Title: Feminist Literary Criticism Defined
Headings: Feminist Literary Criticism
Feminist Literary Criticism
Feminism Definition
Critical Methodology
Embodying or Undercutting Stereotypes
Tools of the Feminist Literary Critic
Gynocriticism
Resources and Further Reading
Watch Now: 9 Feminist Vocabulary Terms You Should Know

Content: Embodying or Undercutting Stereotypes
Feminist literary criticism recognizes that literature both reflects and shapes stereotypes and other cultural assumptions. Thus, feminist literary criticism examines how works of literature embody patriarchal attitudes or undercut them, sometimes both happening within the same work. Feminist theory and various forms of feminist critique began long before the formal naming of the school of literary criticism. In so-called first-wave feminism, the "Woman's Bible," written in the late 19th century by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, is an example of a work of criticism firmly in this school, looking beyond the more obvious male-centered outlook and interpretation. PhotoQuest / Getty Images
During the period of second-wave feminism, academic circles increasingly challenged the male literary canon. Feminist literary criticism has since intertwined with postmodernism and increasingly complex questions of gender and societal roles. Tools of the Feminist Literary Critic
Feminist literary criticism may bring in tools from other critical disciplines, such as historical analysis, psychology, linguistics, sociological analysis, and economic analysis. Feminist criticism may also look at intersectionality, looking at how factors including race, sexuality, physical ability, and class are also involved. Feminist literary criticism may use any of the following methods: Deconstructing the way that women characters are described in novels, stories, plays, biographies, and histories, especially if the author is male
Deconstructing how one's own gender influences how one reads and interprets a text, and which characters and how the reader identifies depending on the reader's gender
Deconstructing how women autobiographers and biographers of women treat their subjects, and how biographers treat women who are secondary to the main subject
Describing relationships between the literary text and ideas about power and sexuality and gender
Critique of patriarchal or woman-marginalizing language, such as a "universal" use of the masculine pronouns "he" and "him"
Noticing and unpacking differences in how men and women write: