FEMINISM
Feminist Vocabulary
Gendersphere: The entire field of philosophy, discourse, and activism that attends to gender, including, but not limited to feminism, antifeminism, Men’s Rights Activism, and Feminist Criticism.
Feminism: A self-defining segment of the Gendersphere. A feminist is a person who is recognised as a feminist by other feminists.
Pro-feminism: Men who are unwilling to call themselves feminists (or who are not recognised as such by some feminists) because they are male, even though their views are indistinguishable from feminism.
Contrafeminism: That part of the gendersphere that is broadly in disagreement with or opposition to feminism.
Antifeminism: Extreme contrafeminism. An essentially oppositionist stance.
Men’s Rights Activism: A movement devoted to improving the position of men in society. While this is basically a positive stance, the movement is infested with antifeminism.
Feminist Criticism: My term for my own philosophical position, and for the similar views of other people. The phrase is deliberately ambiguous: A feminist critic could be a critic of feminism or a feminist who criticises. I want to carve out a position within gendersphere independent of of the other -isms, overlapping with both feminism and MRA, and critical of both. Arguably the phrase “feminist criticism” is obnoxiously gendered (see below), because feminist critics are also critics of antifeminism, however given the hegemonic position of feminism within the gendersphere I think it is justified. The word “criticism” should be taken in its constructive sense, there are many aspects of feminism that feminist critics will agree with. Feminist Critics accept the tools of feminism (gender analysis, etc.,) and apply them to feminism itself.
Typical: I use this word as a term of art, meaning behaviour, etc., which (a) is common among feminists (or some other group), (b) is unlikely to be challenged by other feminists, (c) if someone with otherwise good feminist credentials does challenge it, they are likely to have their status as feminists challenged by other feminists, and (d) those without feminist credentials who challenge it are likely to be regarded as antifeminists/MRAs (or the equivalent opposition group). Typical behaviours within a group are likely to be perceived by outsiders asrepresentative of it.
The ‘Bird in your Garden’ Test: A test for typicality. If all you need do to see a particular kind of bird is look out the window, that’s an indication that those birds are typical of where you live. If you have to travel 200 miles to visit a nature reserve to see them, then they’re not typical. Similarly if you can easily find an example of a particular argument or behaviour passing unchallengedamong the usual suspects within the blogosphere, then that’s an indication that it is typical. If you can’t, then it probably isn’t.
Obnoxious Gendering: Refers to the typical feminist practice of equating maleness and masculinity with bad, and femaleness (though not femininity) with good. At its most obnoxious, it refers to the practice of never letting men forget just how lousy they are: “It’s male violence, committed by men, who are male. Just in case you didn’t get that, it’s men who are doing this, etc., etc., ad nauseum“. Obnoxious Gendering has a more subtle aspect in the use of gendered terms like “feminism” and “patriarchy” to refer to things which (in the view of the feminist) are good and bad respectively.
Self-flagellation Obnoxious Gendering applied to oneself. Typical behaviour of pro-feminist men. (Thanks to Hugh for the phrase.)
The Avuncular Arm: A typical pro-feminist response to male victimisation. An avuncular arm slides around the survivor’s shoulder, and he is invited to “consider how we oppress women”. A collective form of self-flagellation, this is victim-blaming at its worst because it casts the survivor into the role of perp. It is one of the reasons why feminism is toxic to many male survivors.
The Odious Comparison: Typical feminist practice of unjustifiably or inappropriately comparing male oppression, suffering, etc., unfavourably with female suffering. If a feminist or pro-feminist wishes to discuss male oppression etc., within feminism, then it is de rigueur to genuflect to the Odious Comparison.
Selective Focus: Typical feminist practice of looking only at those oppressions which (according to the feminist) affect women worse, in order to justify the Odious Comparison. For example, in a discussion about violence, only sexual and domestic violence will be considered. (Note that I do not object to a focus upon these issues. It is the exclusive and frequently innappropriate focus which is problematic.)
Rape Trivialisation: Typical feminist practice of defining rape so broadly that it encompasses the trivial, in some cases even sexual activity considered fully consensual by the person purportedly raped. (Note that this is not to be confused the the antifeminist objection to Koss’s rape study, that many of the raped women did not define their experience as “rape”, but whose experiences were nevertheless rape according to a non-trivialised definition.)
Rape Privilege: The practice of elevating rape and other sexual assaults “the worst”. A particular instance of the Odious Comparison. (This is a typical mainstream discourse. Feminists typically selectively focus on rape, but they do not typically privilege it in this way, in my experience.)
Denial, Dismissal, Minimisation, and ignoring of male oppression, suffering, etc.: I really need a catchy phrase to describe this quadrumvirate of discourses. (The ‘four discourses’?) Note that this is not limited to feminism, but is characteristic of the mainstream. Hence it is an example of feminism embracing and extending a previously existing gendered discourse.
Subordination: The typical feminist practice of presenting men’s oppression and suffering as subordinate to women’s. A fifth discourse related to the previous four.
