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Feminist Criticism probes. Things we could discuss. Feminist criticism has its roots in a social and political movement, the women’s liberation movement, aimed at improving conditions for women.
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Things we could discuss • Feminist criticism has its roots in a social and political movement, the women’s liberation movement, aimed at improving conditions for women. • The diversity among definitions of feminism also characterizes the goals and objectives of feminists.
Waves of Feminism • First wave focused on security the right to vote for women. • Second wave is focused on achieving equality for women and the development of opportunities for women without the constraints of gender expectations. • Liberal feminists • Radical feminists • Marxist feminists • Lesbian feminists
Third wave—rejecting a universal definition of womanhood as middle class, white, heterosexual—is focused on unique personal experiences, circumstances, and contexts as mechanisms for constructing an agenda of feminist activism. Power feminism attempts to empower women rather than portray them as victims.
Contributions to scholarship • Feminism presents argument that feminism transforms rhetorical constructs and theories. • Feminism has begun to explore the contributions of women rhetoric, gendered speaking styles, and diverse forms of expression, rhetors, & contexts. • Feminism has encouraged studies of movements of particular interest to women.
Feminist scholars recognized that incorporating feminist perspectives into rhetorical studies could do nothing less than transform the discipline, a process whereby “scholars question their presuppositions, replace them as appropriate, and create new conceptualizations that incorporate women’s perspectives.”
Feminist criticism • Feminist criticism is the analysis of rhetoric to discover how the rhetorical construction of gender is used as a means for domination and a and how that process can be challenged so that all people understand that they have the capacity to claim agency and act in the world as they choose.
Analyzing the artifact: two steps • Analysis of the construct of gender—or whatever aspect of identity is your focus—in the artifact studied • Exploration of what the artifact suggests about how the ideology of domination is constructed and maintained or how it can be challenged and transformed.
