2. To interpret symbolism of womens writing so that it will not be lost or
ignored by the male point of view, 3.
To rediscover old texts, 4.
To analyze women writers and their writings from a female perspective, 5.
To resist sexism in literature, and 6.
To increase awareness of the sexual politics of language and style. In addition, the purposes of feminist criticism are to add our
knowledge about the experience of woman, her needs, and woman’s life, to analyze woman’s literary work, and to understand the fiction of female author,
int erpret and appraise it. So, feminist criticism reveals woman’s realm in many
aspects. From this criticism, the researcher knows about the ability and the role of woman in the social life. Thus, woman is able to show the same right
in the social with their own special quality.
3. History
Feminist literary criticism is one of literary studies that emerged as response of feminism development around the world. To understand the nature
of feminist literary criticism and its alternative approach to literature, we must first understand its long history. The history of feminist literary criticism
properly begins some forty or fifty years ago with the emergence of what is commonly termed second-wave feminism.
27
The term was usually given to the emergence of women’s movements in the United States and Europe during the
27
Gill Plain, A History of Feminist Literary Criticism, Ed. Gill Plain and Susan Sellers New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007, p. 6.
Civil Rights campaigns of the 1960s. Clearly, though, a feminist literary criticism did not emerge fully formed from this moment. Rather, its eventual
self conscious expression was the culmination of centuri es of women’s
writing, of women writing about women writing, and of women and men writing about women’s minds, bodies, art and ideas.
28
Feminist literary criticism is one of the major developments in literary studies in the past thirty years or so. The history has been broad and varied,
from classic works of nineteenth century women authors such as George Eliot and Margaret Fuller to cutting edge theoretical work in womens studies and
gender studies by third wave authors. In the most general and simple terms, feminist literary criticism before the 1970s in the first and second waves of
feminism was concerned with the politics of womens authorship and the representation of womens condition within literature.
29
Feminist literary criticism became a theoretical issue with the advent of the new womens movement initiated in the early 1960s. In fact, feminist
criticism started as part of the international womens liberation movement. The first major book of particular significance, in this respect, was Betty Friedans
The Feminine Mystique 1963 which contributed to the emergence of the new womens movement. In her book, Friedan criticized the dominant cultural
28
Ibid, p. 2.
29
Feminist Literary Criticism, Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, Accessed on March 14, 2009. Http:En.Wikipedia.OrgWikiFeminist_Literary_Criticism.
image of the successful and happy American woman as a housewife and mother.
30
Feminist literary criticism has been very successful especially in reclaiming the lost literary women and in documenting the sources. In this
respect, feminist criticism has successfully directed attention to the female intellectual tradition. Many early works on women writers before the 1960s
usually focus on the female literary tradition. Literary women, then, are forced to identify with men and male standards of writing, and yet they are, at the
same time, constantly reminded of being female writers.
4. Feminist Literary Criticism in the Middle East
