Title: What Is the Feminist Approach to Literary Criticism? | Pen and the Pad
Headings: What Is the Feminist Approach to Literary Criticism?
What Is the Feminist Approach to Literary Criticism?
Historical Origins of the Movement
Challenges to the Literary Canon
Textual Analysis

Content: What Is the Feminist Approach to Literary Criticism? | Pen and the Pad
What Is the Feminist Approach to Literary Criticism? Jared Lewis Updated February 21, 2017
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Feminist literary criticism is the critical analysis of literary works based on the feminist perspective. In particular, feminist literary critics tend to reject the patriarchal norms of literature "that privileges masculine ways of thinking/points of view and marginalizes women politically, economically and psychologically," according to Paul Ady, associate professor of English at Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts. Instead, feminist critics approach literature in a way that empowers the female point-of-view instead, typically rejecting the patriarchal language that has dominated literature. Historical Origins of the Movement
Modern feminist literary criticism had its roots in the post-World War II feminist movement that spilled over into the intellectual circles of America's colleges and universities. The true origins of the movement can be traced as far back as the late 18th century with Mary Wollstonecraft's "A Vindication of the Rights of Women" (1792). Other writers such as John Stuart Mill, Margaret Fuller and Simone de Beauvoir followed suit from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century. From the 1960s onward, feminist literary critics proliferated. The approaches of feminist literary critics vary according to the personal interests of each writer.