It is broadly acknowledged that feminism has been widely used in social and cultural science. For the scope of perception, feminism can be understood to be more than a theory; it can be defined as a way of life, an idea, a struggle and politics. However, it is not easy to come up with a refined definition of feminism since its meaning changes from time to depending on certain conditions and certain time. In the West, for example, feminism has been translated to mean a situation that is conditioned by what surrounds it, and the same has been perceived in the East. In an exemplary translation, feminism has been based upon cultural reality and the truth of history, in a level of action, perception and consciousness by the persons who have been through it. So, the term feminism as it was used during the 17^th century is not the same it was perceived in 1980s. Different perceptions were used in one type of feminism but in a different person (Claassen, 2012).

Same case applies to the type of feminism we can find in various opinions and arguments including the main cause of the problem, the patriarchal systems and the domination of men over the women. The so-called masculinity has been the precept of the patriarchal attitudes which have dominated the western thoughts on literature. These forms of criticism have resulted, consciously or unconsciously, in literature that have been dominated by unexamined ‘male produced’ assumptions. As such, the main focus of feminist critics is to examine how the authors in literature are perceived by the readers. Also, they investigate how the characters in literature as are condone or disallow the social source that have been laid down from history in an attempt to prevent male and female equality.. Female criticism can be traced back to its long history such as Aristotle declaration that the female was a female because she lacked certain qualities while Thomas Aquinas believed that a woman was an “imperfect man”. Feminist literary critics have also tried to examine how women are portrayed in plays and in dramas. For example in Shakespeare play, “Hamlet”, presented women in a patriarchal system that misrepresents and ignores how women feel, think and act. For example, Ophelia in that play is represented as a woman who comes from a family where women have to follow the strict authority of their fathers and accept suitors chosen by them. Ophelia experiences isolation, abuse and finally death due to the tragic fate of her life being controlled by her husband. Feminism has been used at a greater degree to shape the modern literature such as the study of the relations of power and the tragic events of women in King Lear and Macbeth plays (Shakespeare, 2012). Other patriarchal societies believed that a woman would only achieve social change by withholding sexual favors from men; as a result, the male intellect was seen as being godlike and superior to the women. The desire to put women closely connected to men had been discouraged among the patriarchal system. Therefore, they have been trying everything they can to enslave women’s minds including the male domination in literature work.

                                                       Feminist Literary Criticism                                                      

As feminist ideology would put it, the true identity of female literature has been articulated to their grievances in a language formed by the oppressors. Therefore, feminist literature critics consider the traditional literature canon as nothing more than a group of men that had access to publishing and reviewing a literary prosperity based on “cultural-bound political construct”. They were only interested in enforcing their views of “literature” and to form a group of ageless classics. After this profound illegitimacy of literary tradition, feminist critics have insisted upon revising the theoretical assumptions that have been based entirely on male literary experiences. Such was the view of the literary culture that was presented by Elaine Showalter, an English professor in Princeton University. She edited a collection of essays that detailed the possibilities for a “female aesthetic”, and in particular, critical models and female literary forms. Another issue that she addressed was the purpose of the feminist criticism in the academy of literary culture. While there is no firm agreement on what should be the true nature of “female aesthetic”, feminist critics have argued that the female obscurity has been as a result of the failure by the society to treat women as encodements of “women’s imaginative universe” (Plain & Sellers, 2007).

In another argument, the critics have denounced the traditional male formulation in an attempt to isolate the moment of defiance against the patriarchal system. The feminist challenge to the literary scope has been the limitation of “female aesthetics” (letters, poetry, diaries and journal), as the significant subjects of scholarly attention. In other words, the embodiment of the “female form” has been conceived only as recurrent delusion and a gender that can explore weaves of personal experiences in the wide range of meditations in literature. As such, the problem of the challenge of the relationship between ideological criticism and aesthetics has been a complicated one. French feminism critics have attempted to oppose the binary opposition of man-woman in the literature academy. They have argued that the logic behind the paradigms of male-female opposition can be overcome by invoking a reverse of values that have been placed on each component. Once the binary opposition is reversed, the next step would be to develop a new methodological form of the literary analysis, signifying equality among the work that has been produced by male and the female narratives. The French feminism on literature have also emphasized that the term dominance should not be used to relate to man. Instead, they have emphasized that for one to gain supremacy in literature, be it the male or the female, should be in the privileged position to create new values and meaning in relation to the society and culture (Claassen, 2012).

On the other hand, the modern critical theory states that reading a text with the aim of decoding it is a reductive act, and as a result, it imposes some limitations to the text. According to Claassen (2012), he explains that this is the literary criticism that the feminist critics should try to avoid so that they can claim a place in the theoretic field of literature. In other words, the modern critics have argued that for the feminism critics to generate new ways of reading literary texts, they must challenge the patriarchal tradition within their dominant discourses; participating in the same tradition. Besides, the modern critical theory has strongly neutralized the feminist critics’ agenda about the appreciation of women literature work by adding that they now form the majority scholars in great numbers of women studies. As a result, feminist critics cannot claim anymore that they work from the marginalized positions (Weis, 2011).

The objective of feminist literary criticism has been to respond towards how the society and culture provide opinions on the literary works manifested by the women narratives, especially how women are represented in male-authored text and the analysis of ways of all texts. Another purpose of the feminist literary criticism has to explore how racial, sexual, and class differences among women, have been examined by the previous models of gendered writing and reading. In the simplest term, feminist literary critics have been working to ensure equality between men and women in political, economical, social and cultural need of a woman through literature work (Donovan, 2015). The Feminist literary critics have had a positive impact on the way female literature has been perceived and received in the society and culture. Initially, the society viewed the female literature work based on political elements of art, such as the idea that feminist discredited their efforts through political urgency. Conversely, there has been increased power of the female perspectives in the society whereby innumerable books, journals and articles that have been published under women authors. The patriarchal system explored artist’s common humanity by racing their different cultures. Earlier cultural values promoted women ideals within the domestic realm; however, after the feminist literary criticism, it has result in women literary identity on important aspects such as politics, economics and social issues (Weis, 2011).

Conclusion

The term “male” and “female” can be studied as relation and as a differential process. As much as they relate to each other in the privileged value systems of narrative and literature, feminist literary criticism has played an important role in challenging the supremacy of the values and the concepts of the patriarchal system. As a result, today, the present critical theories of literature have revealed that there is no dominant narrative that can bind an individual narrator in any way. The diversified narratives have flourished the ideologies of femininity and female writing, as well as the male literary tradition.

References

Claassen, E. (2012). Author representations in literary reading. Amsterdam: John Benjamins

Publishing

Donovan, J.C. (2015). Feminist literary criticism: Explorations in theory. Lexington: University

Press of Kentucky

Plain, G., & Sellers, S. (2007). A history of feminist literary criticism. New York, NY:

Cambridge University Press

Shakespeare, W. (2012). Four great tragedies: Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, and Romeo and Juliet.

New York, NY: Courier Corporation

Weis, C.L. (2011). From margins to mainstream: Feminism and fictional modes in Italian

women’s writing, 1968-1990. New York, NY: University of Pennsylvania Press

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