The Three Techniques, also Displacement, Incidentalisation, and Exclusion: Mainstream rhetorical techniques used to minimise male victimisation, described by Dr. Jones in his paper “Effacing the Male“.
Lachrymosity: The tendency within both feminism and mainstream media to use tearjerkingly emotive language to describe female suffering and comparatively perfunctory language to describe male suffering. Arguably a fourth technique on a par with the three described by Dr. Jones.
Instanciation Not to be confused with “incidentalisation, which would be a better word for it, which is already taken. By “instanciation” I mean to portray instances of male victimisation as incidents rather than as systems of oppression.
Hidden Victimisation also The Other Side of the Mountain, and, in extreme cases, Holocaust Denial: How male victims and male oppression are rendered invisible by these techniques and discourses.
Comments and criticisms welcome, in particular, better terms for some of these phenomena would be greatly appreciated. Clearly many of the terms fall short of the “memorable one or two-word phrase” criterion. Is there anything I should add? Any good “Bird in your Garden” examples of each type of typical behaviour?
Crossposted between Creative Destruction and Darain Man.
(Maghan)
Feminist Approaches
by Barbara McManus
the following characteristics represent my criteria for distinguishing a feminist scholarly approach:
Some Scholarly Articles
The Cult of True Womanhood
by Barbara Welter
Excerpt:
THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICAN MAN WAS A BUSY BUILDER OF BRIDGES
and railroads, at work long hours in a materialistic society. The religious
values of his forebears were neglected in practice if not in intent, and he
occasionally felt some guilt tha; he had timed this new land, this temple
of the chosen people, into one vast countinghouse. But he could salve his
conscience by reflecting that he had left behind a hostage, not only to
fortune, but to all the values which he held so dear and treated so lightly.
Woman, in the cult of True Womanhood1 presented by the women's
magazines, gift annuals and religious literature of the nineteenth century,
was the hostage in the home.2 In a society where values changed fre-
quently, where fortunes rose and fell with frightening rapidity, where
social and economic mobility provided instability as well as hope, one
thing at least remained the same-a true woman was a true woman,
wherever she was found. If anyone, male or female, dared to tamper with
the complex of virtues which made up True Womanhood, he was damned
immediately as an enemy of God, of civilization and of the Republic. It
was a fearful obligation, a solemn responsibility, which the nineteenth century
American woman had-to uphold the pillars of the temple with
her frail white hand.
The attributes of True Womanhood, by which a woman judged herself
and was judged by her husband, her neighbors and society could be
divided into four cardinal virtues-piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity.
Put them all together and they spelled mother, daughter, sister,
wife-woman. Without them, no matter whether there was fame, achievement
or wealth, all was ashes. With them she was promised happiness
and power.
Religion or piety was the core of woman's virtue, the source of her
strength. Young men looking for a mate were cautioned to search first
for piety, for if that were there, all else would f0llow.3 Religion belonged
to woman by divine right, a gift of God and nature. This "peculiar susceptibility"
to religion was given her for a reason: "the vestal flame of
piety, lighted up by Heaven in the breast of woman" would throw its
beams into the naughty world of men.4 So far would its candle power
reach that the "Universe might be Enlightened, Improved, and Harmonized
by WOMAN!!" She would be another, better Eve, working in coop-
eration with the Redeemer, bringing the world back "from its revolt and
sin."The world would be reclaimed for God through her suffering, for
"God increased the cares and sorrows of woman, that she might be sooner
constrained to accept the terms of salvation."7
(Maghan)
What Knowledge Is and What it Ought to Be: Feminist Values and Normative Epistemology
By Sally Haslanger
Excerpt:
My goal in this paper is to suggest a way of approaching the task of specifying the truth conditions for knowledge, that (hopefully) will make clear how a broad range of feminist work that is often deemed irrelevant to the philosophical inquiry into knowledge that is in fact highly relevant.
(Maghan)
YouTube Videos
Classical Feminist Tradition Video
Writing and Publishing Tips: What is Feminist Criticism
What is Feminism?
By DJL
Feminism is defined as the advocacy of social equality for men and women, in opposition to patriarchy and sexism.
The first wave of the feminist movement in the United States began in the 1840′s as women opposed to slavery, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, drew parallels between the oppression of African Americans and the oppression of women. The Seneca Falls convention began the social movement by which women finally won the right to vote in 1920. But other disadvantages persisted, and a second wave of feminism arose in the 1960′s and continues today.
The Basic Feminist Ideas:
1. The Importance Of Change: Feminist thinking is decidedly political. They think ideas to action. It is critical of a status quo and advocates change toward social equality for women and men.
2. Expanding Human Choice: Feminists maintain that cultural conceptions of gender divide the full range of human qualities into two opposing and limited spheres: the female world of emotions and cooperation and the male world of rationality and competition. As an alternative, feminists propose a “reintegration of humanity” by which each person develops all human traits (French, 1985).
