CHAPTER TWO

FEMINIST LITERARY CRITICISM: A

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
2.1 Preliminaries
Throughout the history of human civilization the voice of women
has been suppressed by the patriarchal society. Women are
considered to be weak and inferior. Patriarchy has a long history and
it has become a social system in which men dominate, exploit,
oppress and subordinate women. The term ―patriarchy‖ refers to the
rule of the fathers in a male-dominated society where they hold
authority over women, children and property. Patriarchy has rooted
itself in all the nations of the world, socially, politically and
economically. It allots primary position of male and secondary to
female. As a social and ideological structure, patriarchy considers
male to be superior to female. In this social system, economic, social,
and cultural issues are controlled by males. Various factors, like
social, religious, cultural traditions and mindset of males are
responsible for female subjugation.

If someone reads the ancient history, it becomes clear that

Patriarchy is an age-old ideology. For example, ancient
Mesopotamian and Greek societies were patriarchal in nature. In
Mesopotamian society, husbands were free to have extra coitus
outside their marriage, but a wife committing adultery was pitched

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into the river. The Epic of Gilgamesh from ancient Mesopotamia
shows that patriarchy in Mesopotamian society existed. Gilgamesh,
the Priest-King of the city of Uruk is a rapist. He uses women as
objects and slaves to quench his lust. In an article on net entitled,
Patriarchy in the Ancient World: Early Mesopotamia to the Dark
Ages (2012) it is mentioned:

The most implicit source of misogyny that came

out of ancient Mesopotamia was the Hammurabi‘s
Code, which set the law and social order in
Babylon. Among rules that dealt with theft and
kidnapping, there were ones that ordered harsh
and cruel punishments to women who
disobeyed. For example, a man could divorce his
wife anytime he wanted, but if a woman wanted to
divorce her husband against his will she would
have been made a slave.1

In ancient Greek society also women were exploited and

oppressed. They were disallowed to go out freely alone. They were
forced to be at home just performing their duties such as rearing
children and looking after the household. Even a great philosopher
like Plato (428/427-348/347 B.C.) also viewed women as weak and
inferior to men. His student, Aristotle also followed his view.
Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) in his book Politics (350 B.C.) says that by
nature male is superior and female is inferior. Naturally, the male can

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be a ruler and the female can be a ruled. It is stated in the same article
on the net:

Aristotle viewed women as subordinate. He felt

that women were simply inferior – that they were
merely deformed or ―unfinished‖ men. He claimed
that women were ―receptacles‖ for men and they
shouldn‘t be educated or seen as rational beings -
either he was a complete misogynist or just a
totally clueless math geek. Either way his ideas
formed the opinions of men for centuries after his
death.2

The family is the main reason to bring patriarchy in the society

because the head of the family is a father who is a decision maker in
the family. Automatically, this makes the society patrilineal, meaning
that property and the name of the family are inherited by the male
descendants because the male child is considered to be the inheritor of
the family but the female child is not considered so. In a patriarchal
family, the birth of a son makes the family happy but the birth of a
daughter is unwelcome. At the same time, if one traces the history,
one sees that women had some opportunity to negotiate different
forms of autonomy and decision making. However, these forms do
not imply absolute liberty but have enabled them to show their needs
and desires and to challenge the conditions that are given to them as
their destiny. Simone De Beauvoir (2011) asserts:

The woman herself recognizes that the universe as

a whole is masculine; it is men who have shaped

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 it, ruled it and who still today dominate it; as for
her, she does not consider herself responsible for
it; it is understood that she is inferior and
dependent; she has not learned the lessons of
violence, she has never emerged as a subject in
front of other members of the group; enclosed in
her flesh, in her home, she grasps herself as
passive opposite to these human-faced gods who
set goals and standards.3

During the nineteenth century, women mostly were at home to

take care of the household, serve their husbands and look after their
children. They were not allowed to speak in public and they were
seen as weak. The environment always made them dependant on men.
They were not happy because they had no civil rights and were
disenfranchised. Betty Friedan (1921-2006), in her book The
Feminine Mystique (1963) reveals that women in the 1950s were only
at home to perform their duties as housewives and mothers. She states
that women were not happy because they were evaluated according to
their body and beauty. She criticizes women‘s traditional duties as a
wife and a mother. Lorraine Gates Schuyler (2006) asserts:

In 1848, the pioneering women who gathered at

Seneca Falls insisted that, like white men, they too
were deserving of ballots. In the ensuing battle for
woman suffrage, activists marched in the streets,
picketed outside the White House, endured jail
sentences, and staged hunger strikes to secure
their full participation in the American polity.

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 Their battle for suffrage rights lasted more than
seventy years.4

There are many stories which refer to men‘s resistance towards

women to distance them from the right of voting. For example, a
woman from South Carolina ‗heard a man say that if his wife
registered and tried to vote, she should find another home!‘5
However, ‗despite determined opposition from the region‘s leading
men, women in nearly every southern state cast their first ballots in
November 1920‘.6 The voting was only for the white men. So, even
the black men did not have the right of voting. ‗For nearly a century,
African Americans continued to fight for full access to the polls.‘ 7

The 1890s were a transitional period for women‘s writing and it

was a great era for women writers. During the decade, the British
women writers mostly presented their feminist views through short
stories. After the emergence of feminist movements, women started
asking and searching for their rights and identities. They
demonstrated and fought for their freedom in order to be equal with
men and participate in all spheres of life.

2.2 Emergence of Feminism

Human civilization reveals that women have always tried and
struggled to obtain equality, respect and the same rights as men. This
has been difficult, because of the traditional patriarchal social
structures, as an ideology in which men are considered superior to
women and have the right to rule women. From time to time, women

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struggle for their legitimate rights. As mentioned earlier, in the
nineteenth century, women were treated like slaves. They were fully
dependent on their husbands. They were not allowed easily to get
access to education and just used as objects in marriage and
reproduction without the right to have any property except in a few
cases and also they disallowed to be separated from their husbands
and ask for a divorce. In marriage, there was no freedom to women,
the meaning of marriage just meant obeying and being submissive to
the husband and act as a slave. Therefore, in this situation, women‘s
movement comes up as a saviour for women to display their problems
and find solutions for them. William L O'Neill (1969) writes:

The term woman movement appears in the late

nineteenth century to describe all the public
activities of women, whether directly related to
feminist goals or not.8

Feminism is a movement or a revolution that includes women and

men who wish the world to be equal because they view the human
world as being unequal and experience male superiority over female.
Feminism, throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
developed itself as a great force to make women free. Feminism seeks
a culture in which women are treated differently from men, and
because of this discriminatory treatment women are losers in many
respects. Such treatment is cultural and it is possible to modify it.
Feminism started from the 1960s onwards to change such flexible

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culture in order to respect women and value their role. Sudhir Kumar
(2010) states:

The terms ―feminism‖ and ―feminist‖ did not gain

widespread use until the 1970s, but the terms also
―were already being used in the public parlance
much earlier; for instance, Katherine Hepburn
speaks of the ―feminist movement‖ in the 1942
film woman of the year.9

A feminist can be anyone in the population of men and women

having positive understanding and consideration towards women‘s
legitimate rights, and concerned about the status of women;
acknowledging and admiring women‘s contribution towards society
and recognizing their noticeable roles in history. A feminist tries to
free women from political, economic and cultural modes of
oppression and longs to restore freedom and dignity to women. The
term ‗feminist‘ implies a political position but the term ‗female‘
refers to gender difference. All female writings are not committed to
the feminist position. Female writing is women‘s writing about
different issues of society; it is their perspective on life which can be
explained in terms of gender. Therefore, a male writer can also be a
feminist.

