Feminism in Pop Culture

Many myths and misconceptions float around the term ‘Feminism’. It is a movement that is frequently projected as being violent, aggressive, and full of ‘bra burning’ extremists. The word alone often evokes reactions among people that are negative, uncomplimentary and stereotypical. The disturbing of the patriarchal paradigm was a phenomenon that became prominent only in the Twentieth Century. Historically speaking women have always numerically outnumbered men, but through the system of patriarchy they have been suppressed by political, economic and social machinery. The difference between Gender and Sex When trying to examine feminism we must keep in mind the subtle difference between ‘gender’ and ‘sex’. For example, if a man were to dress or behave like a woman, it would not change the fact that he is still biologically a man, and here is where the difference lies. When we use the term ‘gender’, we are referring to a social construct, a store knowledge that has developed over generations that helps us in our identification of a person as a man or a woman. A person’s sex on the other hand is purely biological. A primary argument of feminist theory is that arbitrary allocations such as this that are constructs of society are completely devoid of any genuine value. Thus the duty of feminism, in one sense, involves the subversion of existing patriarchal paradigms by questioning phallocentric, or penis-centred, sources of power. Patriarchy and the Woman The term ‘Patriarchy’ itself can be broadly defined as an ideological system of belief that privileges males over females. This is a complex system that employs androcentric values, rituals and practices in order to maintain status quo. Another means of control involves patriarchy passing itself off as the so-called ‘norm’ or the ‘right’ way in which a society must divide itself, and regards the Female as a departure from this ‘norm’ and treats her as ‘the other’, a notion that only reinforces the sharp cleavage between the two sexes. As a result of this treatment, the decisions of a society are based on whatever the man decides, whereas everything else is lumped together as ‘the other’, the Female. It is however ironic that patriarchy itself requires the co-operation of the Female in order to subjugate her, making her a willing participant in her own suppression. As the French feminist Simone de Beauvoir put it so aptly in her seminal book, ‘The Second Sex’, published in 1949, ‘One is not born, but rather becomes a woman. ’, a statement that raises our consciousness to the disparity between the male ‘norm’ and the female ‘other’. It was indeed French Feminism that first brought to light the fact that all western languages are irredeemably male-engendered, male constituted and male-dominated. Discourse itself is phallocentric as seen in its vocabulary, syntax, rules of logic and its tendency for classification and opposition as well as the need for objective knowledge. Definitions of Feminist Literary Criticism There are multiple definitions that can be applied to Feminist Literary criticism. It differs from other schools of critical theory in that it does not derive its literary principles from a single authoritative figure or from a body of sacred texts. This is quite unlike other approaches such as Psychoanalysis, Marxism or Deconstruction, which can all be attributed to their primary exponents, Freud, Marx and Derrida respectively. Feminist theory has evolved from several sources, with several feminist thinkers contributing to the canon. Moreover, critical theory used in readings of Woman’s literature borrows from other disciplines such as History, Anthropology, Linguistics, Psychoanalysis and Marxism. It was a form of criticism created by literary and academic women who participated in the women’s liberation movement in the late 1960s. Kate Millet’s book, ‘Sexual Politics’ (1870) was the first major treatise on feminist criticism, and also represented a strong political argument for women’s rights. The Dictionary of Concepts in Literary Criticism and Theory defines Feminist Criticism as ‘The understanding and analysis of and response to literary works, and/or language and/or the institution of literary study or theory from the point of view of women’s experience. ’ â€Å"Feminist Criticism†, says Elaine Showalter, in her book ‘New Feminist Criticism’, â€Å"has established gender as a fundamental category of literary analysis. † Her article, ‘Dancing through the Minefield’ has also made some observations on the politics and practice of feminist criticism. She also points out that the earlier groups of feminist critics were preoccupied with the gender bias in writing, whereas the later group of gynocritics studied women as writers. Another columnist, Annette Kolodny, defines feminist criticism as â€Å"An acute and impassioned attentiveness to the ways in which primarily male structures of power are encoded within our literary inheritance, and the consequences of that encoding for women†¦ not only for a better understanding of the past but also for an improved recording of the present and the future. This form of criticism, as a self-aware and concerted approach to literature came into being in the late 1960s, as a part of the international woman’s movement. One of the first areas it looked into and challenged was literature, where it was always assumed that the representative reader, writer and critic were all male. The historical background and watershed marks in Feminist Criticism Behind the movement in the 1960s, however, lay two centuries of struggle, represented only by a few texts such as Mary Wollstonecraft’s ‘The vindication of the Rights of Women’ (1792). A later book, this time by John Stuart Mill, ‘The Subjection of Women’ (1869) was also brought to the fore. It suggested that the Wife was a family’s source of sustenance, and therefore the empowerment of the generations could be achieved only by empowering The Woman. The next seminal work in Feminist Criticism was penned by Virginia Woolf in 1929. Called ‘A Room of One’s Own’, the book talked about the major directions in which feminist explorations of literature needed to develop. The book is rich with insights about the absence of women writers and readers, and the probable fate to which the hypothetical ‘Sister of Shakespeare’, blessed with equal or greater genius, would have been consigned to thanks to socio-cultural obstacles of the age. In it, Woolf’s contention is that ‘A woman must have money and a room (referring to space, privilege and opportunity) of her own if she is to write [fiction]. † Other significant books include Toril Moi’s ‘Sexual/Textual Politics’ (1985) and Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s ‘No Mans Land: The Place of