Hello! This blog is assigned by Dr. Dilip Barad sir. It deals with various literary theories like Feminism, queer study, eco-criticism, and Marxism. This blog deals with Feminism, other blogs which deal with other theories are hyperlinked in the end.
Feminist criticism
What is feminism? It is an advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of the equality of the sexes. Equality on political, social, personal and economic grounds. The fight for feminism is not for having more value than men/ male gender in society but for having equal value in society. Feminism emerged as a socio-political movement before a literary movement.
Feminism is seen in waves. The first 19th and early 20th centuries comprised women's suffrage movements of the 19th and early 20th centuries, promoting women's right to vote. The second wave Mid-20th century, the women’s liberation movement, began in the 1960s and campaigned for legal and social equality for women. In or around 1992, a third wave Late 20th and early 21st centuries was identified, characterized by a focus on individuality and diversity. Additionally, some have argued for the existence of a fourth wave, starting around 2012, which has used social media to combat sexual harassments, violence against women and rape culture, and it is best known for the me too movement.
Feminism as a socio-political movement inspired literature to look for the women in itself. The books that played an important role in bringing and looking for feminism in literature are-
Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792),
John Stuart Mill’s The Subjection of Women (1869), and
The American Margaret Fuller’s Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845).
The very important precursor of feminism in literature is Virginia Woolf, who, in addition to her fiction, wrote A Room of One’s Own (1929) and numerous other essays on women authors and on the cultural, economic, and educational disabilities within what she called a “patriarchal” society, dominated by men, that have hindered or prevented women from realizing their productive and creative possibilities. Other important writers in this field are Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949), Mary Elman's Thinking about Women (1968), and Kate Millett’s Sexual Politics.
There is a long detailed Wikipedia page on this theory. CLICK HERE
The question also arises about the fundamental concerns in feminism. (M.H. Abrams)
The basic view is that Western civilization is pervasively patriarchal
It is widely held that while one’s sex as a man or woman is determined by anatomy, the prevailing concepts of gender
The further claim is that this patriarchal (or “masculinist,” or “androcentric”) ideology pervades those writings that have been traditionally considered great literature gynocritics—that is, a criticism that concerns itself with developing a specifically female framework for dealing with works written by women, in all aspects of their production, motivation, analysis, and interpretation, and in all literary forms, including journals and letters.
One concern of gynocritics is to identify distinctively feminine subject matters in literature written by women—the world of domesticity, for example, or the special experiences of gestation, giving birth, and nurturing, or mother-daughter and woman-woman relations—in which personal and affectional issues, and not external activism, are the primary interest.
Another concern is to uncover in literary history a female tradition, incorporated in subcommunities of women writers who were aware of, emulated, and found support in earlier women writers, and who in turn provide models and emotional support to their own readers and successors.
A third undertaking is to show that there is a distinctive feminine mode of experience, or “subjectivity,” in thinking, feeling, valuing, and perceiving oneself and the outer world. Related to this is the attempt (thus far, without much agreement about details) to specify the traits of a “woman’s language,” or distinctively feminine style of speech and writing, in sentence structure, types of relations between the elements of discourse, and characteristic figures of speech and imagery.
Often we realize or get questioned that this is only a patriarchal society that is trying to pull the leg of the female society. And we see no, women are majorly not even supported by women. For a glance if we just take an example of our TV shows/ Television series where women are always planning and plotting against other women. We rarely find women supporting women. Television plays an important role in shaping society.
Patriarchy is not only male society dominating women or females but it has turned to be an ideology. We see the old-age women are the agency of patriarchy. In the family grandmother or in movies the old character will always give morals on how women should and take care of the family. Women are created to take care of male society. Adichie Ngozi in her speech on feminism said- we/ society always try to create a boy hard/ tough man which gives them a fragile ego and we train girls to cater to that ego and shrink them.
