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FEMINIST LITERATURE 1

By Dr. Tasneem Shahnaaz Assistant Professor Department of English Sri Aurobindo College University of Delhi

This talk will focus on feminism, its development and possible definition. I say possible because there is no one complete definition of feminism and till today it continues to evolve and add new dimensions of meaning. So, let us go on a journey of the history of social movements. And the potpourri of ideas and theories that were in circulation at the end of the 19th century and in the 29 th century up to seventies, which led to the growth of feminism. We also have to consider how women were challenged and affected by these developments .The turn of the 19th century - so rapid changes in life style, thoughts, altitude. The latter half of century was the crucible of rapid economical growth ,the practice of liberalism ,the growth of theories, the conflict between science and religion and new theories the new subjects were coming into being like sociology and psychology, they were considered now as worthy of studying in curriculum. This combination of diverse factors led to the advent of the new woman. Ill shortly explain who the new woman was, before that I just want to add that this phenomenon of the advent of the new woman was accompanied not by a similar coming of the new man .But by a sense of powerlessness in the male psyche and where the female psyche was concert she was also full of doubt hesitancy, venerability, skepticism regarding herself. So you can see on both sides there is a sense of helplessness which was governing the psychic of the male and the female. Now this new woman was one who was beginning to feeling the burden of bondage, the burden of oppression and she is now commencing to show signs of becoming restive against such oppression. She begins to question the patriarchal tenets which had largely governed her life and altitudes. This questioning was what has led to awareness and the emergence of feminism. The new woman was also excited by the potential of her imaginative and intellectual capabilities which to a certain extent have been released in the romantic elevation of Wordsworth by wise passiveness and freedom of imagination. Now as is obvious the men were hostile to this threat of new women who was asserting herself asserting her autonomy in different aspects of life. On the other hand, the women were also reviewing the new freedom or this new awareness that has coming to them. They were reviewing it with a certain amount of caution. For the Men, there was the discrepancy between what they had known and how they had lived there lives, that means between there lived experiences and what was happening in front of them. That

was the new women i.e., coming into being. This book the mens sense of historical continuity .Because history has a whole record of patriarchy assuming control of. You know, the second half of the population. Now things were changing and men felt insecure and unable to cope with this kind of a change. What women were trying to do was that they were trying to change the concern and the direction of the history .Which till now had largely being patriarchal. And this patriarchal vision of history obviously meant that the women have been marginalised and there were gaps, erasures and absences in the history of mankind. Then what is to be done now. There were different divergent possibilities which were available to the women as to how to remove these erasures and gaps from history. One way was to remove from the position of marginality or invisibility to the position of centrality and visibility. Now in their assertion of astronomy in all spheres of life women can enlarge the canvas of history by including the history of women which till now have been ignored. And there were only certain token instances of women being included in the history of mankind. Now this was one way. Another way was to create a new history. Which could be called her story, instead of history .And this was like writing history afresh from the woman point of view, where women would be the central focus and the subject of history. But before they create this canon- this historical cannon you have to dismantle the available canon which is already present. And this in itself was a big task which woman was unable to take up. And radical though they may be in there thinking but it was insurmountable task which they were unwilling to take on. Moreover there were also the danger in this; of creating her story that what you are doing is you are substituting one history with another and both are gendered in their vision. So there was no point in writing a history from the point of view of a woman because you are doing the same thing which the men had already done before. So John Kelly a sociologist she wants against creating feminist history which is so unfocussed in its direction and concern. What she says is that you should examine movements of great change you should see how women were affected during these movements of great change weather it advanced her humanity as well as the male half. And then you realise there is fairly regular pattern of loss of status where woman were concern. So the obvious consequence of the new assertiveness of the women was the rise of feminism .And though it is difficult to define like as I said it in the beginning, we can you know postulate a certain safe definition. Like, it can be interpreted, to mean a theory or a stance or a position which subscribes to a concern itself with the common complex woman question. Now this women question problemtised the position, identity, image and nature of womanhood as well as

