 Welcome to this lecture on feminist criticism. As you are aware, we are in series of lectures under, brought under the broad ages of English language and literature. This course is being recorded under the ages of national program on technology enhanced learning and initiative by the Indian Institutes of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science. We are in the fourth module of these series of lectures and we have been, already been through a few, you know, few lectures on literary criticism and you will recall that the last lecture was on Marxist literary criticism and today we are going to devote this lecture to feminist criticism. Let me begin by saying here at the beginning of this lecture that this lecture is not an advanced level lecture. This lecture is going to talk broadly about feminist criticism, beginning with the feminist movement and will bring to you a few core concepts in feminist literary criticism. As you are also aware, these lectures are being brought to you, you know, to a broad spectrum of viewers alright, but the target audience comprises students in engineering colleges for whom the, you know, the humanities and social sciences subjects are brought as electives. So, let us do a recap first of what we did in our last lecture which was devoted to Marxist literary criticism and you will recall that historical materialism is one of the important, how should I put it, one of the important descriptive and theoretical terms used to, you know, we used to talk about Marxism. So, why do we call it historical materialism? We found that the two most important questions or rather the two core questions asked here are a, how are societies organized and structured and how do societies develop and change. So, you will note here that a is the structure of societies, if you have to make sense of societies, we first have to look at the way they are organized and structured and second we have to account, we know that all societies change, we have to then account for why social change happens, why societies evolve from one stage to the other. Then we found that even as we talk about Marxist literary criticism, we cannot do without the two most perhaps most important terms given to us by Karl Marx that is the base, the economic base and the superstructure and we placed art in the superstructure along with other components like consciousness, religion, education, family and the legal system and then we said of the Karl Marx that the base, the economic base which comprises the relations of production and the forces of production determine without being deterministic, determine the features or characteristics or nature of the components of the superstructure which also meant that literary texts will be would be determined by the economic base of the period in which they were written. Of course, it is not as simplistic as it sounds right, there are different ways in which literary texts, creative writers will engage with different elements of both the base and the superstructure, their responses, their reactions would take different forms. In some cases, we would find that a text, a literary text would you know be with the dominant ideologies of its time whereas, another literary text may you know make quite severely critique the status quo of the times concerned. So, these are the two terms we found we cannot do without when we talk about literary criticism, we cannot brush them aside as sort of clearly or purely Marxist concepts or concepts on political science or sociology. Then, we saw a quotation from Plekhanov who said very rightly that the social mentality of an age is conditioned by that age's social relations. Where did we come across it was social relations, remember in the previous slide we came across relations of production or social relations as being part of the economic base. So, the social mentality of an age will be conditioned, look at the word conditioned, he rightly uses the word conditioned because we are not talking about a deterministic causal of a pure causality. The social relations of an age will be conditioned by that age's social sorry social mentality will be conditioned by that age's social relations. And then he says this is nowhere quite as evident as in the history of art and literature. This changing social mentality or the fact this conditioning of social mentality by social relations is according to Plekhanov the most evident or is indicated you know or is most evident as he uses the word most evident in the history of art and literature. That is the entire history of art or the entire history of literature may be read as changing mentalities social changing social mentalities given changing social relations. So, this really you know is the crux of Marxist literary criticism. Then we also saw this we say we said that well we you know after we have known on the basic tenets of Marxism of historical materialism that are useful for us as literary scholars. Then what is the method by which we analyze a text or by which we analyze a literary period or a literary movement. So, here are some of the examples which I have taken you know from several you know from several authors. For instance let us look at the first question. You may ask question like what ideology or ideologies does the text or literary movement reinforces. Does it reinforce the dominant ideology? Let us look at this quickly because we have already talked about this in the last lecture. In what ways does the text reveal and invite us to attest to or to condemn the ideology and how far is it takes ideologically straightforward or conflicted or is you know how far is it propagandist. So, these are and other you know points are these are some of the things that you may ask of a text if you are you know planning to do a Marxist literary analysis. Okay fine. So, now we will move on to the topic of discussion our topic of discussion today that is feminist criticism and of course, feminist criticism is a very well established field and there are so many text books, so many hand books, so many you know critical anthologies that you may use for an understanding of feminist literary criticism. What I have done here is I have selected a few texts, so that you know you know I care you know my lecture draws upon these right and I shall be quoting from these also using examples. So, our first book is Wilfred Guerin's hand book of critical approaches to literature. Then Malpas and Paul Wakes the Root Lich Companion to Critical Theory the essay by Susan Heckman in this you know collection entitled Feminism that is