3. Eliminating Gender Stratification: Feminism opposes laws and cultural norms that limit education, income, and job opportunities of women. For this reason, feminists advocate passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the U.S. Constitution, which states, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any other State on account of sex.” The ERA, first proposed in Congress in 1923, has support of two-thirds of U.S. adults (NORC, 2001:267). Even so, it has yet to become law, which probably reflects the fact that most of the men who dominate state legislatures oppose the amendment.
4. Ending Sexual Violence: Today’s women’s movement seeks to eliminate sexual violence. Feminists argue that patriarchy distorts the relationships between men and women, encouraging violence against women in form of rape, domestic abuse, sexual harassment, and pornography (Millet, 1970; Bernard, 1982, orig. 1973; Dworkin, 1987).
5. Promoting Sexual Freedom: Feminism supports women’s control over their sexuality and reproduction. They support the free availability of birth control information. Most feminists also support a woman’s right to choose whether to bear a child or terminate a pregnancy, rather than allowing men – as husbands, physicians, and legislators – to control their reproduction. Many feminists also support homosexuals’ efforts to overcome the many barriers they face in predominantly heterosexual culture (Deckard, 1979; Barry, 1983; Jagger, 1983).
(Maghan)
Political Spectrum of Feminism
(Maghan)
Orientations of Critical Theory
Mimetic Crititcism/ WORLD
Images of Women Criticism/Feminist Critique
Reassessment
Feminist Reader-Response/ Canon-Busting
Recovery , Gynocriticism
Important Texts in the History of Feminist Literary Criticism
Mimetic (Images of Women) Archetypal Pragmatic Expressive (Women Writer) Theory French Feminism Social Context
1929 Virginia Woolf Room ofOne'sOwn
1938 Virginia Woolf Three Guineas
1953 Simone de Beauvoir The Second Sex (1949 translated in 1953)
1963 Betty Friedan The Feminine Mystique
Moers, EllenLiterary Women
1968 Mary Ellmann Thinking About Women
1970 Kate Millett Sexual Politics
1971 Norman Mailer The Prisoner of Sex
1972 Patricia Meyer Spacks The Female Imagination
Susan Cornillion, ed. Images of Women in Fiction
1973 Carolyn Heilbrun Toward a Recognition of Androgyny
1974 Elizabeth Hardwick Seduction and Betrayal
Molly Haskell From Reverence to Rape; Women in the Movies
Alice Walker "In Search of Our Mother's Gardens"
1975 Helene Cixous “The Laugh of the Medusa"
Jane Rule Lesbian Images
Annette Kolodny "Some Notes on Defining a 'Feminist Literary Criticism'."
Donovan, Josephine, ed. Feminist Lit Crit: Explorations in Theory
1977 Elaine Showalter A Literature of Their Own
Barbara Smith "Towards a Black Feminist Criticism"
1978 Judith Fetterley The Resisting Reader
Jane Thompkins "Sentimental Power: Uncle Tom's Cabin"
Nina Baym Women's Fiction: A Guide to Novels by & abt Women in America
Julia P. Stanley & Susan J. Wolfe“Toward a Feminist Aesthetic”
1979Sandra Gilbert & Susan GubarThe Madwoman in the Attic
Carolyn HeilbrunReinventing Womanhood
1980Annette Kolodny "Dancing Through the Minefield”
Carol ChristDiving Deep and Surfacing
Michele BarrettWomen's Oppression Today
Barbara ChristianBlack Women Novelists: Development of a Tradition
Marks & DeCourtrivon, edsNew French Feminisms
Nina Baym"Melodramas of Beset Manhood”
1981Carol Pearson & Katherine PopeFemale Hero in Brit & Am Lit
Annis PrattArchetypal Patterns in Women's Poetry
Ann Rosalind Jones"Writing the Body: Toward an Understand ing of l'Ecriture Feminine”
Catherine Stimpson"Zero Degree Deviancy: The Lesbian Novel in English”
Bonnie Zimmerman“What Has Never Been: An Overview of Lesbian Feminist Lit Crit”
Lillian FadermanSurpassing the Love of Men
Elaine Showalter"Feminist Criticism in the Wilderness."