Feminists analyse the issues which are derived from patriarchy,

male sexist bias and male chauvinism. There are different
explanations from feminists for women‘s issues, therefore, different
feminist perspectives and theories came into existence to illustrate

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women‘s subordination, and to make them aware of their subjugation.
All the theories and movements had an impact on each other, for
example women‘s movement in the west had an impact on African
feminist thinking which together they realized women‘s position as
one of second-class status and that of ―otherness‖ and tried to correct
them.

The history of feminism is very complex; it unites and mixes

different things into one. It is concerned with the rights of women on
the basis of equality—women are human beings like men and
therefore, they have to be granted equal rights. On the basis of
differences—women are different from men and therefore, they have
to be granted the rights to represent themselves. The history of
feminism has undergone various phases and labels to shed light on
women‘s subordination and their struggle to get rid of patriarchy. The
various phases and labels are like: women‘s suffrage movement,
Women‘s Emancipation, socialist feminism, radical feminism, liberal
feminism, Marxist feminism, cultural feminism, Black feminism,
womanism, motherism, stiwanism, Anarchist feminism, Separatist
feminism, eco-feminism, lesbian feminism, anti-racism and colonial
theory, Chicana feminism, multiracial feminism, queer theory, post-
colonial feminism, post-structural feminism, transnationalism, cyber-
feminism, and post-modern feminism. Woman Suffrage was an
important movement because it united women of very different
backgrounds to resist patriarchy. It was during this phase that women

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struggled to get the right to vote in political elections. According to
Lorraine Gates (2006), woman Suffrage:

Transformed the look and feel of southern politics,

and white men could no longer refer to the
franchise as evidence of their superiority over
white women or even African American women.10

Feminist activists actively work in areas such as domestic

violence, workplace issues, family medical leave, equal pay, equal
treatment, judicious respect, harassment, discrimination and gender-
based oppression. The various feminisms are often described in the
context of ―waves‖—first-wave feminism, second-wave feminism
and third-wave feminism. All three waves have a profound impact on
women and gender studies as there were a number of women‘s
agitations for social change. Throughout history, the waves have
undergone diverse labels and phases of feminism as mentioned
earlier. Their objective was to interrogate gender inequalities and to
bring about change in order to eliminate imbalance between men-
women relationship. Margaret Walters (2005) states:

In the 20th century, ‗first-wave‘ feminists had

demanded civil and political equality. In the
1970s, ‗second-wave‘ feminism concentrated on,
and gave great prominence to, sexual and family
rights for women.11

The first-wave feminism emerged during the late nineteenth and

early twentieth century. Peter Widdowson., et al. (2005) state, ‗the

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women‘s Rights and Women‘s Suffrage movements were the crucial
determinants in shaping this phase, with their emphasis on social,
political and economic reform.‘12 The focus of first-wave feminism
was on the legal rights, to bring women‘s suffrage. First-wave
feminism worked to remove all the obstacles in front of the girls to
get an education and make them economically independent and have
property rights. Further, it was during this wave that feminists and
women asked to make changes in marriage laws. The first-wave
feminism had an impact on feminism in both the western and eastern
societies throughout the twentieth century. The first-wave feminism
was considerably made of white middle, upper-class and well
educated women. Socialist feminists such as Rosa Luxemburg (1871-
1919), Alexandra Kollontai (1872-1952) and Emma Goldman (1869-
1940), paved the way for the second-wave feminism.

The second-wave feminism was the women‘s liberation

movement during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The movement was
blown out as a result of accumulation of women‘s writings in the
magazines for women. It was a widespread protest especially in the
United States and France. The movement was run by the radical and
liberal feminists. According to Gillian Howie., et al., eds. (2004), the
symbolic beginning of the second-wave feminism ‗is assumed to be
1968 but a change in emphasis can be detected throughout the 1970s
from the earlier liberal agenda of equal pay and opportunities to a
broader set of political goals‘.13

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 The second-wave feminism was concerned with equal pay,
reproductive freedom, and protest against rape, domestic violence,
pornography and sex discrimination and also it prolonged the first
wave‘s fight for women‘s rights. It was during the second-wave
feminism Women‘s Aid Federation was formed for those women who
faced domestic violence and also feminist criticism started as a part of
the international women‘s liberation movement.

In the second-wave feminism, Marxist feminism was a powerful

strand. It was almost similar to the socialist and materialist feminism.
Marxist feminists are feminists who are interested in the
philosophical and economic theories of Karl Heinrich Marx (1818-
1883). Marxist feminism focuses on the biological and capitalistic
explanations of women and asserts that women workers are more
exploited and oppressed than male workers because of gender
discrimination. Marxist feminism is criticized by some feminists
because they believe that Marxism ignores women's experience and
activity.

Sex and gender dilemma was emphasized by second-wave

feminism which was able to give a sociological and cultural
explanation about the distinction between sex and gender, sameness
and difference but it is clear that it could not entirely cover the issue
and failed to embody the voices of women of colour and non-
heterosexual women. The first and the second-wave of feminism
struggled for the rights of white women. The two waves were

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confined to industrialized nations and preferred middle class women
to poor and working class ones.

Consequently, third-wave feminism came into existence and

became a global wave, which is not confined to a particular class of
women but to all the women around the world. The duty of the third-
wave feminism is to deal with those issues which first and second-
wave feminism failed to deal with. Third-wave feminism is pervasive
and is able to make all women to actualize change, to attain power
and reach equality, within their own cultures and their own
communities and with their own voices. Third-wave feminism was
the result of failures of second-wave feminism. Third-wave feminism
emerged in the 1990s. The feminists of this wave are full of
confidence to resist all the oppressions of women around the world.
Third-wave feminism does not revolve around only limited issues of
women such as the struggle for women‘s suffrage and reproductive
choice. Feminists of this wave struggle for all the issues of women
without discrimination. They are dissatisfied with the changes of first
and second-wave feminism. They want to bring more changes than
the first and second wave-feminism. They also emphasize the need to
change the definition of ‗woman‘.

The main purpose of third-wave feminism is to direct all the

women of the world together hand in hand to fight for their rights and
make them able to define themselves in their own language as they

69
are. Gillian Howie., et al., eds. (2004) have written that Pam Alldred
and Sarah Dennison argue that:

The first wave of feminism represented the

‗struggle for equality and integration,‘ the second
wave criticized ‗dominant values and sometimes
inverted value-hierarchies to revalue qualities
associated with the feminine.‘ While feminism in
its third wave transgresses boundaries through
‗deconstructing the presumption of a gender
binary or the conventional ways of doing
politics‘.14

2.3 Black Feminism (African Feminism)

Arlene R. Keizer asserts that ‗black feminist criticism is a body of

critical and creative work written by women of African descent in the
United States.‘ Keizer further says that ‗while black feminisms have
arisen in other sites of the African Diaspora, for example, in Europe
and Latin America, the United States has been the site of the most
sustained black feminist critical discourse.‘15 Black feminism
struggles for the end of racism, sexism, and class oppression for all
women, irrespective of their colour. Mezu in her text Women in
Achebe‘s World (1995) has opined:

For white European and American women,

feminism has predicated itself on ending gender
discrimination and demanding equal job
opportunities and voting and property rights. For
African and African-American women, feminist

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 ideology reflects specificities of race, class, and
culture.16

Alice Malsenior Walker (1944- ) coined the term ―womanism‖ in

her short story, Coming Apart (1980) in order to distinguish black
feminism from white feminism. Womanism has been used by Walker
as a universal term, means defending all women, not only women of
colour. Walker got the idea to coin the term ―womanism‖ from black
feminist movement and then it became an ideology for all women.
Walker is an important Womanist in black feminist literary criticism.
Her contributions such as, In Search of Our Mothers‘ Gardens:
Womenist Prose (1983), Coming Apart (1980), Looking for Zora
(1975), and Saving the Life That is Your Own: The Importance of
Models in the Artist‘s Life (2005), had a great influence on black
feminism.