interrogated the construction of gender and sexuality. Whereas those women - and now men too, of course - who worked, debated, wrote for and about women are called feminist. According to a critic Rosaline Denmark, she says that a feminist is someone who holds that women suffering per discrimination because of their sex. So they have specific needs which remain unsatisfied and negated and there has to be a radical change in the present political, social and economical order in order to fulfill the desires and the need of women. Feminism has its root in Latin word femina, which having womanly quality. Now this word was first used in book review in 1859 and it replaced the earlier word womenism i.e., the word used before the feminism came into being. Now whatever be the time of its currency this feminism has its own word has its origin in the woman sense of being victim of oppressions and injustice at the hand of patriarchy. Now the history of feminism if we look into it reveals its evolving dynamics and the changes. In its early stages it was concern with the idea of women being part of a natural group and having common interest with the men. So the first the first wave of feminist or the early feminist they advanced this theory of having natural rights for women just like as men had appropriated for themselves. Infect as early as 14th century, you have Christine Diapson sparked of this long debate you know which is called Carole de femme, which mean moral of the ladies. And this debate was a part of because she decided that she want to earn a livelihood by writing which up till now was a male prerogative and Aferabne did the same in 17th century in England. Now this quarrel continued for 4 to 5 centuries and is continuing even today. However the early feminist they wrote what they did in response to specific attacks on them especially which were those which were published and mostly those were by male critics. And there focus was on gender as a social construct which become intrinsic in cultural historical and literally representation and behaviour. So they protested for the sake of women, whom they classified as a common category. Usually these feminist belong to the upper white upper classes of society mostly white and Virginia Wolf caused these women daughter of educated men. Marry Olsten staff and other radical thinker of her time she published she published a vindication of women right in 1792 and she argues that women should be given the same rights as men because it is in the natural order of things that - we can that women can understand as well as men. Understand the laws of nature, the laws of God by virtue of their reason. And so they should be given the same natural rights which men had appropriated for himself. Now in the later half of the 19th century, let us see what is happening in England. When following this right- natural right for women is the right to vote and the right to have property. In this case we have John Stuart Mill a well known thinker who advocated the right of woman to practice any trade or profession. He believes that the principal of equality should be there for both the parties. For both the men and the women and there should be no power and privilege on one side and disability on other side. Now this utopian vision forms a large part of the writing during this time and after. And these kind of writings provoked women to even physically protest against the harsh laws which made them subordinates.

Now let me give you an example of how patriarchy has marginalised women writers. There is a lesser known feminist called Mona Cad in England, who wrote about marriage and motherhood and she brought it into the realm of public domain. And this was during the Victorian age when you know the feminist were glorifying motherhood and claiming the marriage be the be-all and the end all of ones life. She was very radical in her views about both institutions and she said that childrens have been the means of bringing women in line or under control through motherhood and this has led to the subordinate position of women. Her radical track on marriage advocates equal rights for the two sexes. And she wants that the women should be independent in the economic sphere, which will end the patriarchy of men. They should be accorded independence in the house, independence to do any work they wanted and lead a life as equal to any men. Now this was a very radical view which was similar to the view of the second wave of feminist in 60s and 70s in America. However we do not know much about Mona Cad, Because of this reason the patriarchy was unable to accommodate such radical views in its thought structure. Now let us examine the thoughts and ideas which govern this movement. They can also call it the feminist movement. As I mentioned earlier that notion of human or natural right was replaced by that of womens right that the women should be able to vote, should be able to have property .Because they thought of themselves as members of same species but also a members of gender specific social group. Now with this shift in focus and with this shift in thinking it became imperative that women answer certain questions which have cropped up like questions like what is a women? What are her interests? . Is there any difference between her interest and the interest of men? And was she capable and fit to respond to the challenge of feminism? Could she become a fully responsible citizen and who would voice her desire to be accepted as be with full rights? So all these questions have to be answered before the feminist could engage in any kind of action. Now by doing raising and answering these questions feminism achieved an important thing i.e., it put women back into the discourse .And because feminism when it was examining the reason of patriarchy and what is happening in writings and thoughts and altitudes it realised a very curious paradox you know that women was a non being and she was present yet absent in discourse. Which means that she is constantly spoken about that woman is this, woman is that that she is this and she is that. But she never had the privilege to express herself, to express her own self, her own ideas. And she is displayed as skeptical, she is always there present but not as a person in her own right. She is only there as a non-existent being. So she has being invisible for most part, because she has being constituted as an object a skeptical. How her being or her existence has being simultaneously denied as well as seen as a fault. What had happened we examine patriarchy and the logic behind this kind of curious paradox of the women. We realised that the patriarchy had appropriated itself the power of determining realities by nature by naming and creating binary opposition. By binary opposition I mean male as self and female as other. Men as subject and women as object. Men as hegemonic present women as marginalised absence. But men require a woman for his physical need and continuation of lineage. What he does to assign her a role and