1982Carol GilliganIn a Different Voice
Elizabeth Abel, ed.Writing and Sexual Difference (Critical Inquiry)
Jane GallopThe Daughter’s Seduction
Hull, Bell-Scott, & SmithAll the Wmn Are White. . .But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Wm's
Jonathan Culler"Reading As a Woman" in On Deconstruction
Jane Marcus“Storming the Toolshed”
1983Alice WalkerIn Search of Our Mother's Gardens
Cherrie Morgan & Gloria AnzalduaThis Bridge Called My Back
Joanna RussHow to Suppress Women's Writing
Lillian Robinson"Treason Our Text"
Barbara Christian"Trajectories of Self-Definition: Placing Contem porary Afro-American Women's Fiction"
1984Sandra Gilbert & Susan Gubar, edsThe Norton Anthology of Lit by Women
1985Elaine Showalter, ed.The New Feminist Criticism
Eliane ShowalterThe Female Malady
Toril MoiSexual/Textual Politics
Alice JardineGynesis: Configurations of Women and Modernity
Luce IrigaraySpeculum of the Other Women(1974)
Kahn & Greene, eds.Making a Difference:Fem Lit Crit
Christian, Barbara.Black Feminist Criticism: Perspectives on Black Women Writers
1986Flynn & Schweikert, eds..Gender and Reading
Shari BenstockWomen Writers of the Left Bank
1987Alice Jardine & Paul Smith. Eds.Men in Feminism
1988Gilbert and Gubar, The War of the Words, Vol. I of No Man's Land: The Place of the Woman Writer in the Twentieth Century
Linda Alcoff"Cultural Feminism vs. Post-Structuralism"
1989Elaine Showalter"A Criticism of Our Own: Autonomy and Assimilation in Afro-American and Feminist Literary Theory “
Gilbert & GubarNo Man’s Land II: Sexchanges
1990Barbara Smith"The Truth that Never Hurts: Black Lesbians inFiction in the 1980"s"
Boone & CaddenEngendering Men: Question of Male Fem Crit
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick Epistemology of the Closet
1991Dale M. Bauer , Susan Jaret McKinstry, edsFeminism, Bakhtin, and the Dialogic
1993Warhol & HerndlFeminisms
Gayle Greene & Coppelia Kahn, eds.Changing Subjects: The Making of Feminist Lit Crit
Pam MorrisLiterature and Feminism
1994Barbara Christian"Layered Rhythms: Virginia Woolf and Toni Morrison”
Gilbert & GubarNo Man’s Land III: Letters from the Front
(Maghan)
The Yellow Wallpaper Summary
By Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The narrator is writing a secret journal. She is being treated for hysteria, but is really suffering from postpartum depression. Her husband, John, who is also a doctor is forbidding her from doing any activities whatsoever. She is only allowed to lay in bed and not do anything. She is not even allowed to leave the room she is in, which has bars on the window and rings on the wall. The only way for her to express herself is through her secret diary. John belittles everything she says, and just demands her to continue treatment. Unbeknownst to John, his treatment is making her illness worse. She begins to see images in the yellow wallpaper in the room, and people outside. She soon becomes obsessed with the wallpaper, and begins to see the image of a woman behind the wallpaper. John silences her making light of her concerns about the wallpaper. He thinks that his treatment is making her better, but she is up all night fixated at the paper. She is crawling around the room, rubbing her body against the wall. As time goes on, the woman who is trapped in the paper is trying to escape. The woman shakes the bars and creeps around. The narrator tries to help the woman escape by biting and tearing the wallpaper off of the walls. Day by day, the narrator grows even more insane because she has lost everything, but more importantly, her voice. By the end, she is completely insane and ends up being convinced that there is not only one woman behind the paper, but many women trapped behind the paper. She eventually believes that she came from the paper herself, and that she was the trapped woman. In the end, she is so hopelessly crazy that she is crawling around the room, rubbing her body against the paper in the process. Her husband breaks into the room and passes out in the doorway because of the situation he has walked in on. She is so insane that she does not even stop. She continues and crawls over her husband’s body every time she creeps around the room.
(Maghan)
Now, try reading as a feminist…
“The Story of An Hour”
By Kate Chopin
Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death.
It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband's friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's name leading the list of "killed." He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.
She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.
There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.
She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.
There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.
She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.
She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.
There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.
Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will--as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been. When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: "free, free, free!" The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.
She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial. She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.
There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.
And yet she had loved him--sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!
"Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering.
Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhold, imploring for admission. "Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door--you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven's sake open the door."
"Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window.
Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.
She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister's waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.
Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of the accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife.
When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that kills.
(Maghan)
Feminist Vocabulary
Gendersphere: The entire field of philosophy, discourse, and activism that attends to gender, including, but not limited to feminism, antifeminism, Men’s Rights Activism, and Feminist Criticism.
Feminism: A self-defining segment of the Gendersphere. A feminist is a person who is recognised as a feminist by other feminists.
Pro-feminism: Men who are unwilling to call themselves feminists (or who are not recognised as such by some feminists) because they are male, even though their views are indistinguishable from feminism.
Contrafeminism: That part of the gendersphere that is broadly in disagreement with or opposition to feminism.
Antifeminism: Extreme contrafeminism. An essentially oppositionist stance.
Men’s Rights Activism: A movement devoted to improving the position of men in society. While this is basically a positive stance, the movement is infested with antifeminism.
Feminist Criticism: My term for my own philosophical position, and for the similar views of other people. The phrase is deliberately ambiguous: A feminist critic could be a critic of feminism or a feminist who criticises. I want to carve out a position within gendersphere independent of of the other -isms, overlapping with both feminism and MRA, and critical of both. Arguably the phrase “feminist criticism” is obnoxiously gendered (see below), because feminist critics are also critics of antifeminism, however given the hegemonic position of feminism within the gendersphere I think it is justified. The word “criticism” should be taken in its constructive sense, there are many aspects of feminism that feminist critics will agree with. Feminist Critics accept the tools of feminism (gender analysis, etc.,) and apply them to feminism itself.
