The woman’s movement of the 1970s led to an awareness of a new feminist criticism. General histories of the social or intellectual life of women, such as Clio’s Consciousness Raised, Perish the Thought and The Feminization of American Culture, include references to literary life as one of the few avenues open to women. The avenues open to women, however, were as writers, not ordinarily as critics of works written by men. Nonetheless, seeds planted in these works gave rise to a growing number of articles and full-length books of feminist criticism.
Although there is still some doubt, even from a few feminist critics, that there is anything resembling a fully-formed feminist critical theory, there appears to be as much commonality in approach among feminists as there is within some other theoretical groups. Like reader-response criticism, feminist criticism began during the social unrest of the 1960s and grew prominent in the 1970s. Some major early works were in direct response to questions of female graduate students who resisted the New Criticism’s exclusion of women writers and female consciousness in the accepted literary canon. The identification with women writers and the work of those writers, along with a sense of repression, trivialization, and misinterpretation of female texts, led to new studies of the images of women in literary works and, consequently, a feminist revision of the literary canon itself.
These early feminist critics set out to demonstrate that the male experience as reader, writer, and critic is different from, and sometimes alien to, the female experience. They pointed out that the experiences female critics bring to a work are different from those of male critics and that critical language itself, although assumed to be objective, was, in fact, masculine. They also believed that female works were not just lost, but were deliberately suppressed by male critics who had previously convinced women that their interest in these texts was a sign of immature tastes. Armed with the work of female psychologists such as Carol Gillian, feminists practiced criticism as political action, that is, they set out to reinterpret the literary world and change that world by changing the consciousness of those who read. Much of feminist criticism has focused on either biographical criticism of rediscovering female authors or on the establishment of an alternative historical criticism that ties literary events to feminist social concerns as well as to male ones. In these new versions of literary history, the suffrage movement may be as important to literary consciousness as was industrialization or a world war.
Feminist literary criticism should be of particular concern to those who work with youth literature because this is a form of literature through which predominately female authors, editors, teachers, librarians, and parents share cultural values with young readers. Thus, youth literature is often excluded from the canon as a literature created by one marginalized group for another. In spite of female dominance in the field, most texts deemed worthy of study have been written by men. In 1982, the Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, looked at children’s literature from the perspective of feminist criticism, but there is much work yet to be done. One might, for instance, investigate whether female authors of children’s books present different views of sex roles and family life than those of their male counterparts, although many aspects of gender theory have now been rejected by feminist critics. New authors and characters in fantasy and science fiction stimulate an interest in and need for new studies of the female hero in these genre. Since politicalization is an integral part of feminist criticism, perhaps a feminist approach offers a means to examine the socio-political aspects of the writings of both historical and contemporary authors.
Selected List of Feminist Scholarship and Literary Criticism Applicable to Youth Literature
Barbieri, Maureen. Sounds from the Heart: Learning to Listen to Girls. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1995.
Bartkowski, Frances. Feminist Utopias. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1989.
Baym, Nina. Feminism and American Literary History: Essays. New Brunwsick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1992.
Belenky, Mary and others. Women’s Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice, and Mind. New York: Basic Books, 1086.
Bell-Scott, Patricia et al., eds. Double-Stitch: Black Women Write about Mothers and Daughters. Boston: Beacon Press, 1991.
Belsey, Catherine and Jane Moore, eds. The Feminist Reader: Essays in Gender and the Politics of Literary Criticism. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1989.
Benstock, Shari, ed. Feminist Issues in Literary Scholarship. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1987.
Christian, Barbara. Black Feminist Criticism: Perspectives on Black Women Writers. New York: Pergamon Press, 1985.
Cooper, Helen M. Arms and the Woman : War, Gender, and Literary Representation. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1990.
Cranny-Francis, Anne. Feminist Fiction. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990.
Davies, Catherine, Editor. Latin American Women’s Writing : Feminist Readings in Theory and Crisis (Oxford Hispanic Studies). New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Donovan, Kathleen M., Editor. Feminist Readings of Native American Literature : Coming to Voice. University of Arizona Press, 1998.
Duncker, Patricia. Sisters and Strangers: An Introduction to Contemporary Feminist Fiction. Oxford, England: Blackwell, 1992.
Eagleton, Mary, ed. Feminist Literary Criticism. White Plains, NY: Longman, 1991.
Fine, Michelle. Disruptive Voices: The Possibilities of Feminist Research. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1992.
