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: a style, for instance, where women use more reflexive language and men use more direct language (example: " she let herself in" versus "he opened the door")
Reclaiming women writers who are little known or have been marginalized or undervalued, sometimes referred to as expanding or criticizing the canon—the usual list of "important" authors and works (Examples include raising up the contributions of early playwright ​ Aphra Behn and showing how she was treated differently than male writers from her own time forward, and the retrieval of Zora Neale Hurston 's writing by Alice Walker .) Reclaiming the "female voice" as a valuable contribution to literature, even if formerly marginalized or ignored
Analyzing multiple works in a genre as an overview of a feminist approach to that genre: for example, science fiction or detective fiction
Analyzing multiple works by a single author (often female)
Examining how relationships between men and women and those assuming male and female roles are depicted in the text, including power relations
Examining the text to find ways in which patriarchy is resisted or could have been resisted
Feminist literary criticism is distinguished from gynocriticism because feminist literary criticism may also analyze and deconstruct literary works of men. Gynocriticism
Gynocriticism, or gynocritics, refers to the literary study of women as writers. It is a critical practice exploring and recording female creativity. Gynocriticism attempts to understand women’s writing as a fundamental part of female reality. Some critics now use “gynocriticism” to refer to the practice and “gynocritics” to refer to the practitioners. American literary critic Elaine Showalter coined the term "gynocritics" in her 1979 essay “Towards a Feminist Poetics.” Unlike feminist literary criticism, which might analyze works by male authors from a feminist perspective, gynocriticism wanted to establish a literary tradition of women without incorporating male authors.