Feminism

 “I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.”

Feminism is both a political stance and a theory that focuses on gender as a subject of analysis when reading about cultural practices and as a platform to demand equality, rights, and justice. Feminism's key assumption is those gender roles are predetermined and that women are trained to fit into those roles. This means roles like 'daughter 'or 'Mother' are not natural but social because the women have to be trained to think, talk, and act in particular ways that suit the role.

The feminist literary and cultural theory draws a link between:

The representation of women in art and the real, material conditions in which they live.

The feminist theory argues that the representation of women as weak docile innocent seductive or irrational sentimental is rooted in and influences actual social conditions, where she does not have power is treated as a sex object, or procreating machine has fewer political and financial rights, and is abused. Feminism, therefore, is a worldview that refuses to delink art from existing social conditions and practices. It explores the cultural dimensions of women's material life. Feminist literary-cultural critics assume that cultural texts such as cinema, TV soap, opera music, and painting parallel, and duplicate real-life power struggles between genders. Cultural texts naturalize the oppression of women through their stereotypical representation of women as weak vulnerable, seductresses, obstacles, sexual objects, or procreating devices.

Gender Turn: Mary Wollstonecraft and The Rights of Women

The changing levels of literacy and cheaper publishing with the arrival of printing in early modern Europe meant that more women read about others' lives, and wrote about their own. However, European feminism as a theory might be traced back to the eighteenth-century writings of Mary Wollstonecraft.

In an age where the labour of men was privileged over that of women, Wollstonecraft provided the first major theoretical exploration of gender inequality.

In her vindication of the rights of women, Wollstonecraft rejected the established view that women are naturally weaker or inferior to men. The unequal nature of gender relations she proposed was because lack of education kept the women in a secondary position. she proposed women must be treated as equals because they play a crucial role in society, namely, bringing up children.

While Wollstonecraft was radical in seeking education as a means of improving women's position in society, she was hesitant to upset the gender hierarchies. Wollstonecraft for instance believed that men did have superior virtues . Education as Wollstonecraft saw it was about 'improvement'. But she did not see it as a means of overturning hierarchies of power. Thus, she believed that education should instill a love for domestic life. In effect, then Wollstonecraft was proposing a clear distinction between genders. 

Margaret Fuller: Women's Education and Reform 

In USA MargaretvFuller's activism and writings especially her WOMEN IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY can be seen as a parallel origin for western feminism. Like Wollstonecraft, Fuller believed that education was the means of emancipation for women. Education, employment, and political rights were her key planks and she championed these throughout her life. She extended her concerns with gender roles and unequal power relations to classes. she supported prison reform and was one of the first to seek solidarity between African Americans and women seeing both as the victims of a racist-sexist social structure. She suggested that anyone who supported the cause of the Blacks would support the women's cause. 

Virginia Woolf: Authorship, Androgyny

In the twentieth century, the novelist Virginia Woolf provided the first critiques that we can recognize as marking feminism as we know it today. In words like A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN and THE THREE GUINEAS, Woolf explored gender relations . one of the first writers to develop a women-centric notion of reading and education Woolf argued that the patriarchal education systems and reading practices prevent women, readers, from reading as women. 

Wolf also argued that authorship itself is gendered. The language available to women is patriarchal and inherently sexist. But the woman author had no other language at her command is forced to use this sexist language that does not capture the women's experience. Diction, realism, and linearity order the literary modes that have been promoted as 'true' aesthetics are al male - generated.

Simone De Beauvoir and Existential Feminism 

De Beauvoir argues in her most famous work the second sex that man is able to mistify women his mystification and stereotyping argued was instrumental in creating patriarchy she argued that women in term of this stereotype were thus instrument of their own oppression. She further argued women were always the negative of the man. Where man was the ideal the norms and women is deviant or the other who sought perfection by trying to be as much like that man as possible. Women are measured by the standards of men and pound inferior. This is the process of othering where women will always be seen not as independent or unique but as variations and flawed versions of the male.

 Simone De Beauvoir's major insight was that there is no essence of women, a woman is constructed as such by men and society. 

As she puts it: One is not born sex and social gender are not accidental : Patriarchy makes use of sexual differences so as to maintain inequality between men and women 'Patriarchy' argues that biologically speaking women are unequal to men. An argument that naturalizes inequality as a pre-ordained condition of biology itself. De Beauvoir argues that while sexual differences are real and unalterable they can not be the grounds for injustice and inequality.

Sex and Gender 

Sex and gender do not mean the same thing within feminist studies the first moves in making this distinction were made in second-wave feminist thinking. This moves also marked a shift from the biology-based argument about male and female to a more socially centered one.

The Social Construction of Gender

The feminist cultural theory calls for distinguishing between sex and gender. As we have seen in the previous section, the french feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir was an early proponent of the social constructionist view of sex and gender.

Sex is biological and includes anatomy and physiology. The reproductive systems of men and women are biological but they are invested with particular meanings through a social process. 

Now take the values associated with the biological act of child-bearing :

♀Motherhood becomes a symbol of the true"Female".

♀It becomes a central role for women to perform.

♀Nurturing a child is the woman's natural job. 

Now as an example of Feminist Criticism I've chosen Wide Sargasso Sea written by Jean Eyre

“THE WIDE SARGASSO SEA”, a multi-layered and complex novella by the Caribbean writer Jean Rhys is specifically written from the perspective of a ‘creole’ woman, Set in wild, magical Jamaican scenery, in the aftermath of emancipation. Anoinette Mason, the woman in the novella is a small supporting character in “JANE EYRE” by Charlotte Bronte.

In Bronte’s novel, the above female character is named Bertha Mason is introduced to Jane Eyre the protagonist, in the latter half novel as a mad woman in the attic and remains as an undefined character till the end of the novel. Mr. Rochester, the main hero of the novel was dubiously married to a West Indian woman when he went to visit his estates in the Caribbean colonies when he was young.

Readers get the evidence of women’s voices being suppressed in the novella when Christophene is ordered to leave the house as she opens her mouth against Rochester’s oppressive behavior towards Bertha. The dominance of the colonizer country could also be seen as a patriarchal society whereby widow remarriages were not allowed. The woman is portrayed as a figure that constantly fights for her own independence but is forcibly pushed to follow the traditional roles delineated by societal norms. Rochester not only asserts his rights by dumping her sensuality but also her very identity, by changing her name to bertha. In addition, when he takes Antoinette to England, Thornfield Hall, the place where they put up after marriage symbolizes similar European cultural supremacy.

Rhys further celebrates the idea that a woman constrained within such a society can never break the set ties. Even if she wants to negate those objectifying views she has to negotiate the sufferings caused by such domination. Her psychological disintegration and descent towards madness is a journey that ultimately becomes the mirror opposite to that of the wholesome goodness of the innocent Jane Eyre, as depicted by Bronte.

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