Feminism Flashcards
What can Fem* in Feminism mean?
- Female •biology/science →sexual characteristics
- Feminine •society/culture →constructed identities
- Feminist •politics/academia →contesting gender role
What was an important work in Proto-Feminism?
Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792.
What are aspects of academic Feminism?
Combatting patriarchy
•Structures of male domination must be dissected and abolished
Exposing male literature as a conditioning force
•(Negative) representations of women function as decisive role models
Liberating female experience
•Writing should reflect women’s concerns
•Constructing a female canon
From ‘androtexts’ to ‘gynotexts’
•Institutionalizing Gender Studies
Who created it and what is gynocriticism?
by Elaine Showalter:•“[gynocriticism covers] the history, styles, themes, genres, and structures of writing by women; the psychodynamics of female creativity; the trajectory of the individual or collective female career; and the evolution of laws or a female literary tradition”
What are reading techniques for Feminism?
- The relationships between male and female characters and the division of roles (main characters and secondary characters)
- Points of view and focalization: are female characters primarily observed by male narrators or characters, or do they voice their own ideas, concerns, opinions?
- The ways in which masculinity and femininity are depicted, and to what extent the behaviour, traits and values of characters are gendered
- The nature of female ambitions: what do female characters try to achieve, and to what extent are they thwarted by patriarchy
What is an alternative mode of language?
écriture feminine.
Hélène Cixous: −a form of language that is oriented towards the female (emotive, intuitive, trans-rational)
•Julia Kristeva: language is
−symbolic (authority, order, fathers, repression, control)−semiotic (displacement, slippage, condensation)
