Gynocriticism

`Elaine Showalter's A Literature of Their Own, which describes three stages in the history
of women's literature, also proposes a similar multi-part model of the growth of feminist
theory. First, according to Showalter, comes an androgynist poetics. Next, a feminist
critique and female Aesthetic, accompanied by gynocritics, follows, and these are closely
pursued by gynesic poststructuralist feminist criticism and gender theory.

Androgynist poetics, having relations and perhaps roots in mid-Victorian women's writing
of imitation, contends that the creative mind is sexless, and the very foundation of
describing a female tradition in writing was sexist. Critics of this vein found gender as
imprisoning, nor believed that gender had a bearing in the content of writing, which,
according to Joyce Carol Oates is actually culture-determined. Imagination is too broad
to be hemmed in by gender.

However, from the 1970s on, most feminist critics reject the genderless mind, finding that
the "imagination" cannot evade the conscious or unconscious structures of gender.
Gender, it could be said, is part of that culture-determination which Oates says serves as
inspiration. Such a position emphasizes "the impossibility of separating the imagination
from a socially, sexually, and historically positioned self." This movement of thought
allowed for a feminist critique as critics attacked the meaning of sexual difference in a
patriarchal society/ideology. Images of male-wrought representations of women
(stereotypes and exclusions) came under fire, as was the "'division, oppression,
inequality, [and] interiorized inferiority for women.'"

The female experience, then, began to take on positive affirmations. The Female
Aesthetic arose -- expressing a unique female consciousness and a feminine tradition in
literature -- as it celebrated an intuitive female approach in the interpretation of women's
texts. It "spoke of a vanished nation, a lost motherland; of female vernacular or Mother
Tongue; and of a powerful but neglected women's culture." Writers like Virginia Woolf and
Dorothy Richardson, emerging out of the Victorian period and influenced by its writings
were perhaps the first women to recognize this. In "Professions for Women," Woolf
discusses how a woman writer seeks within herself "the pools, the depths, the dark places
where the largest fish slumber," inevitably colliding against her own sexuality to confront
"something about the body, about the passions."

The French feminists of the day discussed this Mother Tongue, calling it l'écriture
feminine. Accessible to men and women alike, but representing "female sexual
morphology," l'écriture feminine sought a way of writing which literally embodied the
female, thereby fighting the "subordinating, linear style of classification or distinction."
Showalter finds that whether this clitoral, vulval, vaginal, or uterine; whether centered on
semiotic pulsions, childbearing, or jouissance, the feminist theorization of female
sexuality/textuality, and its funky audacity in violating patriarchal taboos by unveiling the
Medusa, is an exhilarating challenge to phallic discourse.
There are problems with the Female Aesthetic, which feminist critics recognized. Even its
most fervent fans avoided defining exactly what constituted the style of l'écriture feminine,
as any definition would then categorize it and safely subsume it as a genre under the
linear patriarchal structure. Its very restlessness and ambiguity defied identification as
part of its identity. Needless to say, some feminists and women writers could feel excluded
by the surreality of the Female Aesthetic and its stress on the biological forms of female
experience, which, as Showalter says, also bears close resemblance to sexist
essentialism. Men may try their hand at writing woman's bodies, but according to the
feminist critique and Aesthetic, only woman whose very biology gave her an edge, could
read these texts successfully -- risking marginalization and ghettoization of both women's
literature and theory. Lastly, the Female Aesthetic was charged with racism, as it rarely
referred to racial or class differences between women and largely referred to a white
woman's literary tradition.

Gynocritics, which developed shoulder-to-shoulder with the Female Aesthetic, attempted

to resolve some of these problems, by agreeing that women's literature lay as the central
concern for feminist criticism, but "rejected the concept of an essential female identity and
style." One branch of gynocriticism sought to revise Freudian structures and take the edge
off of an adversarial methodology of criticism. These critics emphasized a Pre-Oedipal
phase wherein the daughter's bond to her mother inscribes the key factor in gender
identity. Matriarchal values desolve intergenerational conflicts and build upon a female
tradition of literature rather than the struggle of Oedipus and Lais at the crossroads.

Poststructuralism eventually influenced the course of feminist theory with the idea of a
motherless as well as fatherless text. The female experience, as it relates to texts, only
occurs in the feminine subjectivity of the reading process. "Gynesis" or "gynetic
disruptions" occur in texts when the reader explores "the textual consequences and
representations of 'the feminine.'" These considerations or interruptions in the discourse
indicate a consideration or interruption of the patriarchal system.