Typical: I use this word as a term of art, meaning behaviour, etc., which (a) is common among feminists (or some other group), (b) is unlikely to be challenged by other feminists, (c) if someone with otherwise good feminist credentials does challenge it, they are likely to have their status as feminists challenged by other feminists, and (d) those without feminist credentials who challenge it are likely to be regarded as antifeminists/MRAs (or the equivalent opposition group). Typical behaviours within a group are likely to be perceived by outsiders asrepresentative of it.
The ‘Bird in your Garden’ Test: A test for typicality. If all you need do to see a particular kind of bird is look out the window, that’s an indication that those birds are typical of where you live. If you have to travel 200 miles to visit a nature reserve to see them, then they’re not typical. Similarly if you can easily find an example of a particular argument or behaviour passing unchallengedamong the usual suspects within the blogosphere, then that’s an indication that it is typical. If you can’t, then it probably isn’t.
Obnoxious Gendering: Refers to the typical feminist practice of equating maleness and masculinity with bad, and femaleness (though not femininity) with good. At its most obnoxious, it refers to the practice of never letting men forget just how lousy they are: “It’s male violence, committed by men, who are male. Just in case you didn’t get that, it’s men who are doing this, etc., etc., ad nauseum“. Obnoxious Gendering has a more subtle aspect in the use of gendered terms like “feminism” and “patriarchy” to refer to things which (in the view of the feminist) are good and bad respectively.
Self-flagellation Obnoxious Gendering applied to oneself. Typical behaviour of pro-feminist men. (Thanks to Hugh for the phrase.)
The Avuncular Arm: A typical pro-feminist response to male victimisation. An avuncular arm slides around the survivor’s shoulder, and he is invited to “consider how we oppress women”. A collective form of self-flagellation, this is victim-blaming at its worst because it casts the survivor into the role of perp. It is one of the reasons why feminism is toxic to many male survivors.
The Odious Comparison: Typical feminist practice of unjustifiably or inappropriately comparing male oppression, suffering, etc., unfavourably with female suffering. If a feminist or pro-feminist wishes to discuss male oppression etc., within feminism, then it is de rigueur to genuflect to the Odious Comparison.
Selective Focus: Typical feminist practice of looking only at those oppressions which (according to the feminist) affect women worse, in order to justify the Odious Comparison. For example, in a discussion about violence, only sexual and domestic violence will be considered. (Note that I do not object to a focus upon these issues. It is the exclusive and frequently innappropriate focus which is problematic.)
Rape Trivialisation: Typical feminist practice of defining rape so broadly that it encompasses the trivial, in some cases even sexual activity considered fully consensual by the person purportedly raped. (Note that this is not to be confused the the antifeminist objection to Koss’s rape study, that many of the raped women did not define their experience as “rape”, but whose experiences were nevertheless rape according to a non-trivialised definition.)
Rape Privilege: The practice of elevating rape and other sexual assaults “the worst”. A particular instance of the Odious Comparison. (This is a typical mainstream discourse. Feminists typically selectively focus on rape, but they do not typically privilege it in this way, in my experience.)
Denial, Dismissal, Minimisation, and ignoring of male oppression, suffering, etc.: I really need a catchy phrase to describe this quadrumvirate of discourses. (The ‘four discourses’?) Note that this is not limited to feminism, but is characteristic of the mainstream. Hence it is an example of feminism embracing and extending a previously existing gendered discourse.
Subordination: The typical feminist practice of presenting men’s oppression and suffering as subordinate to women’s. A fifth discourse related to the previous four.
The Three Techniques, also Displacement, Incidentalisation, and Exclusion: Mainstream rhetorical techniques used to minimise male victimisation, described by Dr. Jones in his paper “Effacing the Male“.
Lachrymosity: The tendency within both feminism and mainstream media to use tearjerkingly emotive language to describe female suffering and comparatively perfunctory language to describe male suffering. Arguably a fourth technique on a par with the three described by Dr. Jones.
Instanciation Not to be confused with “incidentalisation, which would be a better word for it, which is already taken. By “instanciation” I mean to portray instances of male victimisation as incidents rather than as systems of oppression.
Hidden Victimisation also The Other Side of the Mountain, and, in extreme cases, Holocaust Denial: How male victims and male oppression are rendered invisible by these techniques and discourses.
Comments and criticisms welcome, in particular, better terms for some of these phenomena would be greatly appreciated. Clearly many of the terms fall short of the “memorable one or two-word phrase” criterion. Is there anything I should add? Any good “Bird in your Garden” examples of each type of typical behaviour?
Crossposted between Creative Destruction and Darain Man.
(Maghan)
Feminist Approaches
by Barbara McManus
the following characteristics represent my criteria for distinguishing a feminist scholarly approach:
- Feminist scholars differentiate sex from gender and view the latter as a socially/culturally constructed category. Gender is learned and performed; it involves the myriad and often normative meanings given to sexual difference by various cultures. 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.
- Although sex/gender systems differ cross-culturally, most known societies have used and still use sex/gender as a key structural principle organizing their actual and conceptual worlds, usually to the disadvantage of women. Hence feminist scholars argue that gender is a crucial category of analysis and that modes of knowledge which do not take gender into account are partial and incomplete.
