“Feminist criticism examines the ways in which literature (or artifacts, cultural productions) reinforces or undermines the economic, political social and psychological oppression of women” (Tyson 78).
Description of Theory:
The construct of patriarchal society has deemed women as the inferior gender. In literature feminist theory searches for where the texts perpetuates the power-struggle of patriarchy’s sexists ideal: the belief that women are man’s “other” to which women have been defined by their inadequacy in comparison to men. Even more so feminist theory seeks to discover where the patriarchal ideology that women can only have two identities: Madonna (virgin) or whore is either reinforced or broken.
Benefits of Theory:
This theory is constantly incorporating new theories in order to understand the oppression of women, specifically Freud’s Psychoanalysis in which, “Psychoanalysis can be used to help understand the psychological effects of patriarchal ideology as well as how and why women and men internalize it” (Tyson 89) and Marxism to “help understand how economic forces have been manipulated by patriarchal law and custom to keep women economically, politically, and socially oppressed as an underclass” (Tyson 89). This theory seeks to provide more realistic portrayals of women in texts.
Disadvantages of Theory:
This theory often branches into race because feminism is commonly known as white feminism for white women which has often caused barriers between white and black women who believe that feminism does not include women of color nor benefit them and within text the struggles and oppression of minority women are often overlooked or not given the same treatment. Also within literature older text are often condemned of being anti-feminist, but that in part is due to the times, in which case the literature often addresses the struggle by showcasing the oppression of women, externally and internally, and should be considered within the criticism. This theory at times becomes a political battlefield.
Questions of Feminist Theorists to Interpret a Text:
By using these questions to analyze a text society can begin to understand the oppression of women and remove the blinders that persons are not willing to see nor help change, or are actually perpetuating.
- How does the work portray race, class, and other cultural factors intersected with gender in producing the woman’s experience?
- How is the work gendered? Where does the text define the roles of femininity, especially among women of color?
- Does the text show evidence of a bond between women and is there a formation of a sisterhood?
Notable Theorist/s:
Kate Millett argued gender is socially constructed as it is performed, taught and reinforced into the concepts of masculinity and femininity.
Simone de Beauvoir argued men are considered essential subjects (independent selves with free will), while women are considered contingent beings (dependent beings controlled by circumstances).