Foster, Shirley and Judy Simons. What Katy Read : Feminist Re-Readings of ‘Classic’ Stories for Girls. University of Iowa Press, 1995.
Fuss, Diana. Essentially Speaking: Feminism, Nature & Difference. New York: Routledge, 1990.
Gates, Jr., Henry Louis, ed. Reading Black, Reading Feminist: A Critical Anthology. New York: Meridian, 1990.
Greene, Gayle and Coppelia Kahn, eds. Making a Difference: Feminist Literary Criticism. London: Methuen, 1985.
Hancock, Emily. The Girl Within. New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1989.
Heilbrun, Carolyn. Writing a Woman’s Life. New York: Ballatnine, 1988.
Heilbrun, Carolyn and Margaret Higonnet, eds. The Representation of Women in Fiction. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983.
Heinemann, Sue. Timelines of American Women’s History. New York: Roundtable Press/Perigee Book, 1996.
Hite, Molly: The Other Side of the Story: Structures and Strategies of Contemporary Feminist Narratives. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989.
Holbrook, David. Images of Women in Literature. New York: New York University Press, 1989.
Holloway, Karla. Moorings and Metaphors: Figures of Culture and Gender in Black Women’s Literature. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1992.
hooks, bell. Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism. Boston: south End Press, 1981.
hooks, bell. Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black. Boston: South End Press, 1989.
hooks, bell. Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics. Boston: South End Press, 1990.
hooks, bell. A Woman’s Mourning Song. New York: Harlem River Press, 1993.
hooks, bell. Teaching To Transgress: Education As the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge Press, 1994.
Jacobus, Mary. Reading Woman: Essays in Feminist Criticism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986.
Juhasz, Suzanne. Reading from the Heart. New York: Viking, 1994.
Kauffman, Linda, ed. American Feminist Thought at Century’s End: A Reader. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1993.
Kristeva, Julia. Language the Unknown. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989.
Lefanu, Sarah. Feminism and Science Fiction. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1989.
Lorde, Audre. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press, 1984.
McCobbie, Angela. Feminism and Youth Culture: From ‘Jackie’ to ‘Just Seventeen.’ Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1991.
Meese, Elizabeth. Crossing the Double-Cross: The Practice of Feminist Criticism. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1986.
Miller, Nancy K., ed. The Poetics of Gender. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986.
Minoque, Sally, ed. Problems for Feminist Criticism. New York: Routledge, 1990.
Mora, Gabriela and Karen Van Hooft, eds. Theory and Practice of Feminist Literary Criticism. Ypsilanti, MI: Bilingual Press, 1982.
Murdock, Maureen. The Heroine’s Journey. Boston: Shambhala, 1990.
Palmer, Paulina. Contemporary Women’s Fiction: Narrative Practice and Feminist Theory. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1989.
Pearce, Lynne. Feminism and the Politics of Reading. Edward Arnold, 1997. Pipher, Mary. Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls.New York: Putnam, 1994.
Prins, Yopie and Maeera Shreiber, Editors. Dwelling in Possibility : Women Poets and Critics on Poetry (Reading Women Writing) Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997.
Rabine, Leslie. Reading the Romantic Heroine: Text, History, Ideology. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1985.
Radway, Janice. Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1984.
Ruthven, K. K. Feminist Literary Studies: An Introduction. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1984.
Showalter, Elaine, ed. The New Feminist Criticism: Essays on Women, Literature and Theory. New York: Pantheon Books, 1985.
Showalter, Elaine, ed. Speaking of Gender. New York: Routledge, 1989.
Stimpson, Catharine. Where the Meanings Are: Feminism and Cultural Spaces. New York: Routledge, 1989.
Trimmer, Joseph and Tilly Warnock, eds. Understanding Others: Cultural and Cross-Cultural Studies and the Teaching of Literature. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1992.
Vandergrift, Kay E. “A Feminist Research Agenda in Youth Literature,” Wilson Library Bulletin. Vol. 68, #2 (October 1993): 22-27.
Vandergrift, Kay E., ed. Ways of Knowing: Literature and the Intellectual Life of Children. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1996.
Vandergrift, Kay E., ed. Mosaics of Meaning: Enhancing the Intellectual Life of Young Adults Through Story. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1996.
Walker, Alice. In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984.
Wallace, Michele. Invisibility Blues: From Pop to Theory. London: Verso Press, 1990.
Warhol, Robyn and Diane Price Herndl, eds. Feminisms: An Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1991.
Weedon, Chris. Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1987.
Whelehan, Imelda. Modern Feminist Thought. New York: New York University Press, 1995.
