13/03/2021
FEMINIST CRITICISM
Feminist Criticism seeks to uncover the ideology of patriarchal society in works of art. It reads literary texts for their representations mask socio-political oppression of the category of women by justifying the oppression and naturalizing it.
They assume that literary texts operate on the lives of a power struggle between men and women. The text naturalizes the oppression of women through its stereotypical representation of women as weak, obstacle, the s*xual object of the male’s desire. They argue that literary texts reproduce social biases that see the woman as only the other of the male women’s identity is never separate but is subsumed under that of the male.
“Sex is biological while gender is socially constructed.” There is no necessary link between gender and biological s*x. Masculinity and Femininity are essentially cursive categories that make men and women. A woman is not born. She becomes is made a woman. This is to say that the socialization of women renders her women with certain inherent qualities- weakness, feeble mindedness, and patience and so on. All these help patriarchal males to argue that women need to be confined to the home to be protected and controlled.
Thus the feminist suggest that inequality of s*xes does not have a biological basis or origin. “Sexuality is the product of cultural processes and forces.” We are not born gay, le***an or heteros*xual. The discourse of s*xuality that privileges compulsory heteros*xuality creates conditions of legitimacy and illegitimacy where heteros*xuality alone is legitimate.
