Feminism Definition of Terms

9 In this study, I use feminist criticism to support the critical approaches. Humm 1992 states feminist criticism gives more adequate attention to women writers, a space to the women critic, and space to the idea of women theorists. According to Humm, feminist criticism shares three basic assumptions. The first means that gender influences the writing style and the ideology of each gender can be seen from a literary work. The style shows the ideology of each gender. For this reason, feminist criticism needs to include general interpretations of the cultural theory or ideology of each individual writer p. 6-7. The second major assumption is that there are sex-related writing strategies. Men and women use language in different ways on writing their literary work. They use different vocabularies and different kinds of sentences p. 7-8. The last assumption is that even if some male critics acknowledge the first two criticism above, the continuing traditions of which it is a part, uses male norms to exclude or undervalue female writing and scholarship p.8. Feminist theory critics or feminist approaches attempt to explain how men and women imbalance, due to gender, are reflected in literature text. In its diversity, feminism is concerned with the position of women in a secondary position, where women do not gain equal position with men. According to Goodman in Literature and Gender, feminist literary criticism is an academic approach to the study of literature which applies feminist thought to the analysis of literary texts and the contexts of their production and reception. It has developed in recent years into a fascinating and highly specialized field with a 10 language, set of theories and a vocabulary all its own as cited in Setyorini, 2009 p.9

2. Feminism a. Feminism in general

Montagu 1958 says that in the society there is a conditioned norm, which states what women can do and cannot do. In almost every society there is a belief that men are superior and women are inferior, women also think that belief is right, because it believes as what really happens p.23. They are not given the chances to develop their intelligence and skills and they have different opportunities from men p.38. The statement means that women are conditioned as weak creatures . Women‟s position is always under men‟s position in every aspect of life. According to Montagu people believe that women do not have abilities to do the work better than men. Therefore, feminism believes that women and men‟s position in society is the result of social factors, not natural or biological factors. Feminism tries to see women to be equal to men. Feminism theory reveals the importance of women‟s individual and shares experiences and women struggles. Women struggle for equal opportunities and for equal rights. Women try to fight against unfair condition and strive for their rights p.40. Harley states men from one generation to the next generation exploit women. Gender discrimination is a great burden for women, because they have to face the idea of gender discrimination and men‟s attitude toward women, which is