Women’s Writing and Feminisms: an Introduction

In the West, the notion of an opposition between the sexes dates back to ancient Greek
philosophy. Aristotle, for instance, believed that nature always aimed at perfection, but
proceeded to argue that a woman was merely an inferior, incomplete version of man, who was
presented as the ideal enactment of nature’s objective. In equally misogynistic terms,
as we now perceive, the archetypal first woman in Hebrew religious texts was tempted by an
evil serpent and together they bring about the downfall of humanity and expulsion from
Paradise. Yet even these well-known narratives are open to challenge. The Greek poet Sappho,
for instance, celebrated love between women; similarly, religious texts also featured strong or
idealized depictions of women. Although the documents of women’s oppression
historically exceed the literature on liberation, the balance in our own times is beginning to
shift.

Since the 1970s a wide range of feminist writers have made a significant contribution to
scholarship by uncovering the lost histories of real women as well as revealing the subversive
zone occupied by women’s imagined reconstructions of reality. Another aspect of the
critical project has been to reveal the complex operation of patriarchy, or to recover dissident
readings lurking within traditional texts. In these terms, the literary canon has been challenged,
both from with, and from the outside – from the position of exclusion, silence, and oppression.
Although feminists share many ideas in common, regarding the role of power, for instance, the
diversity of current work calls for the notion of feminisms, rather than a single system-driven
ideology. In this regard, feminist scholarship and cultural production both reveals the dominant
gender binary, while simultaneously deconstructing the shifting boundaries.

Historically, the dominant role of patriarchy was generally evident until the close of the
nineteenth century. Nonetheless, there are numerous examples of challenges to the ruling
gender divisions that disempowered women. Writing offered opportunities to explore the
injustice and cruelty endured by women, but it was also a space to imagine a different kind of
society in which women’s lives might be improved, and men’s dominant role(s)
contested. In the eighteenth century, novelists, poets, playwrights, and other social
commentators and political writers were beginning to suggest that the two sexes were
complementary rather than opposition. Ironically, women’s roles were increasingly
celebrated in the same moment that more rigid notions of what was deemed appropriate
behaviour were adopted: women were adoring mothers, caring wives, and domestic angels;
those who fell short of this ideal were to be despised as whores. In contrast, men occupied the
public sphere and enjoyed both economic independence and commodified ownership of their
wives. Curiously, men often enjoyed other women in extra-marital affairs; such was the
hypocritical double-standard of Victorian patriarchy.
 Nonetheless, a key development for women’s liberation was the notion of the
rights of the individual, which had found revolutionary and radical expression at the end of
the
eighteenth century, most famously in works such as Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of
the
Rights of Woman (1792). But the political movement for the political enfranchisement of
women was still more than a century away. Yet the suffragettes, who campaigned for
women’s right to vote, were crucial in the establishing the earliest modern use of the
word ‘feminism’ to express women’s aspirations and the advocacy of their political,
economic and social rights.
Earliest evidence of the use of the word ‘feminism’ was sneering and pejorative: in 1897,
for instance, Athenæum noted that ‘coquettings with the doctrines of “feminism” are traced
with real humour.’ Similarly, in 1897, The Daily News ‘alluded […] somewhat disparagingly,
to that
phase of feminism which is so curious a feature of the present day.’ In 1909, The Daily
Chronicle
was still bemoaning, ‘Suffragists, suffragettes, and all the other phases in the crescendo of
feminism.’ Nonetheless, a more ironic and defensive counter-voice is noted in the example
from Clarion (1913), in which R. West confessed: ‘I myself have never been able to find
out precisely what Feminism is: I only know that people call me a Feminist whenever I express
sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.’ For many English-
speaking
writers, Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) was an influential and inspiring writer; the extended essay
entitled A Room of One's Own (1929) is widely cited still as an example of early feminist cultural
ideas. Moreover, it is worth noting that there were many other female modernists who are not
as well known today as T.S. Eliot, D.H. Lawrence, or James Joyce: Djuna Barnes (1892–1982);
Kate Chopin (1851–1904); H.D. (1886–1961); Radclyffe Hall (1880-1943); Amy Lowell (1874–
1925); Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950); Marianne Moore (1887-1972); Katherine Mansfield
(1888-1923); Dorothy Richardson (1873-1957); Edith Sitwell (1887–1964); Gertrude Stein (1874-
1946), and Edith Wharton (1862–1937). Many modernist writers still remain undiscovered, and
many more deserve to have a more vivid presence and deserve to be better appreciated in
terms of their creative and critical contribution to modern and postmodern global culture.

