying to prove the legitimacy of a woman's perspective. Rather, it was assumed that the works of a women writer were authentic and valid. The female phase lacked the anger and combative consciousness of the feminist phase.

Third wave feminism: early 1990s Rebecca Walker coined this term in 1992 “is a feminist movement that began in the early 1990s. While second-wave feminism largely focused on the inclusion of women in traditionally male-dominated areas, third-wave feminism seeks to challenge and expand common definitions of gender and sexuality.”

Traits of third-wave feminism include queer theory, women-of-colour consciousness, post-colonialism, critical theory, transnationalism, and new feminist theory. In particular, a post-structuralist interpretation of gender and sexuality is often, though not always, central to third-wave feminism. Other consequences include a decreased emphasis upon addressing and overthrowing a perceived oppression by patriarchy and instead focuses on equality between the sexes

CHARACTERISTICS

There no thoroughly satisfying "definition" of feminism is found in print, but feminism is plural and dialogic rather than monolithic. However, one cannot identify a sine qua non for feminism, but the following characteristics represent the criteria to distinguish a feminist scholarly approach:

1. Feminist scholars differentiate sex from gender and view the latter as a socially/culturally constructed category. Gender is learned and performed; it involves the myriad and often normative meanings given to sexual difference by various cultures. Feminists may differ in the importance they assign to sex, which is a biologically based category, but the idea that gender norms can be changed is central to feminist theory.
2. Although sex/gender systems differ cross-culturally, most known societies have used and still use sex/gender as a key structural principle organizing their actual and conceptual worlds, usually to the disadvantage of women. Hence feminist scholars argue that gender is a crucial category of analysis and that modes of knowledge which do not take gender into account are partial and incomplete.
3. Feminist scholars also seek to question and transform androcentric systems of thought which posit the male as the norm. In practice this means not only revealing and critiquing androcentric biases, but also attempting to examine beliefs and practices from the viewpoint of the “other,” treating women and other marginalized groups as subjects, not merely objects.
4. Feminists believe that existing inequalities between dominant and marginalized groups can and should be removed. Therefore feminist scholarship has an acknowledged and accepted political dimension, as opposed to the hidden political dimension of scholarship that claims to be “neutral” and “objective.” Although the commitment to feminist politics and organized feminist movements will not be equally stressed in all pieces of scholarship, it will never be denied or criticized (if it is, I would say that the approach is not feminist no matter what the author may claim). With regard to scholarship, the political goal of feminist work is broader than simply a stronger emphasis on women, though that is an important part of it; the goal is to revise our way of considering history, society, literature, etc. so that neither male nor female is taken as normative, but both are seen as equally conditioned by the gender constructions of their culture (as indeed we, the observers, are).

A scholarly focus on ancient women does not in itself make an approach feminist, since scholars can and do study women without accepting these premises. When I classify an approach as "nonfeminist," I do not mean to imply that the scholarship is not valid or valuable; however, as a feminist who does accept the premises listed above, I will by definition see such scholarship as preliminary and incomplete.

MAJOR FEMINIST WRITERS

·         Jane Austen

·         Aphra Behn

·         Charlotte Brontë

·         George Eliot

·         Thomas Hardy

·         D.H. Lawrence

·         Mary Leapor

·         Thomas Middleton

·         Katherine Mansfield

·         Olive Schreiner

·         William Shakespeare

·         John Webster

·         Virginina Woolf

MAJOR THEMES

A more subtle and powerful theme that might emerge in some Feminist Literature would be how the roles of women and gender bias seem to converge with other elements of social stratification such as class, psychology, or race, women's suffrage, equal economic rights and reproductive rights.  The writers such as Gloria Steinem explore such issues in her work and Kate Chopin is one of many authors who delve into the idea of gender identity both within and outside of the social setting.