Not all women are subject to common forms of oppression.

Women of colour are more vulnerable to oppression and subjugation.
Black feminists criticize the liberal, Marxist, socialist and radical
feminists for their ignoring ―race‖ as a category of oppression and
exploitation. Walker believes that due to their race, black women face
more oppression and exploitation than the white women. According
to Wikipedia on net:

Black feminist theory has argued that black

women are positioned within structures of power
in fundamentally different ways than white women.
Black feminist organizations emerged during the

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 1970s and face many difficulties from both the
white feminist and black nationalist political
organizations they were confronting.17

African feminism came into existence in the early twentieth

century with the feminists like Adelaide Smith Casely Hayford
(1868-1960), Charlotte Makgomo Maxeke (1871-1939) and Huda
Shaarawi (1879-1947). Each of them has her own contribution
towards African feminism. According to Gill Plain., et at., eds.
(2007):

Contemporary black feminist criticism came into

being in the late 1960s and early 1970s, fostered
by the Civil Rights Movement and developed in
conjunction with the Second Wave of American
feminism.18

African feminism results from ‗the liberation struggles especially

those in Algeria, Mozambique, Guinea, Angola and Kenya
where women fighters fought alongside their male counterparts for
state autonomy and women‘s rights.‘ 19 The African women feminists
in these countries were ‗the Mau-Mau rebel, Wambui Otieno, the
freedom-fighters Lilian Ngoyi, Albertina Sisulu, Margaret Ekpo and
Funmilayo Anikulapo-Kuti‘20 who fought against British colonialism
as well as patriarchy. There are also black feminist critics who are not
black women like Barbara Johnson (1947-2009), Michael Awkward,
Kevin Everod Quashie and Madhu Dubey who made a contribution
towards black feminism and had an influence on it. Black feminism is

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different from western feminism. Bruno (2006) says that third world
feminism believes:

{Women} should attain freedom not only from

gender related inequalities, but also from those
related to race, class and national asymmetries.21

Hayford had a great impact on African feminism. Savages, is one

of her short stories in which she describes one of her diaries in a sea-
voyage to Africa. She says that the Captain did not dare to land in
Africa because he thought that Africa was the land of savages. Rina
Okonkwo (1960) writes:

An African shiphand (helped) his young wife

board the ship. The African treated his wife with
such kindness and love (then) the captain was
forced to admit that the ―savage‖ was more of a
gentle man than many European men.22

Mista Courifer is another short story of Hayford which she

combined feminism and cultural nationalism through the character of
Tomas who wears an African dress while he adopts the English
family structure. Tomas is the son of the main character Mista
Courifer, a solid citizen of Sierra Leone. He is a coffin maker who is
always in black dress. He has great expectations towards Tomas and
he wants to make him a proper Englishman but Tomas, as a
government clerk suffers of discrimination. Adelaide M. Cromwell

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(1986) writes about Hayford and says:

(Hayford‘s) long life covering the period from

Queen Victoria to Queen Elizabeth, Mrs. Casely
Hayford experienced the stimulation and
frustrations of change which affected her as a
woman and as an African.23

Hayford ‗understood the feminist precept that a woman must be

economically independent to retain herself respect.‘24 Hayford was
unhappy with her married life and separated from her husband in
1914. One of the reasons to increase and encourage her feminism
was her unhappy marriage. Therefore, after separation from her
husband, she established a school for girls in 1923 in West Africa,
Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. The reason behind establishing
the school was ‗to improve the opportunities for women‘s education
in Africa.‘25

In order to understand feminist literary criticism in general, being

familiar with different feminists and critics and their achievements
and contributions towards women‘s liberation movement is
necessary. Feminists have tried to demonstrate the specific choices
that women often make, and the historical and cultural constraints
within which women function. Feminist critics draw attention to the
undesirable stereotypes and other limitations in the portrayal of
women in literature. Critics like Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), Simone
de Beauvoir (1908-1986), Mary Ellmann (1921-1989) and Kate
Millett (1934- ) are the first critics to write about the literary history

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of women's images and reveal women‘s issues and the dominant
stereotypes of women. So, the chapter is an attempt to give a glimpse
of feminist literary criticism, which provides a theoretical framework
by describing the various feminists and their achievements and
contributions towards women‘s liberation movement.

2.4 Distinguished Feminists’ Contribution towards

Women’s Liberation Movement

2.4.1 Simon De Beauvoir

Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) was a French feminist. In an
interview in 1972 with Alice Schwarzer (1942- ), she reiterated that
she was a feminist. She was interested in reading the writings of
Shulamith Firestone (1945-2012) and Kate Millett. Her famous book,
The Second Sex (1949) ‗had a profound influence on the development
of twentieth-century feminism.‘26 It is one of her best books and a
major work of feminist philosophy and the starting point of second
wave-feminism. The Second Sex displays how women have been
treated throughout the history. De Beauvoir argues that the majority
of women do not have choices and they are treated as the second sex
by male-oriented society. She says that women can bring change to
their lives through two steps— the first is to become aware of their
subordinated plights and the second is to believe in their strength. De
Beauvoir believes that equality of the sexes is impossible in a
capitalist society. In an interview which is recorded in 1975, she

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explains her most famous and often quoted line in The Second Sex,
‗One is not born but becomes a woman‘.

…being a woman is not a natural fact. It‘s the

result of a certain history. There is no biological
or psychological destiny that defines a woman as
such. She‘s a product of a history of civilization,
first of all, which has resulted in her current
status, and secondly for each individual woman, of
her personal history, in particular, that of her
childhood. This determines her as a woman,
creates in her something which is not at all innate,
or an essence, something which has been called
the ‗eternal feminine,‘ or femininity. The more we
study the psychology of children, the deeper we
delve, the more evident it becomes that baby girls
are manufactured to become women.27

De Beauvoir describes the separatism of women and wants to

know why feminists insist on being separatists. She believes that
women had no past, no history and no religion of their own.
Therefore, she insists that women should understand themselves as
women. They can tell each other, things which they could never dare
say in front of their husbands, fathers, brothers or any male figures.
She holds that women look at each other as rivals, enemies or
competitors and never want to be friends with other women. She
makes women conscious of that fact and tries to make them learn to
be true friends and develop warmth and affinity towards each other.
De Beauvoir encourages women to start revolution and liberate

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themselves. She believes in the ability of women to do that. The
social injustice makes most of the women live in poverty and delimit
their access to education, employment, health service and ownership
of the land, but enables men to possess power by monopolizing high
positions in important social, economic, legal and religious
institutions.