a text that we are taking up and another book that has been with us in all our lectures almost all our lectures that is Pramod K. Nyer's contemporary literary and cultural theory and two more books which you know would help us point to a post feminist approach and among which we find Judith Butler's Gender Trouble and Bodies that Matter to be useful for our purposes. Again let me remind you these are by no means you know the texts or you know the only texts that is you know that you may read there are several other books and we will first begin by reading from the Root Lich Companion to Critical Theory. So, let us now read from the Root Lich Companion to Critical Theory as I had mentioned this essay is by Susan Heckman entitled Feminism. Now, let us look at this carefully since its inception feminism has passed through a number of different stages this is what is very important we need to keep in mind that feminism A is not temporarily or over time a homogenous discourse or a homogenous you know analytical tool for literary or cultural analysis nor is it spatially that is over different you know different geographical spaces and nations and states you know feminism is not homogenous right. It is important for us to note that today there are what we may call various feminisms like we say there are various Englishes in the world. So also there are various feminisms there are various feminist discourses that talk about the issue of women and gender from various perspectives and these have also no doubt enriched the whole field of feminist studies. So, with Heckman we come to learn right at the beginning that feminism is not to be taken as a temporarily and spatially homogenous term. So again since its inception it has passed through a number of different stages in the 19th and early 20th centuries liberal feminism now these are important terms liberal feminism and socialist feminism, allied feminism with the dominant political theories of the day. So among you know the early now when I say early does not mean that these schools or these approaches in feminism and feminist literary theory that it I do not mean or not mean in any way to suggest that these are you know old theories and that they are not relevant today. However we trace it from the 19th century and early 20th century and we say that there were basically two schools the liberal feminist school and the socialist feminist school which the social feminist school draws obviously from draws its main analytical tools from socialism or from Marxism and these were allied I mean they were not separated very these were allied to the general political theories of their time do you follow for instance socialist feminism would draw its discourse by seeing women in terms of a class would consider women to be analogous to the working class for instance to an exploited class and the discourse would be you generally built around this political you know political focus of looking at women as you know akin to an oppressed class. So then Hetman goes on to say beginning in the 1960s however feminist feminist developed approaches that did not depend on male defined theories. Now what she suggests here you know she seems to suggest here that a liberal you know the liberal approaches or the Marxist approaches were basically theories that were made by made by or made from so to speak already established discourses which she calls male defined theories for instance then you already have theories and you just simply have to see women in the light of the Marxist feminism the light of an oppressed class right. So then she goes on to say radical feminism psychoanalytic feminism the feminisms now look at this for the feminisms of women of color and postmodern feminism are attempts to develop analysis of women's role in society from a women's perspective this is very important there there seems now to be you know in beginning from the middle of the 20th century there seems to be a change you know a plethora of different ways of sort of doing feminism for instance radical feminism or postmodern feminism or psychoanalytic feminism which in the case of psychoanalytic feminist criticism moving away from a basic Freudian model to a model in which we find women talking about you know from a psychoanalytic perspective which differs from the older Freudian model for instance of the castration anxiety model for instance ok. So these are re-readings of Freud in the psychoanalytic domain. So these feminisms radical postmodern psychoanalytic etcetera are advance feminist movements social political feminist movements that also sort of spawned there also spawned different critical you know or feminisms with different critical shades each being different from the other this really if you look at it carefully and if you go on to read in this areas are extremely rich in their nuanced differences both nuanced and both you know quite for slightly political differences among themselves ok. So again radical psychoanalytic for instance the feminisms of women of color for instance one of the most important things sorgans that we raise was that the when you talk about feminism for a long time you know the category women was read seen and understood in terms of white middle class women. The problems of women all over the world ok were explored were seen as being akin to the problems of women of the white western women ok. So I would not use the word recent of course it has been quite many years we are there have been decades of work where for instance the word you know the word womanism being preferred by many African American or many African women writers in place of feminism right they found the word feminism to sort of separatist or radical term and they tried to you know or they suggested that the word womanism would be more you know appropriate in you know in indicating right the cultural situation of black women for instance ok. So you see that from you know from basically liberal socialist approaches which drew their terminology their discourses their orientations from already established male you know what she calls here the male defined theories came to have different shades and came to have you know different orientations for instance in which a woman's perspective was sought to be upheld. Next I read on these approaches analyze how gender is constructed and maintained this is I would say one of the most important sentence here these approaches analyze how gender is constructed and maintained as one of the central meaning structures of society. Now quickly let us let us look at the term gender