Brief Summary for Women's Writing- Unit 1 Topics, Feminism, Feminist Writers, By and on Women,

 CorePaper XI - Women’s Writing

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Unit-1: Introduction

            The 'women's movement' of the 1960s was not, of course, the start of feminism. Rather, it was a renewal of an old tradition of thought and action already possessing its classic books which had diagnosed the problem of women's inequality in society, and (in some cases) proposed solutions. These books include Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792), which discusses male writers like Milton, Pope, and Rousseau; Olive Schreiner's Women and Labour(1911); Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own (1929), which vividly portrays the unequal treatment given to women seeking education and alternatives to marriage and motherhood; and Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex (1949), which has an important section on the portrayal of women in the novels of D. H. Lawrence. Male contributions to this tradition of feminist writing include John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Woman (1869) and The Origin of the Family (1884) by Friedrich Engels.

 

Female, feminist, femininity:   

 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 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:

1. The 'Feminine' Phase (1840–1880) - 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.

2. The 'Feminist' Phase (1880s and ‘90s and extends to around the 1920s) - 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.

3. The 'Female' Phase (latter half of the twentieth century) - 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.It is marked by the woman writer's search for her own voice and identity as opposed to the identity imposed by patriarchy.

Gynocriticism: Term coined by Elaine Showalter in her essay “Towards a feminist Poetics” (1979). It concentrates on the specificity of women’s writings by recuperating the lost tradition of women authors.

Waves of Feminism

First-wave feminism:

            First-wave feminism refers to an extended period of feminist activity during the nineteenth century and early twentieth century in the United Kingdom and the United States. Originally it focused on the promotion of equal contract and property rights for women and the opposition to chattel marriage and ownership of married women (and their children) by their husbands. However, by the end of the nineteenth century, activism focused primarily on gaining political power, particularly the right of women's suffrage.

         Yet, feminists such as Voltairine de Cleyre and Margaret Sanger were still active in campaigning for women's sexual, reproductive, and economic rights at this time. In 1854, Florence Nightingale established female nurses as adjuncts to the military.The term first wave was coined retrospectively after the term second-wave feminism began to be used to describe a newer feminist movement that focused as much on fighting social and cultural inequalities as political inequalities.

         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).

 Second-wave feminism:

            Second-wave feminism refers to the period of activity in the early 1960s and lasting through the late 1980s. The scholar Imelda Whelehan suggests that the second wave was a continuation of the earlier phase of feminism involving the suffragettes in the UK and USA. Second-wave feminism has continued to exist since that time and coexists with what is termed third-wave feminism. The scholar Estelle Freedman compares first and second-wave feminism saying that the first wave focused on rights such as suffrage, whereas the second wave was largely concerned with other issues of equality, such as ending discrimination.

             The feminist activist and author Carol Hanisch coined the slogan "The Personal is Political" which became synonymous with the second wave. Second-wave feminists saw women's cultural and political inequalities as inextricably linked and encouraged women to understand aspects of their personal lives as deeply politicized and as reflecting sexist power structures.

Third-wave feminism:

          Third-wave feminism began in the early 1990s, arising as a response to perceived failures of the second wave and also as a response to the backlash against initiatives and movements created by the second wave. Third-wave feminism seeks to challenge or avoid what it deems the second wave's essentialist definitions of femininity, which (according to them) over-emphasize the experiences of upper middle-class white women.

         A post-structuralist interpretation of gender and sexuality is central to much of the third wave's ideology. Third-wave feminists often focus on "micro-politics" and challenge the second wave's paradigm as to what is, or is not, good for females. The third wave has its origins in the mid-1980s. Feminist leaders rooted in the second wave like Gloria Anzaldua, Chela Sandoval, Cherrie Moraga, Audre Lorde, Maxine Hong Kingston, and many other black feminists, sought to negotiate a space within feminist thought for consideration of race-related subjectivities.

    Third-wave feminism also contains internal debates between difference feminists such as the psychologist Carol Gilligan (who believes that there are important differences between the sexes) and those who believe that there are no inherent differences between the sexes and contend that gender roles are due to social conditioning.

 Post-feminism:

            Post-feminism describes a range of viewpoints reacting to feminism. While not being "anti-feminist," post-feminists believe that women have achieved second wave goals while being critical of third wave feminist goals. The term was first used in the 1980s to describe a backlash against second-wave feminism. It is now a label for a wide range of theories that take critical approaches to previous feminist discourses and includes challenges to the second wave's ideas.