- Feminist scholars also seek to question and transform androcentric systems of thought which posit the male as the norm. In practice this means not only revealing and critiquing androcentric biases, but also attempting to examine beliefs and practices from the viewpoint of the “other,” treating women and other marginalized groups as subjects, not merely objects.
- Feminists believe that existing inequalities between dominant and marginalized groups can and should be removed. Therefore feminist scholarship has an acknowledged and accepted political dimension, as opposed to the hidden political dimension of scholarship that claims to be “neutral” and “objective.” Although the commitment to feminist politics and organized feminist movements will not be equally stressed in all pieces of scholarship, it will never be denied or criticized (if it is, I would say that the approach is not feminist no matter what the author may claim). With regard to scholarship, the political goal of feminist work is broader than simply a stronger emphasis on women, though that is an important part of it; the goal is to revise our way of considering history, society, literature, etc. so that neither male nor female is taken as normative, but both are seen as equally conditioned by the gender constructions of their culture (as indeed we, the observers, are).
Some Scholarly Articles
The Cult of True Womanhood
by Barbara Welter
Excerpt:
THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICAN MAN WAS A BUSY BUILDER OF BRIDGES
and railroads, at work long hours in a materialistic society. The religious
values of his forebears were neglected in practice if not in intent, and he
occasionally felt some guilt tha; he had timed this new land, this temple
of the chosen people, into one vast countinghouse. But he could salve his
conscience by reflecting that he had left behind a hostage, not only to
fortune, but to all the values which he held so dear and treated so lightly.
Woman, in the cult of True Womanhood1 presented by the women's
magazines, gift annuals and religious literature of the nineteenth century,
was the hostage in the home.2 In a society where values changed fre-
quently, where fortunes rose and fell with frightening rapidity, where
social and economic mobility provided instability as well as hope, one
thing at least remained the same-a true woman was a true woman,
wherever she was found. If anyone, male or female, dared to tamper with
the complex of virtues which made up True Womanhood, he was damned
immediately as an enemy of God, of civilization and of the Republic. It
was a fearful obligation, a solemn responsibility, which the nineteenth century
American woman had-to uphold the pillars of the temple with
her frail white hand.
The attributes of True Womanhood, by which a woman judged herself
and was judged by her husband, her neighbors and society could be
divided into four cardinal virtues-piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity.
Put them all together and they spelled mother, daughter, sister,
wife-woman. Without them, no matter whether there was fame, achievement
or wealth, all was ashes. With them she was promised happiness
and power.
Religion or piety was the core of woman's virtue, the source of her
strength. Young men looking for a mate were cautioned to search first
for piety, for if that were there, all else would f0llow.3 Religion belonged
to woman by divine right, a gift of God and nature. This "peculiar susceptibility"
to religion was given her for a reason: "the vestal flame of
piety, lighted up by Heaven in the breast of woman" would throw its
beams into the naughty world of men.4 So far would its candle power
reach that the "Universe might be Enlightened, Improved, and Harmonized
by WOMAN!!" She would be another, better Eve, working in coop-
eration with the Redeemer, bringing the world back "from its revolt and
sin."The world would be reclaimed for God through her suffering, for
"God increased the cares and sorrows of woman, that she might be sooner
constrained to accept the terms of salvation."7
(Maghan)
What Knowledge Is and What it Ought to Be: Feminist Values and Normative Epistemology
By Sally Haslanger
Excerpt:
My goal in this paper is to suggest a way of approaching the task of specifying the truth conditions for knowledge, that (hopefully) will make clear how a broad range of feminist work that is often deemed irrelevant to the philosophical inquiry into knowledge that is in fact highly relevant.
(Maghan)
YouTube Videos
Classical Feminist Tradition Video
Writing and Publishing Tips: What is Feminist Criticism
What is Feminism?
By DJL
Feminism is defined as the advocacy of social equality for men and women, in opposition to patriarchy and sexism.
The first wave of the feminist movement in the United States began in the 1840′s as women opposed to slavery, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, drew parallels between the oppression of African Americans and the oppression of women. The Seneca Falls convention began the social movement by which women finally won the right to vote in 1920. But other disadvantages persisted, and a second wave of feminism arose in the 1960′s and continues today.
The Basic Feminist Ideas:
1. The Importance Of Change: Feminist thinking is decidedly political. They think ideas to action. It is critical of a status quo and advocates change toward social equality for women and men.
2. Expanding Human Choice: Feminists maintain that cultural conceptions of gender divide the full range of human qualities into two opposing and limited spheres: the female world of emotions and cooperation and the male world of rationality and competition. As an alternative, feminists propose a “reintegration of humanity” by which each person develops all human traits (French, 1985).
3. Eliminating Gender Stratification: Feminism opposes laws and cultural norms that limit education, income, and job opportunities of women. For this reason, feminists advocate passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the U.S. Constitution, which states, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any other State on account of sex.” The ERA, first proposed in Congress in 1923, has support of two-thirds of U.S. adults (NORC, 2001:267). Even so, it has yet to become law, which probably reflects the fact that most of the men who dominate state legislatures oppose the amendment.