De Beauvoir is disappointed with traditional, biological,

physiological and Marxist explanations of women‘s oppression. She
is not in favour with the liberal and Marxist solutions for women's
situation and she views them as inadequate. She advocates the idea
that men as well as women should be regarded as human beings. In
the Second Sex, De Beauvoir reveals that the traditions make a baffled
world to justify patriarchal domination and make inferiority natural to
all women. She agrees to the reality of the sexual difference but says
that it is not fair to exploit women because of sexual difference. She
further opines that having the right to vote and only a ballot paper in
hands is not everything for women and does not mean that women got
freedom from the male. Therefore, due to her ‗radical attack on the
social institutions of motherhood and the family together with her
frank discussion of female sexuality led to a public furore on the
book‘s publication in France,‘ 28 and the book was put in the
forbidden list of books.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) has the idea of the

master-slave dialectic; similarly, de Beauvoir bases her idea of the

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‗One‘ and the ‗Other‘ on Hegel‘s. ‗Working with the idea that women
are the "other," and another statement: "that women is not born, but
made," De Beauvoir delves deep into the history of women's
oppression.‘29 The ‗One‘ or ‗Self‘ or the ‗Subject‘ all the same are
used by De Beauvoir and refer to standard, essential and the absolute,
but the ‗Other‘ is inessential, i.e. object. She maintains that at the
beginning, man declares himself as the ‗One‘ or ‗Self‘. ‗Self‘ needs
the ‗Other‘ to make an identity for itself and the ‗Other‘ gets its
identity from the ‗Self‘. Therefore, ‗Self‘ is a man and the ‗Other‘ is a
woman. Hegel used master-slave dialectic as a universal dialectic but
De Beauvoir distinguishes the ‗Subjects‘ and the ‗Others‘ from the
‗Subject‘ and the ‗Other‘ when she means man and woman. As a
universal term, the ‗Other‘ means anyone who is oppressed and it is a
communal reality. To get rid of this problem, unlike Hegel and Jean
Paul Sartre, De Beauvoir ‗argues that there is a way out of this
dilemma, if each party offers full recognition of the other‘s
subjectivity and a common agreement is made not to try to enslave
the other.‘30

2.4.2 Margaret Fuller

Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) was an American journalist, editor
and advocate of women‘s rights. Women in the Nineteenth Century
(1845) is her very famous book. The book is considered to be the first
major feminist work in the United States. Originally it was an article
published in The Dial magazine, entitled The Great Lawsuit. Man

78
versus Men. Woman versus Women in July 1843 but later on in 1845
the article was expanded and published in a book form entitled,
Women in the Nineteenth Century. Throughout the book, Fuller
brings out that men look at women as slaves. Fuller goes back to the
past, says that man always was a hunter and called out for the woman.
She says that it is due to inequality between men and women that men
always call out for women like Orpheus for Eurydice (a tale from
Greek legend). Fuller believes that if they are equal, share equal rights
and divine love, then the time will come to make women call for men.
She believes that women should get an education and they should not
be constrained to the stereotypical "feminine" roles. Fuller further
states women can seek any employment which they desire. She
advises women not to be satisfied only with domestic works and adds
that women can be in any office and do any work as they wish and
like. Fuller (1999) opines:

If you ask me what offices they may fill; I reply—

any ... let them be sea captains, if you will. I do not
doubt that there are women well fitted for such an
office.31

According to Fuller the problems of society result of inequality

between men and women. She believes that if a man wants to prove
his own freedom, he should make woman free, give her liberty to
speak in public and trust her entirely. She encourages women to find
themselves and be independent. She states that women and men are
the same as their souls are the same. She demands every woman be an

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individual and self-dependent. Fuller (1999) denounces dependency
on husband and maintains:

I wish woman to live, first for God's sake. Then

she will not make an imperfect man for her god,
and thus sink to idolatry. Then she will not take
what is not fit for her from a sense of weakness
and poverty.32

2.4.3 Kate Millett

Kate Millett (1934- ) was an American feminist and ‗she was
actively implicated in feminist politics in the 1960s-1970s‘.33 She had
great influence on the second wave feminism. Peter Widdowson., et
al. (2005) state:

Second-wave of feminism in the United States of

America got its impetus and stimulus from the civil
rights, peace and other protest movements, and
Kate Millett‘s radical feminism is of this order.34

Millett became famous due to her most influential book, Sexual

Politics (1969) which was based on her Ph.D. dissertation. The book
got great significance among the feminist critics and considerable
significance in feminist literary studies. Sexual Politics is a book
about patriarchy in the western society which paved the way for the
1970s feminism. Millett opines that if patriarchy is a political and
cultural issue, then man does whatever he wants and woman never
objects. In an article, Katherine M Roger, Marry Ellmann (2005)
which is published on the net it is mentioned:

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 In Sexual Politics, there‘s a nice illustration of
how we accord male voices more importance than
female voices. Pil Dahlerup was writing about a
critic reviewing Cecil Bodker‘s poetry, and he
used words like ―charming‖ and ―sweet‖ for
women‘s poetry, and ―serious‖ and ―significant‖
for men‘s.35

Millet argues that the western institutions work in favour of men

and try to make women subordinate to men. In Sexual Politics Millet
describes different reasons to make women oppressed and inferior;
one of them is rape which is used as a weapon by men to show their
power and superiority to women. She criticizes the Sigmund Freud's
psychoanalytic theory for its male bias. Millet is not in the line with
Freudians and Parsonians, because she says that Parsonians assert that
the inferiority of women to men is natural, and Freudians ratified the
traditional gender roles. Millett‘s argument ranged over history,
literature, psychoanalysis, sociology and other areas. Millet argues
that economic inequality is the cause of women‘s oppression. Millett
was able to originate the first modern principles of feminist criticism
through her book Sexual Politics by criticizing sexist assumptions in
the texts of the male writers. Peter Widdowson., et al. (2005) claim
that Sexual Politics:

At once marks the moment when second-wave

feminism becomes a highly visible, self-aware and
activist movement, and when it itself became the
cause-célèbre text of that moment.36

81
 Millet writes that man in the past was the owner of the land and
claimed ownership of the woman. The man demanded for himself a
woman and posterity. He wanted the work of the family to be totally
his, and this meant that the family members and workers belonged to
him. He enslaved his wife and children. He needed heirs, in whom his
earthly life would be prolonged because he would hand over his
property to them. Millett mentions that even today men wish to
exhaust the possibilities opened up by the new techniques. She writes
that some women do not want equality with men, because they accept
their oppressed condition. They do not have enough self-confidence
to move within a competitive society as equal human beings. It is
quoted on net that how a man wants woman to be:

The image that man has succeeded in evolving for

woman is just as he would like her to be--as his
helper, dependent and slave, leading a vicarious
existence for promoting his welfare and happiness,
denying her own self. Male writers have provided
role models in profusion for men and women to
copy in their lives. Actions which are considered
assertive in a man are judged aggressive and
unseemly in a woman.37

2.4.4 Mary Ellmann

Mary Ellmann (1921-89) was an American writer and ‗a freelance
writer and book critic. She is the author of Thinking About Women, an
early work of feminist literary criticism published in 1968 by

82
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc.‘ 38 In the article entitled, Katherine M
Roger, Marry Ellmann (2005) it is stated:

It was with Ellmann that modern feminist criticism

was initiated in the United States. Her somewhat
humorous treatment of the stereotypes of women
in literature written by men makes Ellmann one of
the pioneers in the development of contemporary
feminist criticism.39