right we in feminist criticism differentiate between the two terms sex and gender ok. So sex of course this is no longer the entire you know story regarding sex and gender but there was an important differentiation made in you know in I would say the middle of the 20th century ok an important difference was made between sex and gender and one of the first most important formulations came from a philosopher a French philosopher who you are I am sure at least you have heard of ok. This is Simone de Beauvoir in her famous text the second sex the second sex obviously refers to women and in this book there is you know there is a famous statement that came to be you know upheld as sort of the slogan of you know of feminism of a certain kind of a certain time period right and the statement was that a woman is you know a woman is not born but a woman is rather constructed you know I am not quoting her verbatim ok one is not born that is how it goes one is not born but rather becomes a woman ok. So this is the important difference so you see sex is of course a biological identity ok and in this you know the discourse of feminism in this time usually the today it is not the now not the way we do it talked about two sexes male and female. So when a child is born it is usually a male or a female child ok but as Beauvoir says one is not born but rather becomes a woman. Beauvoir says that it is social conditioning or social construction ok that gives us the other part of the story that is you know if you remember when you read grammar in school ok we found within in gender when we talked about gender in grammar we did not use the word the terms male and female what were the terms that we use we use the terms feminine ok feminine and masculine right this is another one that is neuter or noiter as some call it right. So what does this imply this implies that gender sex is when we talk about sex we talk about you know we should use the terms male and female and we talk about gender we should use the terms feminine or masculine ok. So feminine and masculine are therefore not physiological not so much physiological attributes as behavioral attributes ok. So feminine kind of behavior is a behavior pattern or a behavior tendency that is not necessarily with us when we are born ok. So called masculine tendencies according to this schema is not something that a male child is you know inherently sort of born with right. So these behavior patterns are patterns to which you know in which we are brought up you know in the process of socialization by our parents first and then that is our family or extended family and then by educational system and by society in general. Hence it is said one is not born a woman but becomes one or we also say one is not born a male but or man or becomes one to follow ok. So what did we learn here we learnt two very important terms here that is a distinction the now which by now we of course we call this traditional is description you know descriptions of sex and gender with post feminism this has become a bit more complex I will go move on to that while later. But we would still have to acknowledge the fact that this sort of division between sex and gender was a very important theoretical conceptual description for the establishment of feminism as a discourse for the establishment of feminist literary criticism for instance. Now in this stage for instance if you look at a female character in a novel what would you do you would then try to understand so many things about the you know the character for instance her desires her goals in life or sometimes a lack thereof her patterns of behavior her emotions and you would as a feminist critic look at all these attributes as emanating from the way the character was socialized. So you would then also look at the way in which the dialogues that are given to the woman character and then you would place her you know in the general milieu sociocultural milieu of the age or the era or the period that in which the play or the novel or even the poem is set and that is how you account for such behavior. You also then talk about both male and female characters and their attributes and also the way the plot runs in the text as the writer's understanding and there are or sometimes the writer's intervention in a given sociocultural milieu. So these are the some of the ways in which feminist criticism was done following the division of sex sorry division you know or understanding of these two terms that are separating gender from the main term sex do you follow. So let us now return to our slides fine the next slide here is a very important term that is patriarchy this is a term that you are some of you are aware of patriarchy comes from the term the root term peter peter the root term peter meaning some of you may have got it father and archie archie means rule of or rule by. So patriarchy means rule of the father or rule by the father obviously first in the family right. So the father is traditionally understood as the head of the family the father is traditionally understood as you know the main source of earning for the family also the one who sets the rules and regulations you know the family. So the rule by the father is first at a family level but when you know feminist criticism critics realize that patriarchy was not simply a family phenomenon it was a larger social or even global phenomenon it also meant not simply the rule by the father or the setting up of rules by the father the domination of the other members of the family like the wife and the children by the father it also meant suggested that all the norms rules and regulations we can even say of most communities right most nations in the world are in favor of the male sex to follow. So patriarchy then obviously as you can imagine became the target right of you know of staunch you know attack we may use the word in radical feminism and feminist protest movements and also patriarchy became the discourse right it became the discourse by which feminist critics tried to understand right try to understand the representation of a women and of course of male characters in literature that is how are women represented in literature is a text showing a clearly patriarchal inclination or is the writer and in this case the story you know the works of women writers who were hitherto you know not a part or an important part of the canon you remember women writers of the 19th century and even before that in you know in England had to write using pseudonyms had to write using male names to follow and in order you know to hide