Whether the starting point for readers is literary and cultural studies, critical theory, or
the canon of literary writings and its traditions, the agendas that have now been asserted by
feminist theories and explored in women’s writings, cannot now be silenced or excluded.
Yet we still inhabit a world in which the reality for many women is that they remain second-
class citizens and many women suffer terrible violence and injustice. Therefore, there is still a
pressing and urgent need to publish new scholarly critical work, which will help men and
women to reconsider their past gender identities, and equally significant, to reconsider their
futures. Karl Marx’s notion that those who do not know their history are condemned to
repeat
its mistakes is a timeless reminder of a need for heightened awareness of our historic roles and
our options for future transformation. Women’s writings are a key component in that project.
 In theoretical terms, feminist thought can be understood from several critical agendas.
We have noted the historical significance of political rights. Moreover, feminist thinking has
both contributed to, and served as a critical function within several major schools of theory:
Marxist and (New) Historicist; postcolonial; psychoanalytic. The examination of how gender
differences function through language (‘discourse’) has also been highly significant in the
development of a critique of ‘man-made’ or ‘centred’ language. Indeed, French critics
and feminist philosophers such as Kristeva, Irigaray, and Cixous have examined the
distinctive
features of women’s writing as a challenge to phallogocentrism. Écriture féminine has
emerged as the key term that celebrates and explores the qualities at work in women’s
writing which are produced by the female body and by female difference. Writers such as
Hélène Cixous, Monique Wittig, Luce Irigaray, Chantal Chawaf and Julia Kristeva have been
influential in the interrogation of language as a male domain, and in offering a creative and
critical challenge to the dominant discourse. Admittedly, the work of poststructuralist feminism
has taken many different directions, with different results, and continuing controversy about its
use and effectiveness for the emancipation of women. The starting point has been the
assertion that women’s sexual pleasure has been denied; that deployment of language by
men is oppressive; that jouissance, play, metamorphic mobility and transgression should be
adopted as techniques and strategies for liberation from the patriarchal order. While the
slogans and rhetoric are often exhilarating, and the refusal of logic, order and reason is
enigmatic and engaging, it does not seem unfair to ask whether the project has enhanced
the quality of women’s lives or brought about a revolution of consciousness? In the past,
theoretical gymnastics has sometimes obscured more practical political, social and cultural
applications of the creative work.

While many feminists in the 1970s identified with a socialistic outlook, shades of
plurality and diversity became more apparent in the 1980s which saw the emergence (and
recovery) of black feminist approaches, and writings by ‘women of colour’. However, some
feminists chose radical separatist perspectives, and some moved in the direction of political
lesbianism. Nowadays, individual feminists are less restricted by ideological categories and
exclusions: the emphasis has shifted to dialogues and common interests. The perceived hostility
to all men has also waned, as The Guardian newspaper commented recently, ‘Nowadays,
saying bad stuff about men is not how feminism conducts itself.’ (15 Jan 2011) The
notion that men also need to read women’s writings and to reconsider their roles
appears to be a significant new challenge which has begun to emerge, and to find expression in
the field of gender studies. Moreover, the radical queer notion, building perhaps on
deconstruction, suggests that all identities are unstable and metamorphic. Given the diversity
and openness of current debates, a policy of democratic inclusion is a judicious and perceptive
move that must be informed by the conversational engagements and collaborative projects of
contemporary feminist theories
and creative practices. Feminism, and women’s writing still comes across as a fierce and
urgent project, but it is one that is engaged rather than exclusionary.

Clearly, women’s writing continues to occupy an important place for more reasons
than one. It projects the responses of more than half of humanity and reflects a consciousness
constructed by gender. Women’s writing has questioned the existing viewpoints which
are essentially patriarchal. All women’s writing need not necessarily be feminist. But
feminist interpretations can also emerge through absence and negation. The women authors
symbolize the troubled self of a woman who rejects being contained by the society. She
subverts the subjection and the feminine identity imposed by patriarchy. Furthermore,
colonialism and the concept of patriarchy are inseparable in feminist discourse as it
emphasizes a relationship of inequality and injustice. In the patriarchal societies, be it India or
Africa, women are subjected to male subjugation and suppression. Female oppression is
deeply rooted in the structure of the different societies.

Black women face a double jeopardy, a special cruelty of being at one and the same
time the victims of one’s race and of one’s sex. The emergence of writers such as Toni
Morrison, Maya Angelou, Alice Walker and Gloria Naylor in the post-civil rights era has made it
quite apparent that the African American women would no longer be content remaining
marginalized; they have challenged stereotypical assumptions pertaining to the colour
question. The last four decades have witnessed the publication of some of the most
fundamental works by African American women. By the 1980s, black women writers had
established their own traditions. Now they continue to move out of oblivion. These writers
examine individuality and personal relationships as a means to comprehending complicated
social issues while writing from the perspectives of being black and women. They are, thus, in
the best position to write on institutionalized racism and sexism. Though their writing expresses
both sorrow and anger, a sense of optimism about human possibilities is also found.

Women authors are committed to produce a positive existence for their female
characters; often they dismantle patriarchal structures that previously relegated women to
subordinate roles. Their female characters are strong-willed, determined, assertive,
independent and enterprising. In delineating the experiences of women as women they explore
their most personal convictions thereby presenting their perception of issues as women. They
are committed to social justice, to the exposition of suffering and dehumanization that result
from ethnic prejudice and superstition. They forge a voice for the voiceless by advocating
gender equity as a basis for development.

I. D. McCormick, M.A, Ph.D.

Dr Ian McCormick served as a Professor at the University of Northampton. He holds degrees
from the University of St Andrews (M.A.) and the University of Leeds (Ph.D). His work has been
featured on the BBC (Radio and TV); in the Times Literary Supplement, The Observer, The
Guardian, TimeOut (London), and academic journals. Dr McCormick’s PhD was in the field of
English literature and cultural history in the eighteenth century. He has also published and
edited books on gothic literature and romanticism; John Dryden and T.S. Eliot; sexuality and
gender studies; modern literature; the contemporary Scottish novel; teaching and learning
strategies; drama education; literary/critical/cultural theory. Awards and Prizes include: the
King James VI Prize (1989); the Lawson Memorial Prize (1985); British Academy Major State
Research Studentship (1990-93). Dr McCormick is currently working on a book about
Shakespearean tragedy. At present he works as an academic tutor and writer. Most recent
book-length publications include 11+ English (2015), and The Art of Connection: the Social Life
of Sentences (2014), and a chapter in Sex and Death in Eighteenth-century Literature
(Routledge, 2013).