4. Ending Sexual Violence: Today’s women’s movement seeks to eliminate sexual violence. Feminists argue that patriarchy distorts the relationships between men and women, encouraging violence against women in form of rape, domestic abuse, sexual harassment, and pornography (Millet, 1970; Bernard, 1982, orig. 1973; Dworkin, 1987).
5. Promoting Sexual Freedom: Feminism supports women’s control over their sexuality and reproduction. They support the free availability of birth control information. Most feminists also support a woman’s right to choose whether to bear a child or terminate a pregnancy, rather than allowing men – as husbands, physicians, and legislators – to control their reproduction. Many feminists also support homosexuals’ efforts to overcome the many barriers they face in predominantly heterosexual culture (Deckard, 1979; Barry, 1983; Jagger, 1983).
(Maghan)
Political Spectrum of Feminism
(Maghan)
Orientations of Critical Theory
Mimetic Crititcism/ WORLD
Images of Women Criticism/Feminist Critique
- How does art/ literature portray women? What roles are women allotted/ allowed?
- What stereotypes about women does the work perpetuate?
- Are women accurately portrayed?
- To what degree is art responsible for presenting positive role models?
- Is the work idealistic or misogynistic?
- What is the relation of women to nature? Emotions? The body?
- How has the history of women's situation affect the presentation of women in literature/art?
- How does the work critique or change traditional views of women, especially Freudian, Jungian or archetypal perspectives?
- To what degree do cultural perceptions of gender differences affect literary works?
Reassessment
- Is there such a thing as a female language or style? Does it come from the body or from social and historical sources?
- How is the language, form, structure, or style of a work influenced by the writer's gender? (Is there such a thing as a "woman's sentence"?
- Are there typical images, themes, or literary strategies employed by women writers?
- How is the work of art connected to other disciplines and contexts, such as psychology, history, politics etc.?
Feminist Reader-Response/ Canon-Busting
- What gender of a reader does a work imply, require, or favor?
- What happens if you assume the reader is a woman?
- Does gender a/effect reading?
- How do men and women read differently?
- Can a man read as a woman?
- Why have some works "lasted" and been reread and republished while others (written by women) have vanished? What role does gender play in literary reputation and canon formation?
- Are there such things as "feminine genres"
- Why do women read romances? Are such books "good? for them"
Recovery , Gynocriticism
- Do women create differently from men?
- Is any apparent difference biological or social?
- How have historical conditions affected women's ability to write?
- How do women writers relate to the gender of their precursors? Are they intimidated by male models?
- How do women writers relate to previous women writers?
- Is there such a thing as a female tradition?
- Why have women writers specialized so much in fiction? What are the special theoretical problems for women writing poetry?
Important Texts in the History of Feminist Literary Criticism
Mimetic (Images of Women) Archetypal Pragmatic Expressive (Women Writer) Theory French Feminism Social Context
1929 Virginia Woolf Room ofOne'sOwn
1938 Virginia Woolf Three Guineas
1953 Simone de Beauvoir The Second Sex (1949 translated in 1953)
1963 Betty Friedan The Feminine Mystique
Moers, EllenLiterary Women
1968 Mary Ellmann Thinking About Women
1970 Kate Millett Sexual Politics
1971 Norman Mailer The Prisoner of Sex
1972 Patricia Meyer Spacks The Female Imagination
Susan Cornillion, ed. Images of Women in Fiction
1973 Carolyn Heilbrun Toward a Recognition of Androgyny
1974 Elizabeth Hardwick Seduction and Betrayal
Molly Haskell From Reverence to Rape; Women in the Movies
Alice Walker "In Search of Our Mother's Gardens"
1975 Helene Cixous “The Laugh of the Medusa"
Jane Rule Lesbian Images
Annette Kolodny "Some Notes on Defining a 'Feminist Literary Criticism'."
Donovan, Josephine, ed. Feminist Lit Crit: Explorations in Theory
1977 Elaine Showalter A Literature of Their Own
Barbara Smith "Towards a Black Feminist Criticism"
1978 Judith Fetterley The Resisting Reader
Jane Thompkins "Sentimental Power: Uncle Tom's Cabin"
Nina Baym Women's Fiction: A Guide to Novels by & abt Women in America
Julia P. Stanley & Susan J. Wolfe“Toward a Feminist Aesthetic”
1979Sandra Gilbert & Susan GubarThe Madwoman in the Attic
Carolyn HeilbrunReinventing Womanhood
1980Annette Kolodny "Dancing Through the Minefield”
Carol ChristDiving Deep and Surfacing
Michele BarrettWomen's Oppression Today
Barbara ChristianBlack Women Novelists: Development of a Tradition
Marks & DeCourtrivon, edsNew French Feminisms
Nina Baym"Melodramas of Beset Manhood”
1981Carol Pearson & Katherine PopeFemale Hero in Brit & Am Lit
Annis PrattArchetypal Patterns in Women's Poetry
Ann Rosalind Jones"Writing the Body: Toward an Understand ing of l'Ecriture Feminine”
Catherine Stimpson"Zero Degree Deviancy: The Lesbian Novel in English”
Bonnie Zimmerman“What Has Never Been: An Overview of Lesbian Feminist Lit Crit”
Lillian FadermanSurpassing the Love of Men
Elaine Showalter"Feminist Criticism in the Wilderness."