Thinking About Women (1968) is an important book for which

Ellmann is famous. It portrays the images of women in literary
criticism. Ellmann asserts that western culture in general is affected
by sexual analogy and has a desire to measure and classify everything
by means of sexual analogy. In Thinking About Women, the author
explains that there are some certain characteristics associated with
women that delimit the role of women and reduce the development of
the female character. For example, women are seen as formless— soft
body and soft mind. In Thinking About Women, she writes about the
evolution of femininity— displaying sexual analogies and disclosing
different views of female and male writers. Ellmann discusses the
patriarchal society and stereotypes of women. In an article entitled,
Feminist Literary Criticism: Expanding the Canon as Regards the
Novel- Serpil Tunç Oppermann (1994) is written that Ellmann opines
that ‗formlessness, passivity, instability, confinement, piety,
materiality, spirituality, irrationality, compliance, the Witch, the

83
Shrew‘40 are all femininity stereotypes which are made by male
writers and critics.

Thinking About Women deals with a sexual analogy which refers

to women who are reduced and constrained to their limited and
traditional functions. Ellmann views women as trampled, abused and
passive without being able to take any action against their male
dominated societies and man‘s aggression. Women have always to
depend on men. Men and women always have been in a great struggle
and never shared and experienced the world in equality.
Consequently, women lagged back in many fields—economically,
socially, politically and culturally. Financially, women became
handicapped as men were able to hold better jobs, get higher wages
and have more opportunities for success than women have. Ellmann
pointed out in a chapter entitled ―Phallic Criticism‖ in Feminist
Scholarship: Kindling in the Groves of Academe (1985):

Male critics treat a book by a woman as if it were

itself a woman. She went on to explore a subtle
range of often contradictory literary and critical
stereotypes that equally describe what male
authors say about the females they create and
what male critics say about the creations of female
authors.41

2.4.5 Betty Friedan

Betty Friedan (1921-2006) was an American feminist writer. In
the 1950s, she started writing for Women‘s Magazines. She

84
established herself as a feminist classic through her well-known book,
The Feminine Mystique (1963) which is one of the most important
nonfiction books in the twentieth century. It recorded the beginning of
second-wave feminism in the United States and also contributed to
the emergence of the new women‘s movement. In an article entitled,
Betty Friedan, who Ignited Cause in ‗Feminine Mystique,‘ Dies at 85
(2006) it is stated that The Feminine Mystique:

Ignited the contemporary women's movement in

1963 and as a result permanently transformed the
social fabric of the United States and countries
around the world‖ and ―is widely regarded as one
of the most influential nonfiction books of the 20th
century.42

In The Feminine Mystique, Friedan is more concerned with the

educated middle class women of America than poor class. These
women apparently had everything that was supposed to make them
happy and comfortable. Their husbands held good jobs, they lived in
their own apartments, their children went to good schools and they
had almost all appliances needed to make their lives comfortable but
they complained and were not happy. Friedan (2001) describes how
women are depressed and writes:

I‘ve tried everything women are supposed to do—

hobbies, gardening, pickling, canning, being very
social with my neighbours, ….. I can do it all, and
I like it, but it doesn‘t leave you anything to think
about—any feeling of who you are. I never had

85
 any career ambitions. All I wanted was to get
married and have four children. I love the kids
and Bob and my home. There‘s no problem you
can even put a name to. But I am desperate. I
begin to feel I have no personality. I am a server
of food and a putter-on of pants and a bedmaker,
somebody who can be called on when you want
something. But who am I? 43

Friedan observed that in such seemingly perfect conditions,

women were not satisfied because they realized that something was
missing, but they were not able to understand what was missing.
After listening to women‘s complaints, pains and their secret
dissatisfactions, Friedan understood that the basis of all the women‘s
dissatisfaction was the problem of identity. Friedan states that though
women live in a modern world of material progress and progressive
ideas, men treat them like Victorians who did not care about the needs
of their women and did not let them fulfil their desires as human
beings.

Friedan advises the suburban housewives to step out for work.

She argues that so long as women do not get a college education and
work in public, they are sentenced to deep depressions. Of course, she
advised women to be aware of their family relations—to love and be
loved by her husband and children. Friedan wants fully active,
participant love between women and men. She further advises women
to decide what their lives and personality have to be. She does not
want the term ―feminine‖ to be defined by men, because men look at

86
women as sex objects. She expects women to overcome their
diversity of varied political beliefs. She believes that political power
is urgent for changing the situations of oppressed women.

Gloria Marie Steinem (1934- ), who is an American feminist, has

repeated all Friedan‘s views about women‘s issue but in an extremist
way. In her essay After Black Power, Women's Liberation (1969),
Steinem describes sexual promiscuity and divorce as a positive social
development. She asserts that women are free to live according to
their will but those women who want to live in a traditional lifestyle;
they have to be attacked and terrorized because they are ―Uncle
Toms‖. Despite having the laws and social reforms that promoted
equality between men and women, she claims for the Equal Rights
Amendment, because she thinks that by the amendment sex
discrimination will be decreased.

2.4.6 Luce Irigaray

Luce Irigaray (1930- ) is a French feminist. Speculum of the Other
Woman (1974) and This Sex Which Is Not One (1977) are among her
famous works. This Sex Which Is Not One shows the absence of
female subject position in western culture. The title refers to women‘s
sex as ―lacking,‖ which Irigaray doesn‘t believe it, and the title also
indicates that women do not have one sex; but multiple sex organs all
over their bodies. Irigaray criticizes Freud for using the term ―penis
envy‖ and saying that due to lack of penis women are inferior, and

87
have less power, as it is written by Peter Widdowson., et al. (2005)
that:

According to Freud, penis envy is universal in

women and is responsible for their ‗castration
complex‘, which results in their regarding
themselves as ‗hommes manqués‘ rather than a
positive sex in their own right.44

Irigaray denies Freud‘s view and believes that Freud‘s view on

women has been made by masculine framework. Irigaray claims that
women have to show themselves as they are, using their potential
ability without resorting to men‘s perspectives. In the same source
which is mentioned above, it is stated that Irigaray makes clear in her
Speculum de l autre femme (1974) that:

Patriarchal oppression of women is founded on

the type of negative constructions associated with
Freud‘s theory of female sexuality.45

Irigaray criticizes the exclusion of women from the history of

philosophy, psychoanalytic theory and structural linguistics. She
states that women have been traditionally linked with matter and
nature at the expense of the female subject position. Women can be
subjected only by being assimilated to a male subject. Consequently,
a distinct subject position does not exist for women. Irigaray believes
that historically, a woman has been linked to the role of mother
irrespective of being a mother or not. A woman‘s identity which is
linked with nature and the identity of man is associated with culture

88
and subjectivity. Irigaray argues that if women are excluded from
society and if they are not considered to be full subject, society itself
cannot fulfil its function. Women were supposed to be illogical,
therefore Irigaray advises women to speak logically. She argues that
in western culture people live depending on masculine nature and a
masculine morphology. She advises everyone to examine the nature
of women‘s morphology because women‘s vision of the world and
their manner of creating is not the same as that of men.

Jacques Lacan (1901-1981) and Irigaray believe that sexual

difference is a product of language and linguistics, not anatomy. Both
of them have a common view of language. They believe that art has
to enter language to become subject. In order to make this happen,
language has to be changed at the cultural level. Irigaray believes that
the language typically excludes women from taking an active subject
position. She further argues that whatever is valuable refers to
masculine gender, and what occupies a less important position refers
to the feminine. She believes that men and women do not form the
same sentences when they are given similar clues. The way they use
prepositions in the sentences are different. In other words, they use
language differently. She wants men and women to look at each other
as ―irreducible others‖.