Lastly and most recently are developments of an over-arching gender theory, which
considers gender, both male and female, as a social construction upon biological
differences. Gender theory proposes to explore "ideological inscription and the literary
effects of the sex/gender system," and as many advantages, opening up the literary
theory stage and bringing in questions of masculinity into feminist theory. Also, taking
gender as a fundamental analytic category brings feminist criticism from the margin to the
center, though risks depoliticizing the study of women.

S/he

Feminist criticism is concerned with "...the ways in which literature (and other cultural
productions) reinforce or undermine the economic, political, social, and psychological
oppression of women" (Tyson). This school of theory looks at how aspects of our culture
are inherently patriarchal (male dominated) and "...this critique strives to expose the
explicit and implicit misogyny in male writing about women" (Richter 1346). This
misogyny, Tyson reminds us, can extend into diverse areas of our culture: "Perhaps the
most chilling example...is found in the world of modern medicine, where drugs prescribed
for both sexes often have been tested on male subjects only" (83).
Feminist criticism is also concerned with less obvious forms of marginalization such as
the exclusion of women writers from the traditional literary canon: "...unless the critical or
historical point of view is feminist, there is a tendency to under-represent the contribution
of women writers" (Tyson 82-83).

Common Space in Feminist Theories

Though a number of different approaches exist in feminist criticism, there exist some
areas of commonality. This list is excerpted from Tyson:
 Women are oppressed by patriarchy economically, politically, socially, and
psychologically; patriarchal ideology is the primary means by which they are
kept so
 In every domain where patriarchy reigns, woman is other: she is
marginalized, defined only by her difference from male norms and values
 All of western (Anglo-European) civilization is deeply rooted in patriarchal
ideology, for example, in the biblical portrayal of Eve as the origin of sin and
death in the world
 While biology determines our sex (male or female), culture determines our
gender (masculine or feminine)
 All feminist activity, including feminist theory and literary criticism, has as its
ultimate goal to change the world by prompting gender equality
 Gender issues play a part in every aspect of human production and
experience, including the production and experience of literature, whether
we are consciously aware of these issues or not (91).

Feminist criticism has, in many ways, followed what some theorists call the three waves
of feminism:
1. First Wave Feminism - late 1700s-early 1900's: writers like Mary Wollstonecraft
(A Vindication of the Rights of Women, 1792) highlight the inequalities between
the sexes. Activists like Susan B. Anthony and Victoria Woodhull contribute to the
women's suffrage movement, which leads to National Universal Suffrage in 1920
with the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment
2. Second Wave Feminism - early 1960s-late 1970s: building on more equal
working conditions necessary in America during World War II, movements such as
the National Organization for Women (NOW), formed in 1966, cohere feminist
political activism. Writers like Simone de Beauvoir (Le deuxième sexe, 1972) and
Elaine Showalter established the groundwork for the dissemination of feminist
theories dove-tailed with the American Civil Rights movement
3. Third Wave Feminism - early 1990s-present: resisting the perceived essentialist
(over generalized, over simplified) ideologies and a white, heterosexual, middle
class focus of second wave feminism, third wave feminism borrows from post-
structural and contemporary gender and race theories (see below) to expand on
marginalized populations' experiences. Writers like Alice Walker work to
"...reconcile it [feminism] with the concerns of the black community...[and] the
 survival and wholeness of her people, men and women both, and for the promotion
of dialog and community as well as for the valorization of women and of all the
varieties of work women perform" (Tyson 97).

Typical questions:
 How is the relationship between men and women portrayed?
 What are the power relationships between men and women (or characters
assuming male/female roles)?
 How are male and female roles defined?
 What constitutes masculinity and femininity?
 How do characters embody these traits?
 Do characters take on traits from opposite genders? How so? How does this
change others’ reactions to them?
 What does the work reveal about the operations (economically, politically, socially,
or psychologically) of patriarchy?
 What does the work imply about the possibilities of sisterhood as a mode of
resisting patriarchy?
 What does the work say about women's creativity?
 What does the history of the work's reception by the public and by the critics tell
us about the operation of patriarchy?
 What role the work plays in terms of women's literary history and literary tradition?