ARGUMENT
Robert Boyers
A CASE AGAINST FEMINIST CRITICISM
A large number of literary women in the academy have lately
turned to the writing of feminist criticism, clearly conceived as a tool of the
larger movement which addresses itself to the condition and experience of
women in every corner of the culture. Feminism proposes to "raise con–
sciousness," alter outworn identity-images, and enlarge the range of life
choices available to women. Feminist criticism proposes to enhance the
prospect for these changes by demonstrating new ways in which to approach
a literary or film text.
It
is nothing so simple as persistent concern
fOf
the
lives ofwomen characters that feminist critics urge upon their constituencies
-all sorts of conventional critics in this century have focussed upon the
plight of women in books without in any sense contriving to produce a femi–
nist criticism. What distinguishes ordinary books and articles about women
from feminist writing is the feminist insistence on asking the same questions
of every work and demanding ideologically satisfactory answers to those
questions as a means of evaluating it. Whether the work at hand be
Paradise
Lost
or
Emma
or a Sam Peckinpah Western, the essential questions asked will
have to do with the status of women characters, the author's and the director's
attitude toward these women, and the degree in which role-relations as de–
picted allow audiences to think ofwomen as the feminists want us to.
A correct work, in the view of feminist critics, is one which portrays
women as potentially independent and creative beings who, despite what
the culture has done to them in the name of this and that, will never be
satisfied with the role stereotypes typically promoted. Books or films which
provide a persuasive representation of what life has been for most women,
but which do not suggest how profoundly dissatisfied they have been, are
reactionary and, by definition, unrealistic. While feminist critics concede
that most women have been all too adaptable to normative conventions that
injure them emotionally and unnecessarily limit their growth, they argue
that simple, even moving representation of such adaptation falsifies the
l
\