2.4.7 Elaine Showalter

Elaine Showalter (1941- ) ‗is one of the founders of feminist
literary criticism in United States academia, developing the concept

89
and practice of gynocritics‘.46 Gynocritics dealt with feminist research
in history, anthropology, psychology and sociology which introduced
hypothesis of a female sub-culture including the ascribed status, and
the internalized structures of femininity, the occupations, interactions
and consciousness of women. Showalter expected gynocritics to pay
attention to the different velocities and curves of political, social and
personal histories in discovering women‘s literary choice and careers.

Gynocriticism was the study of women's writing in 1979 by

Showalter and it was coined by Showalter in her essay Towards a
Feminist Poetics (1979) to offer a coherent narrative of women's
literary history. It ‗became the leading feminist literary mode in the
Anglophone academy‘.47 Therefore, Showalter became the ‗founder
of gynocritics, a school of feminist criticism concerned with ―woman
as writer…with the history, themes, genres, and structures of
literature by women‖‘.48 Janet Witalec (2003) mentions that
Showalter in her seminal essay, Towards a Feminist Poetics:

Introduced the term ―gynocritics‖ and

demonstrated its efficacy with a feminist critique
of Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge
and its male-centred critical interpretations.49

A Literature of Their Own (1977) is Showalter‘s renowned book

which had great impact on feminist literary criticism because it
‗appeared during the first wave of feminist literary criticism which
focused on re-discovery‘.50 Showalter argued that ‗If there was a

90
female literary tradition, I was sure it came from imitation, literary
convention, the marketplace, and critical reception, not from biology
or psychology‘.51 Witalec (2003) states:

Showalter is renowned for her pioneering feminist

studies of nineteenth- and twentieth-century
female authors and her provocative cultural
analysis of women's oppression in the history of
psychiatry. In her influential book A Literature of
Their Own: British Women Novelists from Brontë
to Lessing (1977), Showalter advanced a new form
of feminist literary theory under the term
―gynocriticism,‖ offering an alternative
framework for the interpretation of women's
literary history.52

Showalter writes about the history of feminist criticism. She

asserts that literary study has always considered the representative
reader, writer and critic of western literature to be male, but since the
1960s, feminist criticism has argued that women readers and critics
bring different perceptions and expectations to their literary
experience and has claimed that women have also written important
stories of their culture. According to Gill Plain., et al., eds, (2007):

When feminist literary criticism began to emerge

in the late sixties and early seventies, bursting into
prominence with the publication of such
provocative and influential texts as Kate Millett‘s
Sexual Politics (1971), Germaine Greer‘s The
Female Eunuch (1970) and Eva Figes‘

91
 Patriarchal Attitudes (1970), these pioneering
polemics gave surprisingly little attention to
women‘s writing.53

The sixties were an impressive wave of imaginative writing by

women to question women‘s roles and the relationship between men
and women. During this period, the writers like, Doris Lessing (1919-
2013), Sylvia Plath (1932-1963), Jean Rhys (1890-1979) and Angela
Carter (1940-1992) ‗also explored issues such as colonialism, race,
class, political oppression and mental illness.‘ 54 To show the
significance of Showalter, Witalec (2003) states:

Among the founding scholars of feminist literary

criticism and women's studies in America,
Showalter broke new ground in the 1970s by
creating a progressive literary theory known as
―gynocriticism.‖ Unlike traditional literary
criticism, gynocriticism focused on the ―history,
themes, genres, and structures of literature by
women,‖ seeking to create a method of analysing
literature written by women and to develop models
of interpretation based on female experience,
rather than adapting male interpretive theories
and models.55

In the eighties, the feminist literary criticism ‗became more

diverse, more sophisticated and more wide-ranging, but also more
divided‘.56 It has introduced gender as a fundamental category of
literary analysis concerning the literary representations of sexual
difference, the ways that literary genres have been shaped by

92
masculine or feminine values, and the exclusion of the female voice
from the institutions of literature, criticism and theory. Feminist
criticism differs from other contemporary schools of critical theory
because it does not take its literary principles from a single theory or
from a body of sacred texts.

Through A Literature of Their Own (1977), Showalter presents

the evolution of women‘s literature from the Victorian period to
modern writing into three phases, ‗―feminine,‖ from 1840 to the death
of George Eliot in 1880; ―feminist,‖ from 1880 to 1920, the date of
female suffrage in America; and ―female,‖ from 1920 to the
present‘.57 The feminine period includes women writers like the
Bronte Sisters (Charlotte (1816-1855), Emily (1818-1848) and Anne
Bronte (1820-1849) ), Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (1810-1865),
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861), Florence Nightingale
(1820-1910) and Elizabeth Lynn Linton (1822-1898). Showalter
opines that these women writers accepted certain limitations in
expressions such as avoiding coarseness and sexuality and crudity in
their writing. Witalec (2003) states that Showalter:

Rebukes the unfair critical standards applied to

the work of English women writers in the
nineteenth century and contends that, as a result,
female artists paid a terrible price for their
creative work in terms of guilt, self-loathing, and
frustrated effort.58

93
 Showalter, in her essay, Feminist Criticism in the Wilderness
(1981) mentions four theories of sexual differences to evaluate
women‘s writing which are biological, linguistic, psychological and
cultural theories. By bringing female body images, using women‘s
language, and describing the female psyche, she shows the
complexity of women‘s cultural position, and the uniqueness of the
character of women‘s writings. The study of biological imagery in
women‘s writing is useful if at the same time the other factors are also
considered. In the area of linguistics and textual theories of women‘s
writing, some questions like whether there is any difference in the use
of language between men and women, and whether there is any
possibility of creating a new language for them are considered by her.
Showalter has another view about language. She thinks if women
start speaking and writing like men do, then the door for their entry to
history can be opened. She suggests that feminist critics have to focus
on women‘s access to language. In Showalter‘s point of view,
language is sufficient to express women‘s consciousness. But the
problem is that women cannot access all sources of language,
therefore they are forced to be silent.

Showalter asks women to express their mind and body through

language. The hypotheses of women‘s culture have been developed
by anthropologists, sociologists and social historians. The aim has
been to get away from masculine system, hierarchies and values and
to achieve a self-defined nature of female cultural experience. If
feminist criticism wants to generate new analytical methods in its

94
readings of literary texts, it can only achieve its aim by challenging
and disrupting the patriarchal tradition within its dominant discourses,
that is, by working from within that tradition. Women have been left
out of history not because of the evil conspiracies of men in general
or male historians in particular, but because we have considered
history only to be in male-centred terms. Showalter suggests that we
have to focus on a woman-centred inquiry and thinking that a female
culture can exist within the general culture shared by men and
women. History has to portray the female experiences through time
and has to show the development of feminist consciousness. Witalec
(2003) asserts that Showalter gives her feminist point of view to
Thomas Hardy‘s The Mayor of Casterbridge:

If we study the stereotypes of women, the sexism of

male critics, and the limited roles women play in
literary history, we are not learning what women
have felt and experienced, but only what men have
thought women should be.‖ (Showalter, 1979:
27)59

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) in her essay Women and Fiction

(1929) deals with women as writers and states that women‘s work has
been influenced by conditions that have nothing to do with art so that
they need plenty of room to deal with other things than work. She
objected to the censorship that put limitations on women, because
these limitations do not allow women to use language freely.
Showalter states that the process of studying women‘s writing

95
directed them to challenge the basic theoretical assumptions of
traditional literary history and criticism.