Religion has always tried to tie women. Religion gave an idea of women doing fast for their family and children. It gives stories where women are doing only household work. बेटी तो पराया धन होती है। is a strong concern from religion. It plays an important role in shaping women as Indian ideal wife material. Still today we see that women are more in to follow the religious path, in spite it forcing them to shrink. One of the examples is Zaira Wasim. She played a role in the Bollywood movie Dangal in a young age but suddenly later she dropped Bollywood and went close to her religion, the Islamic religion. For walking on the path of religion she dropped her whole career despite being a talented actress. Here is her FB post. A recent example of how women can't grow. The whole society in one or another way traps and stops, it becomes necessary to come out of all this construction.
When we read literature, we connect ourselves in it. We find ourselves in that that suggests closely the relation of novels in our everyday ;life. Today the world is digitizing. Cinema is taking the place of literature and stories. Cinema plays an important role as a mirror of society and it also shapes society. As we discussed above women, and aged women like grandmothers/ aged women are the agencies of patriarchy. Women try to tie their daughters or daughters-in-law in the frame of ideal women.
The bollywood movie Thappad directed by Anubhav Sinha is a movie in which a woman fights back and stands for herself only for one slap and asks for a divorce. In this mainstream story, we also see minor stories of a maid and a lawyer. Protagonist Amruta has a point about how her husband cannot slap her in any situation. During the emotional and mental breakdown of Amruta, we find her mother and mother-in-law saying
बस यही सुनना बाकी रह गया था कि बेटी डीवोर्स करेगी|
जाने दे बेटा, थोड़ा बर्दाश्त करना सीखना चाहिए औरतों को.”
This is an example of how women shape women in order to cater male ego, how women are the agency of patriarchy.
Women are always permitted. They don’t have to do anything without permission. We find many people who think they are superior for letting women grow, work and earn. They boast that they are open minded to let their daughter- in- law work and earn. Such characters are represented in various Bollywood movies also. Here is Rahul Bose and Manav in Dil Dhadakne do (2015) directed by Zoya Akhtar.
Pink is a 2016 Bollywood movie directed by Aniruddhsinh Chowdhary. A patriarchal male-dominated mindset is represented in a movie by the character of Rajveer Singh. How the minds of men are conditioned. They feel their rights of women and how women are expected to shrink themselves to safeguard their dignity and chastity is aptly shown in these women.
In the contemporary period, we feel we are growing. Women are getting their places, they are having their domination. But if one woman is earning and free or independent doesn't mean everyone is. Till every woman or majority of don't get their place, independence we can never say that women are not under control anymore. One TVC telecom tried to show a woman out of her traditional conventional work, in a way to show progress
But here in this TVC, we see that the ad fails to show women's progress. Even after she is the boss in the office. She has to cook food for her husband after office work and invites her husband for food. Despite being a boss. This in a way reflects the mindset of the society which boasts about letting their wife and daughter- in law work. Society is trying to show off its ‘independent mindset’.
Moving towards feminist criticism is locating women in the literature. The issues they face in society and how they lose their identity. Today we are living in the 21st century but still, the most loved Bollywood movies are movies in which heroines feel themselves complete after the hero enters their life.
These are a few examples of movies where female protagonists are independent and bold but they feel complete in their life when they find a man in their life.
Here is also a meme of Anjali of Kuch Kuch hota hai. She was an independent blog sports girl but wasn't loved by Rahul. In the second part of the movie, she is an ideal wife material. Girl with long hair and so-called beauty and Rahul falls in love with her. This is a real cringe. Bollywood gives a frame of what type of girls are loved and to boys, whom to love.
Recently the #wokyaboli is also trending by BBC News. One must check out it on the Instagram page of BBC news and on Twitter also.
We must not forget that feminism is for equal rights. Women are physically and biologically not as strong and hard as men adding to it they have soft and emotional conditioning of mind. And to have equality firstly equity is necessary in society. Slowly and steadily ideologies will change and the world will change. This change cannot be brought in a day or year.
Looking over contemporary times we realize even today society is not ready to accept girl’s freedom. They are not ready to give part of their property to their daughters if they don't follow them. દીકરી ને ગાય દોરે ત્યાં જાય. Girls are expected to follow and not to question.
I hope this blog is useful. Thanks for visiting.