the fact that these were women writing. So, there were many such cultural phenomena that are also looked into or also studied by feminism, but we have to understand that patriarchy is essentially the discourse is essentially the discourse that is explored, critiqued and sought to be dismantled by feminist both feminist movements and feminist literary criticism. Now, what does patriarchy give us patriarchy is all about ideologies A and what is an ideology in ideology may be defined as a world view as a world view or it is defined as a set of values for instance and norms and regulations through which you view the world all of us have an ideology do you understand. So, if we are tremendously religious then we look at the world and the reasons for our existence there in from a religious point of view or from a religious world view and this determines conditions even that is conditions our values conditions our beliefs conditions our desires and the actions that we take up right. So, patriarchy is therefore a set of ideologies a set of world views right then obviously patriarchy is now you know when you say it is a rule of the father patriarchy is also past structures or structures of power in which you know the male is the norm and the female is the deviant patriarchy also has a law of say you could say or a lot of power over how things are represented. You only have to look at popular culture for instance you have to look at popular for instance popular novels and in our time the mills and moon you know romances. Then if you if you work on these novels you find clearly a stereotype of woman and even the stereotype of man that is being shown in these novels. So, patriarchy also has a hold or at least has to you know till recent times has had a hold over what is represented and how and finally, obviously patriarchy has a hold over our material lives. Now, what do we mean by our material lives a material lives are the you know basically the you know the way we live our lives from an economic point of view from things that have to do with matter things have to do with wealth and power. Our material lives are also our everyday lives for instance I will give you a very small example. There was a time not very long ago when food was laid out in a family for the entire family you know it was quite the norm and you and many quite accept accepted the fact that you know the you know the plate or the dish or what we call the thali in India for the man the head of the family would be much larger than than the ones that were given to the other members of the family. You see so many movies of a certain films of a certain era in which you always see the man being first served by the woman of the family and only then you know after she has looked after the children next she partakes or whatever is left. So, material lives is not simply big economics that we are talking about we also talking about everyday lives which as I saw you also includes the use of certain in utensils of certain sizes for certain people right. So, patriarchy has to do it as we saw here ideologies past structures representations and our material lives. Now, when you look at a text when you look at a novel or a short story or poem you know one of the first things you do you know to when you first begin to do feminist literary criticism at an elementary level is you try to see the you know you try to see how patriarchy plays an important part in the setup of the novel or you know in the entire you could say the entire ambience of the novel. You see you look at the ideologies the world views that are subscribed to by the characters and then you find out why certain characters are shown in a certain light you see the past structures for instance family for instance you see if there is a family being depicted you see what the power dynamics are in that family and you also see how the writer has represented how the sexes are represented what is seen as feminine you know appropriately feminine behavior what is seen as for instance the mills and woon romances that I talked about appropriately feminine behavior is very evident as also appropriately masculine behavior you follow and see the material the material setting the material not just the setting the you know you know beginning from the prox starting with the prox starting right to the distribution of wealth and you know labor in the novel and you will find whether it is a patriarchal novel or whether that novel is a strong you know a critique of a patriarchal system. So, these are some of the you know ways in which you begin to look at texts in feminist literary criticism. Now, therefore, there are some there are few names that I would like to bring to you because these are these names are important at least a few of them in the establishment of the feminist movement and our feminist criticism. And the first name we have to take obviously is the name of the British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft whose vindication of the rights of women are is one of the most famous books and you can well imagine you know this book was published in 1798 which is you know end of the 18th century in England and you know Mary Wollstonecraft wrote in her vindication called for she called for you know upholding the rights of women and she describes in the you know that piece of work it is a beautiful piece of work in which she describes you know how women are conditioned right. This is one of the first and foremost books that one reads and it is really the beginning of you know western feminism if we may put it that way then we come to writers American writers like Betty Friedan and Kate Millet. Betty Friedan's book the feminine mystique the feminine mystique is a piece of work that shows you know how feminine the feminine qualities a feminine qualities are women are indoctrinated into the feminine qualities and how it remains a sort of as the title suggests a mystique. Next Kate Millet's book a sexual politics is one such early book that dwells into literature where I went on to talk about the representation and the politics of sexuality the politics of gender in you know in certain canonized writers so D. H. Lawrence for instance and talked about the representation and the sexual politics the you know in those novels then we came to an important another important book by Elaine Showalter Elaine Showalter's a literature of her own a literature of her own obviously those of you who are from literature would understand that it is it you know takes off from another important title by the feminist sorry the