Unseen links

Women in literature - paper 2 - unseen links

First wave feminism

• Late 19th - early 20th century

• Focused on legal rights, primarily women’s suffrage and property rights.

Second wave feminism

• 1960s - 1980s

• Broadened the scope to social and economic equality.

• Workplace equality, reproductive rights, sexual liberation.

• Beginning to challenge traditional household roles.

Third wave feminism

• 1990s - early 2010s

• Intersectionality → gender is linked to race, class, sexuality.

• Challenged second wave’s focus on white, middle-class women.

Fourth wave feminism (?)

• 2010s - present

• Reliance on digital media → debated whether it actually exists or is just using social media for third wave.

• #MeToo movement.

• Emphasises accountability for gender-based violence.

Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier

• First wave feminism.

• Female protagonist is unnamed - lack of identity.

• Theme of second attachments.

• Rebecca is portrayed as two-faced - women are duplicitous and sexually promiscuous.

• Young women are reliant on marriage as a means of survival.

The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

• Second wave feminism.

• A Handmaid’s duty is to procreate.

• The only options for women are to: keep order in the house, procreate, cook and clean.

• The colour red.

• “Two-legged wombs”

The Canterbury Tales: The Wife of Bath - Geoffrey Chaucer

• Pre waves of feminism.

• Subversion of traditional gender roles.

• Marriage is transactional and not about love.

• Remarriage (five husbands!).

• Female agency and sexuality.

Paradise Lost - John Milton

• The fall of humanity.

• Gender roles in relation to religion and punishment.

• Subordination and weaknesses of women.

• Female intellectual autonomy and curiosity subverts stereotypes.

Persuasion - Jane Austen

• Pre waves of feminism.

• Tension between duty to others and loyalty to oneself.

• Rejection of gendered expectations.

• Female resilience and virtue.

• Female reputation - link with age and status.

Frankenstein - Mary Shelley

• Women are defined by their relation to men.

• Victims of patriarchy and domesticity.

• Sacrificial lambs in a male-driven narrative.

• Women lack direct voices in the narrative.

• Maternal/creator role is attributed to a man.

Little women - Louisa May Alcott

• First wave feminism.

• Struggle of balancing individual desires (Jo’s writing) with domestic duties.

• Support of family/sisterhood provides respite for women.

• Highlights the need for women to have freedom of determining their own future.

The Yellow Wallpaper - Charlotte Perkins Gilman

• First wave feminism.

• Patriarchal control leads to domestic subjugation.

• The ‘rest cure’ and misdiagnosis of female mental health issues.

• Suppression of self-expression/intellectual stimulation (e.g. writing).

• Stereotypical gender roles.

Mrs Dalloway - Virginia Woolf

• First wave feminism but a precursor to the ideas of second wave.

• Women are defined by marital status - title.

• Conforming to rigid social conventions means rejecting inner emotions and wants.

• Feminised, dismissed domestic sphere.

• Rejects true desire (feelings for Sally, in favour of a secure heterosexual marriage).

Tender is the Night - F Scott Fitzgerald

• First wave feminism (arguably anticipated second wave).

• Femininity as a constructed role/performance.

• Women stifle male development.

• Attractiveness of youth.

The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

• Second wave feminism.

• Narrow definitions of femininity entrap women.

• Smith - ‘lesbian panic’ plot.

Orlando - Virginia Woolf

• First wave feminism.

• Published in the same year that women got the right to vote.

• Anticipates future conversations surrounding gender identity.

Jamaica Inn - Daphne du Maurier

• First wave feminism.

• Physical and psychological abuse of vulnerable women.

• Female agency vs patriarchal power.

• Aunt Patience represents submissiveness and victimhood.

Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit - Jeanette Winterson

• Second wave feminism.

• Journey of selfhood/coming of age.

• Defying traditional concepts of gender as binary.

• Influence of religion on relationships.