the Woman Writer in the 20th Century’. These texts introduced the principles of feminist literary theory to the world. Their purpose was to offer feminist readings of texts that looked at the images and the stereotypes of women in literature as well as the omissions and misconceptions about women in criticism and ‘women-as-sign’ in semiotic systems. This kind of criticism concerns itself with developing a specifically female framework for dealing with works written by women, in all aspects of their production, including analysis and interpretation in ll literary forms and expressions, including journalism and popular culture, like Patricia Mayers-Spack’s ‘The Female Imagination’, Ellen Moer’s ‘Literary Women’, Elaine Showalter’s ‘A Literature of their Own: British Women Novelists from Bronte to Lessing’, or Gilbert and Gubar’s ‘The Mad Woman in the Attic’, a reference to Bertha Mason, who is ‘usually in some sense the author ’s double, (the other) an image of her own anxiety and rage. ’ Through the women’ liberation movement, literary criticism drew a connection between the lived lives of thousands of women who studied and taught literature. An important area of research was the limited secondary roles of fictional heroines and other feminine stereotypes in canonical literature. The Role of Feminist Criticism Feminist criticism, developing in tandem with the women’s liberation movement brought in a dual perspective that brought about a reappraisal of texts, looked at the construction of gender through language and the gendering of text, and examined the representation of women in literature and the exclusion of women as fictional characters, authors and readers. As far as literature is concerned, the role of Feminist criticism was to look at canonical literary works and the manner in which they represent women as stereotypes, and to develop theories for sexual differences in reading, writing and literary interpretation. It brings to the fore and establishes ‘gender’ as a fundamental category of literary analysis, and takes into account the fact that the vast majority of what is conceded to be the ‘literary canon’ is by and large authored by men, based on masculine norms and values, and women’s writing therefore is either excluded or undervalued in canonical literature, criticism and theory. Feminist critics also look at the representation of female experiences in literature. They reason that because a major aspect of literature is the reporting of our biological sense experiences, it would be impossible for the male to authentically capture an entirely feminine experience such as menstruation or childbirth. Feminist criticism also bases itself on two other primary assumptions: That gender is constructed through language (by way of political incorrect words and phrases such as ‘chairman’, ‘male nurse’ or ‘actor and actress’), and that writing strategies are sex-related and therefore misogynistic. Feminist criticism also shows that women readers, critics and writers bring different perceptions and expectations to their literary experiences, and insist that women have important stories to tell of their own culture. This kind of criticism opened space that now extended beyond the study of only women writers and now included the reappraisal of all literature that makes up our heritage. Feminist critics look at literary representation of sexual differences, and how literature shapes masculine and feminine values, privileging one set over another. The aim of feminist criticism therefore becomes to re-examine male texts, emphasize writing by women by charting a new literary history that includes neglected texts, a female tradition created by a sub-community of women writers who found support from their literary foremothers and so become role models for younger female writers. They also look at the oral tradition and other extra-literary expressions. Another aim involves the creation of new reading and writing collectives, libraries, publishing houses, social centres, colleges and so on. Feminist criticism confronts the problem of the feminist reader by offering new methods and fresh critical evaluation of issues, such as the mother-daughter cultural and relational aspect. Another major concern of Gynocritics is to identify what is taken to be distinctly feminine subject matter in literature written by women, the idea of sisterhood and female bonding, domesticity, gestation, birth, motherhood, mother-daughter or woman-woman relationships, etc. They also undertake to show that there is a distinctive feminine mode of experience or subjectivity in thinking, feeling, valuing and perceiving the self and others. French Feminism Related to this is the specification of the traits of women’s language and its distinctive style of speech and writing. Women must write in a way in which they can avoid the pitfalls of phallocentric language mentioned earlier, in a style represented by the term ‘ecriture feminine’ or writing in the feminine, a concept that was a product of French feminism. Helene Cixous, its main exponent, credited with authoring its manifesto, ‘The Laugh of Medusa’ (1975), stated that ecriture feminine is to be found in metaphors of female sexuality and women’s libidinal differences. Another critic, Luce Irigary, talks about women’s writing and its evasion of the male monopoly by replacing the monolithic phallus by the diversity, fluidity and multiple possibilities represented by female sexuality. These critics believe that women must try to resurrect the ‘feminine-feminine’ which possibly lies in the unconscious of all women. Julia Kristeva speaks of a pre-natal, pre-linguistic, pre-oedipal and unsystematic signifying language between the mother and the infant centred on the mother that she labels as semiotic and abstract, as opposed to the symbolic or letter based language of the father. Semiotic writing disrupts phallocentric writing because it is free from oppressive order and rationality. Both men and women can write in this mode, which deconstructs masculine structures of knowledge and attacks patriarchy and its language. The overall aim of ecriture feminine is therefore to allow a woman to write of, from and about their bodies. French feminist theory has contributed significantly to feminist literary criticism by studying the relationship between women, psychology and language. Currently feminist criticism employs a wide range of approaches and addresses a variety of issues of feminist interest. This is called ‘Playful Pluralism’. The oft-asserted goal of feminist critics has been to enlarge and re-order, or in some cases entirely displace the (patriarchal) literary canon. Feminist studies have served to raise the stakes of many female authors who were erstwhile neglected or even overlooked.