Title: Feminist Approaches to Literature | Great Writers Inspire
Headings: Feminist Approaches to Literature
Feminist Approaches to Literature
The Traditions of Feminist Criticism
Depictions of Women by Men
Rise of the Woman Writer
Women Writers and Class
Also see sections on the following writers:

Content: First wave feminist criticism includes books like Marry Ellman's Thinking About Women (1968) Kate Millet's Sexual Politics (1969), and Germaine Greer's The Female Eunuch (1970). An example of first wave feminist literary analysis would be a critique of William Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew for Petruchio's abuse of Katherina. Second Wave Feminism: Gynocriticism
Elaine Showalter pioneered gynocriticism with her book A Literature of Their Own (1977). Gynocriticism involves three major aspects. The first is the examination of female writers and their place in literary history. The second is the consideration of the treatment of female characters in books by both male and female writers. The third and most important aspect of gynocriticism is the discovery and exploration of a canon of literature written by women; gynocriticism seeks to appropriate a female literary tradition. In Showalter's A Literature of Their Own, she proposes the following three phases of women's writing: