Deconstruction Gynocriticism
Colonialism
Character Sketch of Isabel Archer
Pygmalion as a Problem Play
Feminism is
an advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of equality, that is women and men
both should have equal rights and opportunities. It is a perception based on
two fundamental premises- (a) Sex (b) Gender. Sex refers to determining of
identity on the basis of biological category; whereas, gender connotes the
cultural meaning attached to sexual identity.
According to
feminist theory, Gender difference is the foundation of a structural
inequality between women and men, by which the former suffer social injustice.
And, the inequality between the Sexes is not the result of biological
necessity but is produced by the cultural construction of gender differences.
Feminist
theories range themselves against various structures and inter-relationships of
power like politics, patriarchy, law, academics etc. This also included
re-reading the canon of English literature to expose the patriarchal ideology.
Like all other structures of power, the canon projects and confirms the
cultural biases of those who construct it. They see the woman as only ‘other’
of the male. Feminist theories try to take over the canon and rescue it from
patriarchy by helping readers scan texts, genres or movements so as to
relentlessly make visible the components of gender and gender-bias in the
academy which has so far tried to conceal them and their works and also to
create space for women writers.
Feminism and
its (feminist) theories identify the gender biases of literature and help both
women and men defeat these biases by reading against them. However, the
argument is not between women and men but on their thought process, i.e.
between feminists and anti-feminists. The evolution of the feminist movement (four
waves) is as given below:-
1) First Wave: In the fourteenth and fifteenth century France, the
first feminist philosopher Christine-de-Pisan challenged prevailing
attributes towards women with a bold call for female education. Her mantle was
taken up in later years by different feminists also including martial
oppression and equality in work.
2) Second Wave: The second wave in 1960s provoked extensive
theoretical discussions about the origin of women’s oppression, patriarchal
culture, the role of family, education and place in politics.
3) Third Wave: The third wave emerged in 1990s. Influenced by the
postmodernist movement, third wave feminists sought to question, reclaim and
redefine the ideas, words and media (that have transmitted ideas about
womanhood, gender, beauty, feminity, masculinity etc). There was a decided
shift in the perception of gender.
4) Fourth Wave: This started around 2010 with focus on sexual
harassment, body shaming, patriarchal culture, rape etc.
The most notable feminist writers are:-
In the late
18th century, England Mary Wollstonecraft by her book A
Vindication of the Rights of Woman illustrates literally and
metaphorically the recognition that education is integral to the emancipation
of women.
Kate
Millett’s Sexual
Politics (1969) situated at the crossroads of literary and cultural
criticism and political theory launched a major criticism of canonical male
authors like Lawrence, Norman Mailer and Henry Miller.
Anxieties
about the need of economic and artistic independence for women are voiced by Virginia
Woolf in A Room of One’s Own. She argues that women have been
traditionally disadvantaged compared to men owing to financial independence and
that the women writers are deprived of privacy.
The anxiety that woman is viewed as ‘Man’s Other’ rather than
as an independent human being with her own rights and needs, animates the work
of Simone-de-Beauvoir in The Second Sex in postwar France.
Nina Baym’s in Woman’s Fiction (1978) argues for a
specifically female framework for the analysis of women’s literature.
By Feminist Criticism in the Wilderness, Elaine
Showalter argues that women constitute the mutated culture and men the
dominant culture. She explores biological, linguistic and psychoanalytic models
of difference in women’s writing. As such she suggests ‘Gynocritics’ – theory that
will concern itself with the experience of women as writers. Further Showalter
also reminds of the need to keep all cultural phenomena- race, class, academics
and also the market in mind to produce multilayered analysis of women’s
writing.
Among others Maya Angelou (I Know Why the Caged Bird
Sings), Toni Morrison (Beloved, Sula), Urvashi Butalia (The Other
Side of Silence), Rebecca Solint (Men Explain Things to Me), Edwidge
Danticat (Krik? Krak), Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (We Should All Be
Feminist), Kamala Markandaya (Nectar in a Sieve), Mahasweta Devi
(Breast Stories) Kamala Das (An Introduction) and Hannah Rothschild
(The Improbability of Love) have added powerful voices in the movement.
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