by the British writer Virginia Woolf a room of her own. So, literature of her own is another landmark book you know published in the 20th century by Elaine Showalter in which she propound this theory of gyno criticism gyno criticism obviously the gyno from gynecology gyno criticism or woman centered criticism in which she talked about various phases of you know you know the the feminine the feminist female for instance various phases of of feminist writing and then we had another important book Susan Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar's book the mad woman in the attic the mad woman in the attic is one of the you know is a is a more detailed exploration of of writing by women and the illusion of course here is you know is to to the repressed female the repressed female as being the mad woman who is in the attic who is not accessible who one does not want to access and who is labeled a mad woman only you know because of her subversive potential then we have Luce Erigre a French feminist critic who to you know who propounded the theory of ecritor feminine or feminine writing writing which celebrates you know you know she writing that that that celebrates a particularly female way of writing and these are some of the the critics who have who early on had you know established the field of feminist literary criticism. So, but this is not really the entire story of feminist literary criticism a of course is even you know within within this discourse we find that there are many feminist critics who in the larger cultural domain for in so not just literature in the larger cultural domain sought to look for instance we talked about power and representation, but also issues like popular culture how are women represented in popular culture in films in popular fiction in theatre for instance in the media the representation of you know women and the attributes of the so called you know normative women these are some of the ways in which feminist criticism looked into the representation then also female subjectivity and feminine subjectivity what is subjectivity subjectivity is at least vis-a-vis identity subjectivity is is is you know very simply put what it is like to be what it is like to be in this case what it is like to be a woman right we may extend this to ask questions like what is it like to be a woman of colour what is it like to be a woman from a certain region of the world or from a certain region in India for instance what does it mean what are the feelings what are the you know what are the understandings and what are the experiences of being a woman in a certain condition. So, the subjectivities particularly were the study of subjectivities was particularly also helpful for the study of literary texts and particularly say characters in novels or you know female persona female persona in in poems for instance. So, how does it feel you seem to get a direct in a look so to speak into the inner life of a woman there is an interesting book that I read by Rama Mehta inside the Haveli. So, the Haveli or so if you look at you know other communities in the world like Zenana for instance what does it mean to be what does it feel like to be under a system of what we call perda or what is the feel to be like a woman performing certain chores inside or having certain clear cut behavioural you know norms in inside Haveli do you follow. So, these are some of the you know more these are some of the richer areas in which feminist criticism found that they could talk a lot about consumption also in popular culture, consumption what do women consume what are women allowed to consume and what kind of things women are allowed to consume or not at all. And finally, of course, given all these what are the identities that are given to women how is a woman how is a woman looked at and how does she perceive her own identity do you understand all these create a sort of a female identity which takes on different colours in different times and different you know in different temporal situations. Now, we I mentioned this that you know following the first phase of liberal and socialist feminism we also came across radical feminism. There was radical feminism, psychoanalytic feminism, feminism of you know based on difference in colour for instance and we also have other kinds of difference feminism we are going to go into that. I mentioned an important point with which I would like to end this talk which is post feminism. When we were writing our you know doing our PhD work this was not so much at least in India it was not so much in focus really we were still in the older discourses of Elaine Schoenwalter, Gilbert and Gubar also some of Luce Erigray for instance right. But there is a clear shift here and we and this is indicated and by the very word post feminism. Now, what is post feminist criticism does it mean that feminism has ended or is it like the post in for instance post structuralism where some of the tenets of structuralism lead to a post structuralist approach. Post feminism is a post enlightenment discourse. Now, for this again obviously we have to go back to a term like enlightenment and what is enlightenment? Enlightenment is a way of thinking, enlightenment is an ideology, enlightenment is also a historical period in which the belief in the potential of science of technology of reason and rationality was paramount and it was a discourse in which everything was seen in as being able to be conquered so to speak in able to be accounted for so to speak by by science reason and rationality. So, many critics are of the opinion that these what they called grand narratives or these grand stories for instance are given to us by Marxism and you know Marxism is you know give is a macro theory of you know of accounting for the structure as we saw the structure and change in societies religion again is another grand such grand theory to follow. So, these are some of the ways in which there was a certainty, but in post feminism we find which also called queer studies that the difference between sex and gender is problematized here. But some of the main things here is the problematization of the sex gender dichotomy, the importance of representation in sexual identity, discourse in gender biological truths are access to discourse this is very important if you look at the difference here even biology we saw that when we defined gender as being not sex here in fact also the certainty of sex the certainty of a biological identity is questioned and it is said that biological truths are also matter of discourse and the