2.4.8 Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) is rightly considered the founder of
modern feminist literary criticism.60 She has numerous writings on
patriarchy and women‘s issues. ‗Woolf‘s feminist literary criticism is
not, then, sui generis,‘61 and knowing her ‗contribution to feminist
literary criticism and theory, however, is difficult partly because it is
so enormous and so multi-faceted, and partly because of her own
suspicion of the term feminism itself.‘62 A Room of One's Own (1929)
is her book which is her experience about patriarchy and male
discrimination. In the article The Beginning of Feminist Writing
(2005) is written that:

{A Room of One's Own} was before any

―feminist‖ movement had started. It makes the
mind boggle when we think about the quality of a
mind to be able to see through social conditioning
to create so timeless a work, in such a repressive
era, when there wasn‘t even a group of people to
support her.63

In the text, she mentions woman as the most discussed animal in

the world. It was a major contribution to feminist theory. The text
deals with women‘s literary production in particular. It ‗is a landmark
of twentieth-century feminist thought. It explores the history of
women in literature through an unconventional and highly

96
provocative investigation of the social and material conditions
required for the writing of literature.‘ 64 Woolf says that ‗women‘s
writing should explore the female experience in its own right and not
form a comparative assessment of women‘s experience in relation to
men‘s.‘65 She further says that women should not be limited and
censored because the limitations and censorship make women not to
be able to use language freely. Therefore, in the book she mentions
that ‗a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to
write fiction.‘66 In A History of Feminist Literary Criticism (2007) is
stated:

In seeking to distance women from imperialist and

colonial practices, Woolf disturbingly excludes
black women here from the very category of
women. {So} one of the most controversial and
contradictory passages in A Room of One's Own
concerns Woolf‘s positioning of black women.
{Because it} both unites and divides feminists
{and makes the} white middle-class feminists,
{not be able to} speak for the experience of all
women; and reconciliation of universalism and
difference remains a key issue.67

Her essay Women and Writing (1979) is also an important

contribution to feminist criticism. In the essay, she describes the
obstacles and phallo-centric world that hamper access to education to
women. Professions for Women is also her essay about women
writers. In the essay, she describes herself as a woman writer who has
faced problems in writing. For example she describes her situation

97
when she was in prison and delimited by the dominant ideologies of
womanhood. Then, she describes ‗the taboo about expressing female
passion prevented her from ‗telling the truth about {her} own
experiences as a body‘‘.68 These facts affected her and made her
unable to display and tell the truth. But androgyny could help Woolf
to ‗evade confrontation with her own painful femaleness and enabled
her to choke and repress her anger and ambition.‘ 69 She believes that
if women free themselves from men and be independent and achieve
social and economic equality with men, then they can develop their
artistic talents and nothing would be able to prevent them. The
androgynous term by Woolf ‗is a response to the dilemma of a
woman writer embarrassed and alarmed by feelings too hot to handle
without risking real rejection by her family, her audience, and her
class.‘70 And she was ‗aware that androgyny is another form of
repression or, at best, self-discipline.‘71

2.4.9 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

Professor Gayatri Spivak (1942- ) was born in India. She is an
expert in deconstructive approaches to verbal, visual and social texts.
Spivak translated Jacques Derrida‘s De lagrammatologie (1967) into
English, Of Grammatology (1976). Through this translation, she
could initiate a debate on deconstruction in the Anglo-American
academy. She is considered to be the representative voice of ‗Third
World‘ feminism. Her books, Myself I Must Remake: The Life and
Poetry of W.B. Yeats (1974), In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural

98
Politics (1988), The Postcolonial Critic: Interviews, Strategies,
Dialogues (1990), Outside in Teaching Machine and Death of
Discipline (2003) are her famous contributions to the development of
feminism. She also works with the subaltern studies history group in
India. She argues that this subordination happens in terms of class,
caste, age, gender and office. She applies this term in her essay, ―Can
the Subaltern Speak‖. She asks if the subaltern can have a voice and
affect the dominant culture. In "Can The Subaltern Speak?" Spivak
talks about the race and power dynamics which had a role to prevent
sati which is an ancient Indian tradition of the immolation of a widow
on her husband‘s pyre. It was Spivak who coined the term "strategic
essentialism," which means a sort of temporary solidarity for the
purpose of social action.

According to Spivak, the term ‗gendered subaltern‘ covers a wide

area. She asks feminists to create a situation for the gendered
subaltern in order to find her voice and speak. As a result, there is no
uniform category that can identify the gender subaltern, because even
in a particular social class, men might enjoy the advantages of their
political power, at the same time women in that class are in a
subordinate position.

In order to show the socioeconomic lives of disempowered

subaltern groups, Spivak focuses on literary, historical, cultural and
economic texts rather than restricting herself to a particular national
literature. She notices the fact that representation is a kind of speech

99
act, with a speaker and a listener. The subaltern often makes an
attempt at self-representation, but such a representation is not heard.
It is not recognized by the listeners, perhaps because of not filling in
with what is expected of the representation. Consequently,
representation by subaltern individuals seems almost impossible. The
subaltern is incapable of knowing her condition and speaking out. She
is unable to use the means of communication to speak out and protest,
because she has no control over these means.

Spivak is interested in feminist issues. She uses the tools of

deconstruction and Marxist analysis to support her views. Combining
both deconstruction and Marxist analysis, she builds the concept of
woman. She is also concerned with deconstructing the centre.
Through her debate, she tries to enrich women‘s consciousness. She
points out how the centre creates division by inviting selected
members from margin to join it resulting in the further
marginalization of those who join the centre. They are further
marginalized because their joining the centre is not really accepted,
meaning they carry the label of belonging to the margin. Spivak
advises women to enter the centre, as by doing so, they will be able to
find out how politics marginalizes.

2.5 Conclusion
In the beginning of the chapter, an effort is made to highlight the
patriarchal structure of the society from ancient Greece to the early
nineteenth century. The Mesopotamia civilization also supported

100
patriarchy and used women as slaves and sex objects. It also states the
views of Plato and Aristotle on women. They considered women
inferior to men. Then, the chapter focuses on the emergence of
feminism which arrived on the scene of women‘s movement.
Feminism as a literary movement appeared in the late nineteenth
century. The chapter highlights the history of feminism in detail so as
to know the nature and canvas of feminism. The first wave, the
second wave and the third wave of feminism are also discussed at
length in this chapter. The term ‗black feminism‘ is discussed with
the help of contributions made by Alice Walker and others. Towards
the end of the chapter an effort is made to critically study the
distinguished feminists‘ contribution towards women‘s liberation
movement. Thus, this chapter serves as a backbone to the upcoming
chapters.

101
 REFERENCES

1. ―Patriarchy in the Ancient World: Early Mesopotamia to the Dark

Ages.‖ Essay for History of Western civilization Midterm.
Femspective. Thursday, October 18, 2012.
<http://femspective.blogspot.in/2012/10/patriarchy-in-ancient-
world.html> (accessed Feb 15, 2013).
2. Ibid.
3. Simone De Beauvoir. The Second Sex. Translated by, Borde,
Constance and Chevallier, Sheila Malovany (London: Vintage Books,
1949) 654.
4. Lorraine Gates Schuyler. The Weight of their Votes: Southern
Women and Political Leverage in the 1920s (United States of
America: The University of North Carolina Press, 2006) 1.
5. Ibid., Chapter One, P. 28.
6. Ibid., Chapter One, P. 16.
7. Ibid., Introduction, P. 1.
8. William L O'Neill. Everyone was Brave: The Rise and Fall of
Feminism in America (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1969) x.
9. Sudhir Kumar Singh. Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World
(New Delhi: MD, 2010) v.
10. Lorraine Gates Schuyler. The Weight of their Votes: Southern
Women and Political Leverage in the 1920s (United States of
America: The University of North Carolina Press, 2006) 44.