being in discourse where she has an entity but no being. Because she just has some pre-scripted role to play. But her position was always a marginal one. She has no voice, no authority, no power, no privilege. To go to the American continent Margaret Fuller published women in the nineteenth century in 1845. She calls for the inward and outward liberation for women as for men and it should be acknowledged as right and not as a concession. It is not a favour that has been done to women, but it is acknowledging that wrong has been done to women and it needs to be righted. She questioned gender hierarchic and destructual sexual practices. In her book she adopts a very interesting linguistic strategy which offers resistance to patriarchal writing and patriarchal thought. Which is this, she combines the art of retract with the conversational mode. So what happens is that she can include a verity of voices in it. Many voices can speak through this discourse, this kind of writing, but earlier it was, like it was unitary- voice was unitary, it was single and it has no room for inclusion of other voices. Now this strategy of hers, it made such a deep impact on other feminist in America that Elizabeth Cady Stanton one of the stalwart women who took part in the first wave of feminism. She was so impressed by Margaret Fuller conversational mode that she constituted groups of women and she said this was a motivating factor for woman and she call these conversational groups conversational and she said this is imitation of Margaret Fuller conversational strategy . Now since we have come to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, we must mention what she did, what she achieved with her other come rates like Suzan B Anthony and other. They called for the convention of womens rights at Silica Falls, New York in 1848, the declaration of sentiments adopted by the convention saw the human record as a history of repeated injuries and usurpation on the part of the men towards women having indirect object the establishment of absolute trine over her .So this convention demanded that the women should be at once admitted to all rights and privileges which belong to them as citizen of US i.e. United States. She also attacked the Christian doctrine, why because she felt that the Christianity i.e. religion along with patriarchy, made an unholy combination that is served to keep women in subjugation. She even brought out her own interpretation of the Bible and called it the womens Bible. Sarah Grimke is another such activist, writer who also wrote letters on the equality of the sexes and condition of women in 1838, against Clugerment who supported this theory of women being a inferior of the species. For Sarah Grimke it was clear as the day light and it should be clear to the men also that whatever is morally right for a man to do is morally right for a woman to do the same. So now we can see how the grounds have been laid for challenging Victorian stereo types and forming a platform for the future women. Another significant and radical thinker and writer Charlotte Gills, deserves concentration when we are talking about the history of intellectual feminism. She is known for her both her fiction and non-fiction writing. The yellow wallpaper is a very important short story and a well known one at that, where as her novel as Harland is utopian invasions and as the name suggest Harland constitutes of women and utopian vision of a society of women. Though she just being called a feminist, she wrote that she has endless love for women