function of regulatory ways of speaking in the formation and determination of the sex bodies. The regulatory following writer like Foucault for instance the regulatory practices and make up you know gendered being these are some of the important aspects which again are feminist alright, but are post feminist in the sense for instance what of what the post feminist critic Judith Butler tells us that gender is not our only identity as particles of other domains and discourses we both belong to and not belong to particular discourses and finally she says gender is always a failure and accumulated fact of social relations that have become naturalized over time. She also says that this is the most important point the gender if you think you are masculine or feminine it is an illusion first she says it is a failure because it is an unattainable ideal and it is also an illusion of an abiding gender itself. You think that I am feminine then there is an illusion for the post feminist why because as she says here it is read this the effect of gender must be understood as the mundane ways in which bodily gestures movements and styles constitute the illusion of an abiding self. Gender is an effect it is an effect that is reiterated over and over again so that it seems natural to us it is a performance the series of performances that are done by us. So, there is nothing ontological or essentially feminine even in a feminine person so called feminine person therefore, it becomes a critique of traditional feminism do you follow. So, from a queer studies perspective we then look at the regulatory practices and those silences and gaps in the text when you are looking at the female character how certain attributes that are neither male nor female are sort of silenced in the text and also silenced by the way we read the text and we miss those gaps in the text. Do you understand certain situations certain episodes even lines in the dialogues even to them these are certain potentials that we have missed. So, this new school or this you know new school of feminism exerts us to look into those gaps and silences and to see these things are not given, but a something that is an effect much in the post structuralist manner. So, this is really as I said in the beginning very elementary you know way of looking at gender I tried to show you how gender you know the traditional way of liberal and social feminism gave way to feminist critics and writers, theorists who wanted to move away from the male defined theories and have their own theories via radical feminism for instance a feminism you know of feminism of difference and feminism of colour for instance. So, for instance if you get a question let us see what kind of questions we may get here. If you ask the question why was the you know why was what were the early breakthroughs made by feminists and then you would say that it is held that liberal feminism and social feminism which borrowed from the discourses which borrowed from the already existing liberal and socialist or Marxist discourses that were already created by men and then replace a certain class you know you know economic class with female gender. These were the earlier discourses of feminism and then if the next question if you say what are the interventions that were made by women by feminists by the theorists to carve out a niche or carve out a whole not just not a niche to carve out really a whole you know a wholly opposite and you know a counter sort of discourse to the main discourse that was to the male discourse. Then you would say that feminism really broke not broke is not the word here really carved out several areas and several approaches and orientations like psychoanalytical criticism which was against the Freudian castration complex or Oedipus complex models of looking at men and women understanding even children or characters in novels and far more nuanced way of looking you know at women through psychoanalysis then radical feminism that the way women began to talk about the you know the differences within feminism. The clear dismissal of a homogenized subjectivity of what in me or what it means to be a woman because there are other variables here there are there is a variable of class variable of caste of race for instance and sexual orientation right. Following the LGBT movement or the gay activist movement for instance these have you know have completely done away with the fact that the female experience is simply a homogenized experience or you know all over the world through our different parts of the globe right. Then next is what are what is patriarchy? Patriarchy is we divided into two words root words patriarch Peter meaning father andarchy or rule of or rule by patriarchy is basically an ideology it is a worldview it is a power structure right it patriarchy is also ways of representation and patriarchy also is the way our material material lives are concerned and how does it help a feminist literary criticism these understandings help a feminist literary critic in trying to explore how a for instance women are represented in a literary text b what are the power dynamics between or among characters in a literary text. How what are the what are the details of you know power dynamics in the material lives of the characters and you know the subjectivities of female characters also male characters identities they are given then also as I said looking at popular culture not simply canonized literature looking at popular culture finally, we end by asking a question on post feminism why was why do we have at all you know of feminist literary critical school known as post feminism today this came about with a you know with a clear attack on the earlier division of sex and gender the differentiation between sex and gender as sex being completely physical physiological and biological and gender being a more of a social construct critics like Judith Butler said that even sex that is biological definitions descriptions are couched in a certain discourse. So, sex cannot be completely a biological thing sex is also a discourse. So, again redefining the boundaries between sex and gender if gender is a discursive activity. So, also according to these critics is sex. So, let me end here and I hope this was useful to you again let me remind you this is an elementary lecture those of you are interested may go on to look at various aspects today the scenario is very different from what it was before it is a scenario in which we have a plethora of analytical tools and extremely exciting time to be doing feminism. Thank you.