Feminisms and Literary Theories

I title this handout in the plural because one important thing I want you to grasp is that there are many feminisms, not one, and there are many ways in which feminism comes into contact with and shapes this vast field we have been calling literary and cultural theory. Strictly speaking, then, it is important to avoid saying simplistically, “Feminist theorists believe X.” Since feminist theorists have many different points of view, the appropriate response to such a statement is almost always “Which feminist theorists?”

Pursuing this notion of pluralism within feminism, it is important to understand three basic divisions within the feminist movement as a whole. Political feminism can, roughly and imprecisely, be divided into liberal feminism, social feminism, and radical feminism.

Liberal feminism accepts the general structures of society, but believes that women have been excluded from participating in that society. In general liberal feminists do not believe in getting rid of basic social structures such as capitalism, representative democracy, churches, etcetera. They do believe that women should be allowed to participate fully in these structures. Thus liberal feminists are often concerned with whether or not women can become CEOs of companies, whether they can be ordained as priests, and whether they can serve in the military or other major institutions of society.

Social feminism takes as its point of departure the belief that society as a whole has been damaged by the structures of capitalism, and that women particularly have suffered under these social structures. Thus Social Feminism is influenced by Marxism and socialism in its analysis of culture and society, while at the same time critiquing classical forms of Marxism and socialism for their patriarchal biases. For social feminists, economic structures and the institutions that support those structures are the primary area of concern. By changing those structures, social feminists believe the subordinated role of women in society will be transformed.

Radical feminism takes many shapes and forms. On the whole radical feminism, as its name suggests, is the most radical in its view of contemporary society. While not as coherent a political movement as the other forms of feminism, radical feminism has been influential in its belief that modern society has been completely and in many ways incurably infected by the structures of patriarchy. Thus, radical feminists often try to create, or at least advocate the creation of, absolutely new and different social relationships and institutions. This sometimes involves the creation of new religions or other forms of alternative social lifestyles as a way of embodying a new female-centered social structure.

What has this to do with literature?

Many things can be said about the relationship of Literature to Feminism. Just as the various forms of feminism sometimes overlap and sometimes compete with each other, the relationship to literature is often complex, almost never simple. In general, Liberal feminism is concerned with why women are not represented in the canon, why women have not been allowed to write, or why women are presented in a consistently negative way in the institutions of literature. In general, Social feminism concerns itself with the relationship of women writers to the social institutions of literature and society at large. How are women as writers related to the worlds of publishing, work, and other social institutions. How do those social institutions subordinate women in particular ways, and how does writing done by women support or undermine those particular social institutions. In general, Radical feminism advocates for women’s literature as a completely separate phenomenon from men’s literature. Radical feminism sometimes advocates for a completely separate women’s canon, and sometimes advocates for a particularly woman’s way of writing.

A Last Word: French Feminism and Poststructuralism: No student of culture and feminist theory will get very far before encountering the general term “French Feminism.” As the word suggests, this particular theoretical movement is rooted in France, but its import has been wide-ranging. Roughly, French feminism can be thought of as a form of theoretical inquiry that revises and applies the insights of post-structuralism, particularly as found in theorists like Derrida, Foucault, and especially Jacques Lacan, to feminist concerns. As with social feminism, this engagement with post-structuralism applies those insights, but also critiques the limitations of French poststructualist theory as the latest form of patriarchy. There is no necessary political bent to French Feminism; indeed, it is sometimes critiqued as being apolitical. However, French Feminism has deeply influenced all the political forms of feminism to greater and lesser degrees.

Feminisms II

Three important Questions that concern Feminist Literary Theories.

What is the woman as a writer?--This particular question concerns itself with the issue of women as authors. Think of how Virginia Woolf, in "A Room of One's Own," is concerned with the way that being denied the space of privacy affects the ability of women to participate in the whole project of writing at all. In another venue, Gilbert and Gubar are deeply concerned with women being denied the chance to write at all, being denied access to institutions of learning that might promote a woman's authorship, or being denigrated or stereotyped as "unwomanly" if they decide to take up the pen. Gilbert and Gubar especially have concerned themselves with the ways in which authorship is considered a male priviledge, and the consequences this has had for the evaluation of women who are writers. Other feminists become concerned with why publishers segment women who write into a separate field that may be deemed less serious or consequential than literature written by men.

What is the woman in writing?--This question is related to the first, but is more concerned with the way women are represented in literature. This particular question takes up the issue of where and when and how women have been stereotyped in literature, for instance. This kind of feminist literary criticism is deeply concerned with the ways that literature by men has denigrated women by presenting them in negative ways, or perhaps by the ways in which it attempts to control women by presenting them in limited positive ways. On another scale, feminist literary criticism also looks to see whether women are represented differently by women who are authors. Do women writers provide a different perspective on what it means to be an American, for instance. Does Harriet Beecher Stowe's work provide a significant alternative to the work of Hawthorne, Emerson, and others?

What is woman's writing?--Again, this question is related to the first two, but is fundamentally more concerned with issues of "style" or "consciousness" than with the specifics of content. Are writing styles, genres, forms, etcetera, gendered. Is there such a thing as a masculine style or feminine style? Is James Joyce producing something that is recognizably "feminine" in style no matter how "masculine" it may be in content? Do women conceive of space and time in fundamentally different ways such that narratives are formed in different ways? What happens when a woman writes in a form that could be described as "masculine," as for instance when H.D. writes in the difficult and abstruse forms of high modernism, or when Zora Neale Hurston writes a bildungsroman a form which, in the conventions of the nineteenth century, was usually characterized as a classic male story? Does men writing in a "feminine" style and women writing in a "masculine" style render pointless the whole discussion of gendered styles?