Elaine Showalter, in Towards a Feminist Poetics, discusses two major approaches to feminist literary criticism:
The Feminist Critique – This approach examines literature from a feminist perspective, analyzing how women are represented in texts written by men. It is concerned with misogyny, stereotypes, and the ways patriarchal ideologies shape literary traditions. This method is often aligned with political activism and focuses on exposing gender biases in literature.
Gynocriticism – This approach focuses on literature written by women, studying its themes, styles, genres, and the unique aspects of female literary tradition. Gynocriticism seeks to understand women’s experiences, creativity, and the development of a distinct female literary voice. Showalter argues that instead of just reacting to male-dominated literature, feminist criticism should create a framework for studying women’s writing on its own terms.