partly because of the higher state and partly in pity for their feebleness and for their long ages of suffering. Now this firm conviction speaks of a strong gender consciousness which informs her writings. For her feminism was synonymous with the previously known women movement, which consisted of development of human qualities and functions among women. She was very well read and we can see her analytical skills when we read the theory that she propagates. It is called the race theory and she calls it as new feminism. She explains that the female is the race type and she was the earlier organism and the male came later in the history of the development of men kind. And she says that ours is the only species where the female is subjected to and exploited by the male. Now this thought of her is very radical because it contrast with the Christian view that the eve was created with the left rib of men, which obviously mean that she came after Adam was created. And for Charlotte Gills the farthest and the fullest purpose of feminism is a socially responsible and collectively efficient motherhood. She views motherhood as social service instead of mens service and women as world builders. Her dream of a utopian Harland sees women as a new mother of a new world. However, the so called first wave of feminism did not achieve much. And what were the reasons behind this. Primarily they did not achieved too much because they neither examined the whole ideology of patriarchy nor did they formulate their own ideology. The suffrage seeking women, that is the women who seeking the right to vote .They did not examine the benefit which came to them with this right. They did not co related with the feminist conditions. They also failed to address the issues of racism and class. Infect and it was very unfortunate it had happened at that time. Memories of their abolition were fading from their mind and the women were becoming more biased and carrying prejudices against black community. In fact, one of the critics says that it seems as if an unholy pat with in women suffrage and white supremacy had been made. But in spite of its internal weaknesses and contradiction this movement found some sort of a success because the states in America they started granting the women the right to vote. In 1893 Colorado was the first state to adopt women suffrage. After that Idaho followed and later you have Washington states and host of other states. Now of course the right to vote is there for all citizens of US. Now what happened was the years following granting this right to vote did not achieved anything. Why because it was a reform which promised almost everything but accomplished nothing. The women they came up with no new ideas, they voted as there husband told them to vote. So there is no significant change either in the condition of the women nor in their ability to change anything. However they have left their own mark in the history of men kind. Now after infringement of women and prevalence of the world wars, the feminist movement was virtually debated. Because the war and its attendant insecurities, danger and threat to the family, the institution of family and marriage, it drove the women back to the home. And at that time you had concept of nuclear family and suburbia home, you know the home which were aligned in a row in neat letter, square sort of street and the women was glorified as a women administrator. Now patriarchy has a new name for her a women administrator. May be, it should have made her feel better. But it didnt. Because what happened was being in the home was alright,

being in control of the home was also ok, but they have achieved nothing. There own desires their own needs, they still remained unsatisfied. Now in her book the Feminist Mystique Published in 1963 Betty Freidan, who was the author she compare the situation of women in home to comfortable concentration camps. She says that in these homes the women undergo progressive dehumanisation and this is a sole killing trap of domesticity which has left women name less depersonalized, manipulated and therefore unsatisfied and unfulfilled. As you can see the media also helped by doing its bit. And how did it doing its bit by acclaimed the happy house wife syndrome concept. And it said that it was what women wanted just to be happy housewives. This has severely limiting effect on women because it again drove them into the home and bound them as before. Now we can go over to England just to see what was happening where the women feminism are concert .The early part of 20th century of Virginia Wolf pursuing the women question in a very academic fashion. You know Virginia Wolf is famous for her novels. She was so famous for her feminist criticism which is in two books Room of Ones Own and Three Guineas. These are the two books, one was the - Rooms of Ones own which was written in 1929 and Guineas in 1938 and they deal with her feminist overtly feminist stance .Wolfs feminist claim that we think back through our mothers if we are women .Finds few literally for mother or a reliable tradition if women writer can draw inspiration to write. She was left to her own devices and her books are somehow are to be adapted to her body. Now this is where the germ lies of the French feminist theory of lecriture feminine. Which means womens writing and the theory is that the women have to write their bodies. Wolf then goes on to define that a good writers mind should be androgynous. Opposition that which she herself cannot hold for very long in her writings. Another critic Mary Jacbus she offered a deconstructionist view of wolfs idea of androgynous. She says that this term androgyny is a simultaneous enactment of desire and repression by which the split in the psyche closed by an utopian of undivided consciousness. It appears from this reading that this kind of enactment is an ideal position, no doubt. But it is rarely attainable. And in a reversal of her own stance Virginia Wolfs, she praises Jane Austen and Emily Bronte for writing as women write not as men write, and she refers to a womens sentence .So in a way she is contradicting her own theory of androgynous writing. She even goes so far as to observe that it would be thousand pities if wrote like men or live like men or look like men. Now this book Three Guineas which I mentioned earlier it speaks in a very anti Marxist position. That would be the daughters of educated men whom wolfs considers weaker then the women of the working class or the proletariat. She adopts a letter style here .The letter style way of writing which is called the epistolary style of writing and she argues against war, fascism, exclusion of women from educational institutions etc. And the repressive altitude of patriarchy and she says very grandly ,infect, she declares as a women I have no country as a women I want no country as a women the whole world is my country .So this is a larger than life vision where she is telescoping the whole

world into a world of women. Her view of society is that of a large scale male club which tries to manage the club according to its own rules and according to its own convenience and continuance of power. In such a world women are outsider and this is also the position of the writer of Three Guineas.

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