             Other post-feminists say that feminism is no longer relevant to today's society. Amelia Jones wrote that the post-feminist texts which emerged in the 1980s and 1990s portrayed second-wave feminism as a monolithic entity and criticized it using generalizations.

             One of the earliest uses of the term was in Susan Bolotin's 1982 article "Voices of the Post-Feminist Generation," published in New York Times Magazine. This article was based on a number of interviews with women who largely agreed with the goals of feminism, but did not identify as feminists.

Tenets of Feminism

Liberal feminism: 

        (sometimes called white feminism or reformist feminism) 

      Women deserve the same social standing as men, but society at large does not need to change. We simply need to work to live up to the principles that all people are equal. Working within the system is far more effective than pushing for a revolution.

           Liberal feminism's primary goal is gender equality in the public sphere, such as equal access to education, equal pay, ending job sex segregation, and better working conditions. From this standpoint, legal changes would make these goals possible.

            Liberal feminists believe they want the same things men want:

to get an education

to make a decent living

to provide for one's family.

 

Radical feminism: 

   Radical feminism is a philosophy emphasizing the patriarchal roots of inequality between men and women, or, more specifically, the social domination of women by men. Radical feminism views patriarchy as dividing societal rights, privileges, and power primarily along the lines of sex, and as a result, oppressing women and privileging men.

      Radical feminism opposes existing political and social organization in general because it is inherently tied to patriarchy. Thus, radical feminists tend to be skeptical of political action within the current system and instead tend to focus on culture change that undermines patriarchy and associated hierarchical structures.

Marxist/socialist feminism: 

     The phrase "socialist feminism" was increasingly used during the 1970s to describe a mixed theoretical and practical approach to achieving women's equality. Socialist feminist theory analyzed the connection between the oppression of women and other oppressions in society, such as racism and economic injustice.

        Socialist feminists wanted to integrate the recognition of sex discrimination within their work to achieve justice and equality for women, for working classes, for the poor and all humanity. 

 Cyberfeminism:

       The term was coined simultaneously by the British cultural theorist Sadie Plant and the Australian art collective VNS Matrix in 1991, during the heady upwelling of cyber culture—that crucial moment in which the connective technology of the Internet was moving into the public sphere. Cyber Feminists believed in the Internet as a tool of feminist liberation.

      This movement promoted the need for women to interact through the World Wide Web to achieve gender equality in the access and production of Web‐based content. However, cyber feminism also embraced the broader context of women‐oriented technology, including the biomedical realm and its implications for the modification of the traditional conception of a woman's body and identity. Sadie Plant, Donna J. Haraway, and Virginia Berret are the some of the major contributors to the development of cyber feminist thought.

Terms in Feminism

Patriarchy: 

    Social organization favoring males on every level; rule by men.Patriarchy does not mean ‘all men’, but rather the cultural system that values masculinity over femininity and upholds inequality between the genders in social, political and leadership settings

 Androgyny:

    The word ‘androgyny’ comes from the Greek word ‘andro’ meaning man and ‘gyny’ meaning woman.

Double marginalisation: 

    Black women had to suffer double oppression as female and black. Women of a darker skin colour have a double experience of marginalisation on account of race and gender; they live and work with Westerners.

Male gaze: 

    Male gaze asserting dominance by staring at, objectifying and sexualizing those one considers inferior to or merely of use to oneself, transforming them into “other” and objectifying them. In art, the male gaze can be a projection of the artist’s fantasy onto a female figure; the white gaze can also be a form of racial intimidation, and the gaze can also be a lesbian or gay projection onto someone so that she/he becomes an object of interest.

Stereotyping: reduction of a group or its members to supposed traits of that group.

Objectification: in literature, the reduction of character to behavior and public speech, refusing the character her/his own psychology and inner subjectivity. In society, objectification (and specifically sexual objectification) occurs when a person is defined by her/his sexual attributes and the rest of her/his personality and existence are ignored; objectification involves reduction of a person to an object for one’s gaze or pleasure.

Womanism: The term coined by Alice Walker in her 1979 short story “Coming Apart”, referring to African American women’s need to create a movement centered on their needs, given Walker’s and others’ belief that white feminism was/is not addressing the concerns of African American women and others.

Ecriture Feminism:  The term coined by Helene Cixous. Literally women’s writing, is philosophy that promotes women’s experiences and feelings to the point that it strengthens the work.

Negritude: Term coined by AimeCesaire in 1935, essay in the Paris student journal L’Etudiantnoir. She used this term in her book “Notebook of a Return to Native land” (1939). The term is French origin. It was coined out of the necessity for creating a separate identity for the blacks.

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