PRESENTATION

By Madiha Habib

Feminist Literary Theory

INTRODUCTIONHuman civilization is made by and for both the man and woman. They both live here in a coordinated social system. Both the species have their own right and needs to live with modest admiration. But the history of human society does not tell us the equivalent existence of both man and woman. Man always dominated on women and women had no way to complaint against it. But in time gradually a change come into women’s brains and they understood that they need to be conscious about their own right. So women move up their voice against women oppression. To do so they had no way but to take some practical actions. All these actions are known as women’s movement against oppression. And the scheme to achieve the goal is called feminism.

Feminism is a social movement which has gradually improved the position of women. It refers to the belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes; that each individual is a valuable human being in his or her own right. The goal of feminist work is broader than simply a stronger emphasis on women; the goal is to revise our way of considering history, society, literature, etc. so that both male and female are seen equally conditioned by the gender constructions of their culture. Feminists may differ in the importance they assign to sex, which is a biologically based category, but the idea that gender norms can be changed is central to feminist theory.

FEMINISM From centuries female writers faced many

social realities in the production of literature. For a very long period of time, women were not supposed to get education and the works of female writers have been under a number of serious historical constraints. Their works were not considered universal and hence did not become part of literary canon.

After a centuries old struggle, the feminist movement began in 1960’s. It talks about the social, economic, political and psychological oppression of women.

Feminism talks about the position of women and seeks to change the power relations between men and women prevail in the patriarchal setup; leads to examination of gender roles, how roles for males and females are culturally constructed.

Feminism talks about how women are represented in literature with cultural stereotypes, how this stereotyping is an obstacle on the path of equality.

This theory depicts the plight of women in the male dominated society; the treatment of women as subjects, as sexual objects which lead to the sufferings of self.

WAVES OF FEMINISMThe history of the modern western feminist movements is divided into three "waves". Each wave dealt with different aspects of the same feminist issues.

First WaveSecond Wave Third Wave

FIRST WAVE First-wave feminism was a

period of activity during the nineteenth century and early twentieth century.

It focused on the promotion of equal contract, marriage, parenting, property rights and rights of vote for women.

By the end of the nineteenth century, activism focused primarily on gaining political power, particularly women's sexual, reproductive, and economic rights as well.

SECOND WAVE Second-wave feminism is a

feminist movement beginning in the early 1960s and continuing to the present.

Second-wave feminism is largely concerned with issues of equality other than suffrage, such as ending discrimination. Second-wave feminists see women's cultural and political inequalities as inextricably linked

Encourage women to understand aspects of their personal lives as deeply politicized and as reflecting sexist power structures

THIRD WAVE In the early 1990s , third-wave feminism

began as a response to perceived failures of the second wave and to the backlash against initiatives and movements created by the second wave.

Third-wave feminism distinguished itself from the second wave around issues of sexuality, challenging female heterosexuality and celebrating sexuality as a means of female empowerment.

Third-wave feminists often focus on "micro-politics" and challenge the second wave's paradigm as to what is, or is not, good for women, and tend to use a post-structuralist interpretation of gender and sexuality

MAJOR FEMINIST THEORISTSMARRY WOLLSTONECRAFT

SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR

JUDITH BUTLER

BETTY FRIEDAN

MARRY WOLLSTONECRAFT

Wollstonecraft is regarded as one of the founding feminist philosophers

best known for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman(1792), in which she argues that women are not naturally inferior to men, but appear to be only because they lack education.

She suggests that both men and women should be treated as rational beings and imagines a social order founded on reason.

SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR A French writer, intellectual,

existentialist philosopher, feminist and social theorist

known for her book The Second Sex, a detailed analysis of women's oppression

Believed that “one is not born a woman, but becomes one”. It is the (social) construction of Woman as Other that plays fundamental role in women's oppression.

Women are as capable of choice as men, and thus can choose to elevate themselves, a position where one chooses one's freedom.

JUDITH BUTLER Judith Butler proposes her theory of

gender performativity in her Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990)

She accepts this notion of a "distinction between sex, as biological facticity, and gender, as the cultural interpretation or signification of that facticity.

Butler argues that it is more valid to perceive gender as a performance that an individual agent acts in.

She states, "gender is not a radical choice . . . [nor is it] imposed or inscribed upon the individual". Given the social nature of human beings, most actions are witnessed, reproduced, and internalized and thus take on a performative quality.

BETTY FRIEDAN American writer, activist, and

feminist. A leading figure in the women's movement in the United States

Her 1963 book The Feminine Mystique is often credited with sparking the second wave of American feminism in the 20th century.

Friedan asserted that women are as capable as men for any type of work.

Primary objective was promoting equal opportunities for women in jobs and education. She reacted against the restrictions of the 1950s, and the trapped, imprisoned feeling of many women forced into these oppressive roles

Key Issues

Constructed Gender Roles

Patriarchy

Othering

Marginalization & Oppression

PATRIARCHY Patriarchy is a social system in which society is

organized around male authority figures. In this system males (Fathers, Husbands, Brothers) have authority over women, children, and property.

It implies the institutions of male rule and privilege, and is dependent on female subordination. Most forms of feminism characterize patriarchy as an unjust social system that is oppressive to women. Carole Pateman argues that the patriarchal distinction "between masculinity and femininity is the political difference between freedom and subjection“.