1982Carol GilliganIn a Different Voice
Elizabeth Abel, ed.Writing and Sexual Difference (Critical Inquiry)
Jane GallopThe Daughter’s Seduction
Hull, Bell-Scott, & SmithAll the Wmn Are White. . .But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Wm's
Jonathan Culler"Reading As a Woman" in On Deconstruction
Jane Marcus“Storming the Toolshed”
1983Alice WalkerIn Search of Our Mother's Gardens
Cherrie Morgan & Gloria AnzalduaThis Bridge Called My Back
Joanna RussHow to Suppress Women's Writing
Lillian Robinson"Treason Our Text"
Barbara Christian"Trajectories of Self-Definition: Placing Contem porary Afro-American Women's Fiction"
1984Sandra Gilbert & Susan Gubar, edsThe Norton Anthology of Lit by Women
1985Elaine Showalter, ed.The New Feminist Criticism
Eliane ShowalterThe Female Malady
Toril MoiSexual/Textual Politics
Alice JardineGynesis: Configurations of Women and Modernity
Luce IrigaraySpeculum of the Other Women(1974)
Kahn & Greene, eds.Making a Difference:Fem Lit Crit
Christian, Barbara.Black Feminist Criticism: Perspectives on Black Women Writers
1986Flynn & Schweikert, eds..Gender and Reading
Shari BenstockWomen Writers of the Left Bank
1987Alice Jardine & Paul Smith. Eds.Men in Feminism
1988Gilbert and Gubar, The War of the Words, Vol. I of No Man's Land: The Place of the Woman Writer in the Twentieth Century
Linda Alcoff"Cultural Feminism vs. Post-Structuralism"
1989Elaine Showalter"A Criticism of Our Own: Autonomy and Assimilation in Afro-American and Feminist Literary Theory “
Gilbert & GubarNo Man’s Land II: Sexchanges
1990Barbara Smith"The Truth that Never Hurts: Black Lesbians inFiction in the 1980"s"
Boone & CaddenEngendering Men: Question of Male Fem Crit
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick Epistemology of the Closet
1991Dale M. Bauer , Susan Jaret McKinstry, edsFeminism, Bakhtin, and the Dialogic
1993Warhol & HerndlFeminisms
Gayle Greene & Coppelia Kahn, eds.Changing Subjects: The Making of Feminist Lit Crit
Pam MorrisLiterature and Feminism
1994Barbara Christian"Layered Rhythms: Virginia Woolf and Toni Morrison”
Gilbert & GubarNo Man’s Land III: Letters from the Front
(Maghan)
The Yellow Wallpaper Summary
By Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The narrator is writing a secret journal. She is being treated for hysteria, but is really suffering from postpartum depression. Her husband, John, who is also a doctor is forbidding her from doing any activities whatsoever. She is only allowed to lay in bed and not do anything. She is not even allowed to leave the room she is in, which has bars on the window and rings on the wall. The only way for her to express herself is through her secret diary. John belittles everything she says, and just demands her to continue treatment. Unbeknownst to John, his treatment is making her illness worse. She begins to see images in the yellow wallpaper in the room, and people outside. She soon becomes obsessed with the wallpaper, and begins to see the image of a woman behind the wallpaper. John silences her making light of her concerns about the wallpaper. He thinks that his treatment is making her better, but she is up all night fixated at the paper. She is crawling around the room, rubbing her body against the wall. As time goes on, the woman who is trapped in the paper is trying to escape. The woman shakes the bars and creeps around. The narrator tries to help the woman escape by biting and tearing the wallpaper off of the walls. Day by day, the narrator grows even more insane because she has lost everything, but more importantly, her voice. By the end, she is completely insane and ends up being convinced that there is not only one woman behind the paper, but many women trapped behind the paper. She eventually believes that she came from the paper herself, and that she was the trapped woman. In the end, she is so hopelessly crazy that she is crawling around the room, rubbing her body against the paper in the process. Her husband breaks into the room and passes out in the doorway because of the situation he has walked in on. She is so insane that she does not even stop. She continues and crawls over her husband’s body every time she creeps around the room.
(Maghan)
Now, try reading as a feminist…
“The Story of An Hour”
By Kate Chopin
Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death.
It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband's friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's name leading the list of "killed." He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.
She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.
There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.
She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.
There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.
She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.
She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.
There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.
Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will--as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been. When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: "free, free, free!" The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.
She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial. She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.
There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.
And yet she had loved him--sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!
"Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering.
Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhold, imploring for admission. "Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door--you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven's sake open the door."
"Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window.
Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.
She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister's waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.
Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of the accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife.
When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that kills.
(Maghan)