102
11. Margaret Walters. Feminism: A Very Short Introduction (New York:
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12. Raman Selden, Peter Widdowson, and Peter Brooker. A Reader‘s
Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory. 5th ed (Great Britain:
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13. Stacy Gillis, Gillian Howie, and Rebecca Munford, ed. Third Wave
Feminism: A Critical Exploration (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004) 38.
14. Ibid., P. 216.
15. Suzan Sellers, and Gill Plain, ed. A History of Feminist Literary
Criticism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007) 154.
16. Rose Ure Mezu. ―Women in Achebe‘s World.‖ Womanist Theory
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17. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_feminism (accessed August 20,
2013).
18. Suzan Sellers, and Gill Plain, ed. A History of Feminist Literary
Criticism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007) 154.
19. ―A Brief History of African Feminism.‖ Jul 2nd, 2013 @ 02:47pm
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20. Ibid.
21. Javier Pereira Bruno. Third World Critiques of Western Feminist
Theory in the Post-Development Era (The University of Texas at
Austin, 2006) 9.

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22. Rina Okonkwo. ―Adelaide Casely Hayford: Cultural Nationalist and
Feminist.‖ Phylon (1960-2002), Vol. 42, No. 1 (1st Qtr., 1981), Clark
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23. Adelaide M Cromwell. An African Victorian Feminist: The Life and
Times of Adelaide Smith Casely Hayford 1868-1960 (Washington,
D.C: Howard University press, 1986) 1.
24. Rina Okonkwo. ―Adelaide Casely Hayford: Cultural Nationalist and
Feminist.‖ Phylon (1960-2002), Vol. 42, No. 1 (1st Qtr., 1981), Clark
Atlanta University, P.42
25. Ibid.
26. Suzan Sellers, and Gill Plain, ed. A History of Feminist Literary
Criticism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007) 85.
27. An exceptional interview with Simone de Beauvoir, from the French
TV program Questionnaire, in which the great writer discussed her
views on Feminism with Jean-Louis Servan-Schreiber.
<http://dangerousminds.net/comments/simone_de_beauvoir_i_am_a_
feminist> (accessed September 25, 2013).
28. Suzan Sellers and Gill Plain, ed. A History of Feminist Literary
Criticism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007)85.
29. ―Simon de Beauvoir: French Existentialist, Writer and Social
Essayist1908-1986.‖ Philosophers.
<http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/phil/philo/phils/beauvoir.html>
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30. Suzan Sellers and Gill Plain, ed. A History of Feminist Literary
Criticism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007) 89.

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31. Margret Fuller. Woman in the Nineteenth Century (New York:
Dover Publications, INC, 1999) 95.
32. Ibid., P.96.
33. Charrier, Marlène. Sexual Politics, Kate Millett.
<http://rimsteadcours.espaceweb.usherbrooke.ca/ANG553H9/Marlen
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34. Raman Selden, Peter Widdowson, and Peter Brooker. A Reader‘s
Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory. 5th ed (Great Britain:
Perason Longman, 2005) 123.
35. ―Katherine M Roger, Marry Ellmann (Monday August 01, 2005)‖.
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roger-mary-ellmann.html> (accessed December 1, 2013).
36. Raman Selden, Peter Widdowson, and Peter Brooker. A Reader‘s
Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory. 5th ed (Great Britain:
Perason Longman, 2005) 123
37. Chapter 1, Introduction: The Politics of Gender. Prepared by
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Kottayam, P.25
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38. Mary Ellmann. Literary Critic, Dies at 68. New York Times-
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39. ―Katherine M Roger, Marry Ellmann (Monday August 01 2005)‖.
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roger-mary-ellmann.html> (assecced Jan 5, 2013).
40. ―Feminist Literary Criticism: Expanding the Canon as Regards the
Novel- Serpil Tunç Oppermann.‖ Hacettepe Üniversitesi Edebiyat
Fakültesi Ýngiliz Dili ve Edebiyatý BölümüDergisi Aralýk:
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41. Ellen Carol DuBois. Feminist Scholarship: Kindling in the Groves of
Academe (University of Illinois Press, 1985) 34.
42. Margalit Fox. ―Betty Friedan, who Ignited Cause in ‗Feminine
Mystique,‘ Dies at 85.‖ National. (February 5, 2006).
<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/national/05friedan.html?pagew
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43. Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique (London: Norton, 2001) 64-
65.
44. Raman Selden, Peter Widdowson, and Peter Brooker. A Reader‘s
Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory. 5th ed. (Great Britain:
Perason Longman, 2005) 129.
45. Ibid., P.136.
46. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. En.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaine-
Showalter
47. Suzan Sellers, and Gill Plain, ed. A History of Feminist Literary
Criticism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007) 108.

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48. www.britannica.com/.../ Elaine-Showalter
49. Janet Witalec. ―Elaine Showalter.‖ Contemporary Literary Criticism,
Vol. 169 ©2003 Gale Cengage. enotes.
<http://www.enotes.com/topics/elaine-showalter> (accessed Jan 10,
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50. Elaine, Showalter. ―Twenty Years On: A Literature of Their Own,‖
Revisited. Novel: A Forum On Fiction. Vol. 31,No. 3, Thirtieth
Anniversary Issue.111 (Summer, 1998): 402.
51. Ibid., P. 402.
52. Janet Witalec. ―Elaine Showalter.‖ Contemporary Literary Criticism,
Vol. 169 ©2003 Gale Cengage. enotes.
<http://www.enotes.com/topics/elaine-showalter> (accessed November
1, 2013).
53. Suzan Sellers, and Gill Plain, ed. A History of Feminist Literary
Criticism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007) 120.
54. Ibid., P. 123
55. Janet Witalec. ―Elaine Showalter.‖ Contemporary Literary Criticism,
Vol. 169 ©2003 Gale Cengage. enotes.
<http://www.enotes.com/topics/elaine-showalter> (November 1,
2013).
56. Suzan Sellers, and Gill Plain, eds. A History of Feminist Literary
Criticism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007) 131.

107
57. Janet Witalec. ―Elaine Showalter.‖ Contemporary Literary Criticism,
Vol. 169 ©2003 Gale Cengage. enotes.
<http://www.enotes.com/topics/elaine-showalter> (accesses
November 1, 2013).
58. Ibid.
59. Suzan Sellers, and Gill Plain, eds. A History of Feminist Literary
Criticism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007) 108.
60. Ibid., Chapter 4, P. 66
61. Ibid., P.67.
62. Ibid., P.69.
63. “S/ T P- The beginning of Feminist Writing. (Monday August 01,
2005)‖. Scribble Pad. http://basicallyblah.blogspot.in/2005/08/st-p-
beginning-of-feminist-writing.html (accessed March 4, 2013).
64. SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on A Room of One’s Own.”
SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2002. Web. 1 Oct. 2013.
65. Raman Selden, Peter Widdowson, and Peter Brooker. A Reader‘s
Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory. 5th ed. (Great Britain:
Perason Longman, 2005) 118.
66. Suzan Sellers, and Gill Plain, eds. A History of Feminist Literary
Criticism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007) 72.
67. Ibid., P.77.
68. Raman Selden, Peter Widdowson, and Peter Brooker. A Reader‘s
Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory. 5th ed. (Great Britain:
Perason Longman, 2005) 119.

108
69. A Literature of Their Own (Elaine Showalter, 1941--) {DOC}
ecmd.nju.edu.cn/UploadFile/17/8084/theirown.doc
70. Ibid.
71. Ibid.

109