In feminist theory the concept of patriarchy often includes all the social mechanisms that reproduce and exert male dominance over women. Feminist theory typically characterizes patriarchy as a social construction

EXAMPLE In “A Rose for Emily”, Miss Emily catered to the whims

and needs of her father, someone who maintained rigid control over her life and behavior. She has mainly been a prisoner of her father and male dominated society that imposed limitations of values and gender roles on her. “Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a

care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town”

“We remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her”

Reference to Philomela who was forced and assaulted by her brother-in-law king Treues, and he cut her tongue to prevent her from telling his sisters.

“The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king So rudely forced; And still she cried, and still the world pursues”

(The Wasteland “A Game of Chess”)

OTHERING The idea of othering highlights the superiority and

inferiority associated with men and women. The ‘other’ has to be subjugated. This assumption highlights the dichotomies Just as the master/ slave, colonizer/colonized, strong/weak, rational /irrational

According to feminist writers, the woman has to be seen in connection with man. The man is master and colonizer, whereas, the woman is a slave and colonized entity. This notion is discussed by Gayatri Spivak in her essay “Can the Subaltern speak?” Beauvoir also mentioned in her book The Second Sex “Humanity is male, and man defines woman, not in herself, but in relation to himself; she is not considered an autonomous being. Men are Self and women are Other”

Faulkner portrays beautifully the plight of woman and the way she is taught to be submissive to her father and societal norms in the following lines.

“Of course a Grierson would not think seriously of a Northerner, a day labourer…. Older people, who said that even grief could not cause a real lady to forget noble oblige…” (A Rose for Emily)

These lines show how only a female is expected to behave according to the expectations of societal codes of morality. In this way society treats women as men’s other and a slave of the patriarchal laws.

Feminist critics show that women are always treated as men’s “Other” by associating certain cultural stereotypes like submissive, docile, irrational, helpless, unworldly, self-sacrificing and weak.

In patriarchal society, these stereotypes are considered to be admirable. Aristotle cited by Beavouir in The Second Sex “The female is female by virtue of a certain lack of qualities. We should regard women’s nature as suffering from natural defectiveness. Men are absolute and they are relative beings” “….only a women could have believed it” “Poor Emily. Being left alone, and a pauper, she had

become humanized. Her kinsfolk should come to her”

The lines show how irrationally Emily believed the words of Colonel Sartoris, and how helpless and weak society thinks of her in the absence of male member of her family.

Female is objectified in a male made society. Beauvoir mentions “And she is nothing other than what man decides; she is thus called “the sex,” meaning that the male sees her essentially as a sexed being; for him she is sex, an object of pleasure”. Now Albert’s coming back, make yourself a bit smart. To get yourself some teeth, and get a nice set, He’s been in the army four years, he wants a good time,/ And if you don’t give it him, there’s others will (The Wasteland)In a rigid patriarchal society, woman is to be blamed for moral corruption of man. They believe that a woman corrupts man by seducing him through her exposed sexuality. She is the one who brings downfall to man. “when she had begun to been seen with Homer Browen, we had said, “she will marry him. She will persuade him….then some of the ladies began to say that it was a disgrace to the town and a bad example to the young people…. We believed that she was fallen”(A Rose for Emily)

MARGINALIZATION AND OPPRESSION

Marginalization is the process in which an individual or a group is pushed to periphery and given lesser importance. The individual or group is treated as minority and their wants and necessities are ignored. Oppression is the unjust treatment the individuals receive in a society.

According to feminism, oppression is the elongated subjection of women in a society dominated by men. Women in all cultures and societies, either eastern or western, are oppressed in one way or other. They get a treatment of second-rate citizens the lower class

The men wanted their women forget the very nature and innate love of freedom by keeping them in a state of subjection. They never realizes the females’ inner dissatisfaction and hunger for freedom and identity to be their own.

In the story “A Rose for Emily”, Miss Emily is marginalized and oppressed, first by her own father and later by society, in such a way that results in the eventual murder of her husband and her own death out of grief. She was tortured so much in the name of societal norms that she became rebellious.

“…that quality of her father which had thwarted her woman’s life so many times had been virulent and too furious to die”

“And so she died. Fell in the house filled with dust and shadows […] there was one room which no one had seen in forty years….this room decked and

furnished as for a bridal; the man himself lay in the bed. Then we noticed in the second pillow , a long strand of iron-grey hair”

CONSTRUCTED GENDER ROLES

Gender is a reciprocal of sex which includes the dimensions upon which individuals are distinct from each other, such as male and female. Sex is a biologic composition which means that males are distinct from females biologically. On the basis of this distinction, the society expects various roles and behaviors from male and female members.

According to feminism, sex is biologic composition as female and male, whereas gender is constructed by societal and cultural communities as masculine and feminine.

According to Wollstonecraft, "we are literally self-less—that is, our very identities are determined by our socially constituted wants and desires. We are, fundamentally, the selves our communities create”.

Because of these constructed roles, power relations occur between men and women. Men hold the life and destiny of women and decide their fate.

The women in patriarchal society are expected to internalize the roles defined for them. A woman is obligated to remain obedient towards her father before marriage and husband after marriage.

The major roles given to a woman are to obey male members, remain chaste and morally pure, get married at an early age and giving birth to children.

“so when she got to be thirty and was still single, we were not pleased exactly, but vindicated” “two days later we learned that she had bought a complete outfit of men’s clothing, we said,

“They are married”. We were really glad”. (A Rose for Emily)

Example from The WastelandHe said, I swear, I can’t bear to look at you.And no more can’t I, I said, and think of poor Albert,You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.You are a proper fool, I said.Well, if Albert won’t leave you alone, there it is, I said,What you get married for if you don’t want children?

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