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LDCL5031A - critcal theory - Helene Cixous Essay prep

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Module
Critical Theory (LDCL5031A)

Institution
University Of East Anglia

Gendered language and the constructive higherarchy of words lecture notes and Essay prep comparing Cixous and Freud.

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Uploaded on June 29, 2023
Number of pages 11
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gender
early feminism
second wave feminism
sex and gender
third wave feminism
fourth wave feminism
helene cixcous
sorties
cixcous and freud
deconstruction
andrea long chu
phallocentrism
essay
essay pr

Slides Notes
1  Last week, this week and next week> focus on theory and
Gender activism
 Feminism as a word didnt enter the OED 19th ce, when
reference of early lit text before then use the term 'proto-
feminism'
2  First wave (18th- early 20th centuries)
Early Feminism  Mary Wollstonecraft, a vindication of rights of
women (1792) - advocating for equal rights for
women.
 John Stuart Mill, 'The subjection of Women' (1862)
- a theorist of liberal economics - shows how
liberal philosophy maps onto original strain of
feminism.
 This is predominantly liberal feminism (cf Spivak's critique
of this) - a focus on equality of rights based on a liberal
philosophy of the freedom of the individual
 Effects change to the law (suffrage, property ownership,
education)
 Individuals should can in whatever way they can fulfil
themselves unless that harms another person (liberal
stance) - a particular model of freedom and rights but not
the only one , but most predominant in UK
 19th ce women didnt have the right to: vote, own
property (and children) and money ect...
 Over the course of 19th ce many battles were won: legal
battles
 1928, voting age equalised
 After 2nd world war > 2nd wave feminism > focus to
tackle more insidious forms of constraint: by ideology and
culture - even if they are not legally entwined- a fight for
social and structural equality
 How social and cultural forms operate as a tool of power

3  Second wave (mid 20th ce to 1980s)
Second Wave  Simone de Beauviour, the second sex (1949): 'one is not
feminism born woman, one becomes woman'.
 Focus on sex/gender distinctions and feminism as a
construction
 Women's studies emerges as a field - we see explorations
of the cultural ways in which gender stereotypes are
promulgated.
 Exploring all sorts of cultural forms to look at ways
ideology of gender gets passed on and how it affects us
and soc - e.g. How is lit working to pass down this

, ideology? The shaping and the construction of gender.
Introducing more female writers into cannon and focusing
how women are presented.

 Women's studies then gives rise to a number of - often
confliction - feminist theories - notably at this time 'Anglo-
American Feminism' (linked with Sandra Gilbert & Susan
Gubar, Elaine show alter, and focussing on
representations of women, and on female authorship)
and 'French Feminism' (linked with Helene Cixous, Julia
Kristiver, Luce Irigaray etc - and drawing more on
psychoanalysis and (post-)Saussurian Linguistics to think
about gender, how is gender construction passed on
through language both conscious and unconscious )

4 Definitions:
Sex & Gender - Sex:
an important  Male : Female
distinction in  Based on biological characteristics - in particular the presence of
c20th feminist a penis or vagina
theory, now  Note - that things are less simple than they appear -e.g in the
questioned by case of intersex people. And that feminist theorists such as Judith
some theorists Butler have pointed out that the forms of categorisation that
happen in biology are always mediated by culture. Biology is a
science practiced humans and thus a construct as the distinction
between gender and sex are hard to manage - trans-theory
reminds us that this is not as simple as is initially presented, we
attach importance to some organs more than others.

Gender:
 Masculine : Feminine
 The qualities that a culture associates with a particular sex
 So, the big labour second-wave feminists was to argue that there
was no natural connection between gender and sex.
 There is no rational reason why men should be strong and tough
and rational and women should be emotional and fragile and
dainty
5 Third wave (1990s to 2010s):
Third & Fourth  Queer theory (including the thinking of gender as performative -
Waves see Judith Butler, Gender Trouble (1990))
 Intersectionality (Kinmberle Willaims Crenshaw coined term in
1989) - note: of course that this emphasis, and exists in tandem
with the Black Rights Movement.
 Really puts stress between sex and gender and brings in
intersectionality > black feminism is acknowledged more by white

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