What is patriarchy in Feminist Criticism?
Feminist Theories of Patriarchy describes a general structure in which men have power over women. In a system in which men have more power than women, men have some level of privilege to which women are not entitled.
What is feminist criticism concerned with?
Feminist criticism is concerned with “the ways in which literature (and other cultural productions) reinforce or undermine the economic, political, social, and psychological oppression of women” (Tyson 83).
What are the criticisms of the feminist perspective?
Some critics argue that it focuses too much on the negative experiences of women, failing to recognise that some women can have happy marriages for example. 3. It tends to portray women as universally good and men as universally bad, It has been accused of man hating, not trusting all men.
What are the three phases of feminist criticism?
Elaine Showalter’s three phases of feminism: the “feminine” (women writers imitate men), the “feminist” (women advocated minority rights and protested), and the “female” (the focus is now on women’s texts as opposed to merely uncovering misogyny in men’s texts).
What is the opposite of patriarchy?
The word matriarchy, pronounced “MAY-tree-ar-kee,” derives from the Latin word mater, meaning “mother,” and archein, or “to rule.” A matriarchy is a social system is which women have more power in the community than men. The opposite of matriarchy is patriarchy, a system in which men are the ones holding the power.
Why is feminist criticism important?
By seeking to view women in a new perspective and discover women’s contributions to literary history, feminist criticism aims to reinterpret the old texts and establish the importance of women’s writing to save it from being lost or ignored in the male-dominated world.
What are the three main feminist approaches?
Feminist theories bear diverse labels such as liberal feminism, cultural feminism, radical feminism, women of color feminisms, lesbian feminism, global feminism, socialist feminism, postmodern feminism, and third wave feminism.
What is patriarchy in modern feminist thought?
The concept of patriarchy has been central to many feminist theories. It is an attempt to explain the stratification of power and privilege by gender that can be observed by many objective measures. A patriarchy, from the ancient Greek patriarches, was a society where power was held by and passed down through the elder males.
How does patriarchy affect women?
Patriarchy keeps those problems in place while denying they exist, and the increased difficulty women face as a result of decreased opportunities and wages throughout their lives limits their ability to fight against it.
What are some personal examples of patriarchy?
Another example of patriarchy is the last name that is given to a child . Children born to a couple traditionally have always been given the family name of the father, and never of the mother. Similarly, even when a man and woman get married, the woman is traditionally known to take on the family name of her husband and abandon her own family name.
What are the basic principles of feminism?
That being said, most feminist agree on five basic principles: Feminists believe in working to increase equality. Feminists also believe in expanding human choice, the idea that both men and women should be able to develop their human traits, even if those go against the status quo.
