 In this video I want to take a look at two different critical lenses for critical analysis in the same video here because they are connected but different. So we're going to take a look in this video at feminist and gender studies criticism. So feminism and feminist critical theory and gender studies critical theory, really two separate schools but closely connected enough that I think we can talk about them combined in this video. So first of all let's take a look at feminist criticism. Feminist criticism examines articles using a framework that considers the ways in which an artifact reinforces or undermines the economic, political, social, and psychological oppression of women. So we're taking a look at things here through the lens of essentially women and how women are represented in whatever artifact we're looking at, whether that's literature, whether it's other types of media, movies, anything at all really, even through the news or any other publication like that. We're looking at how women are represented and how traditionally feminine or values would be represented and characterized there in all of across the across the spectrum here and economically, politically, socially, psychologically just how are women represented and portrayed in these works in comparison in particular to men. So the history here of sort of the history of feminism and just this is going to be just so surface level but just to give us a little bit of background, feminism is typically divided into what they call three waves and the first wave really runs from the late 1700s into the early 1900s. So here we're talking about just general attention being drawn to the inequality of the sexes and how the sexes are treated, how they're represented in the United States in particular. This has been happening worldwide but in the United States in particular, probably the biggest representation of this came in the early 1900s with the suffrage, women's suffrage movement and so things like trying to earn the right to vote for women and just being treated as equals in that sense started for us here in the United States. Well, it started a long time ago but really represented well with the women's suffrage movement in the early 1900s. But the first wave of feminism again starting in the late 1700s really just was about seeking equality and equality of treatment in general for the sexes. The second wave then sort of runs from you know, unofficially from the early 1960s to the late 1970s so that 20 or so year period there where you have this post-World War II where in World War II women really demonstrated that they could work right alongside men and did pick up a lot of slack from men that were fighting overseas so women filled those roles in the factories and in the workplaces and different things like that. So really had an opportunity to demonstrate that they were equally as capable and qualified as men to do really anything and then this sort of in this period coincided of course with the civil rights movement in the United States so coinciding with the civil rights movement for people of color and minorities in that sense. You also had the Equal Rights Amendment for women and things like that that were being pushed and so you have this sort of second wave of feminism so to speak sorry forgot to scroll forward here but you have the second wave of feminism running from again the early 1960s through the late 1970s where again searching for recognition of equal rights but also equal opportunity in terms of not just employment equal opportunity to for things like you know abortion would be representative of this the idea of control of their own body being able to make decisions about their own body being able to make decisions about whether or not they would work and if they were going to work should they be you know treated equally and things like that that was their their goal in that sense still in the in the late early 60s through the late 70s in that second wave of feminism then finally the third wave which would be what we're presently and it started in the early 1990s really to recognize there and runs through the present time this third wave and really the biggest difference in the third wave between the others is the emphasis on what we call marginalized women or marginalized people in general but marginalized women so I can women of color women of lower economic classes so you know in the initial first wave and second wave really the predominant focus was on middle and upper class white women those are the people that were you know we're we were basically saying these people should have equal rights and now in this third wave we're there's there's a statement that you know it's not just middle and upper class white women who have you know you should have these equal rights and be seen as equals it's it's all women women of all colors women of all economic classes deserve this this freedom and this recognition and and so there's this third wave now starting in the early 1990s through present day so and and the history of feminism is important because it's really also the history of feminist criticism right so it follows along those the same types of lines as long as you've had feminism at work you've had this feminist criticism at work people viewing things through the lens of these particular feminist and yeah the viewpoint of feminism and these particular feminist frameworks so some of the major premises of the feminist criticism are first of all women are oppressed by the patriarchy that's that's kind of their cool their core mantras that women have been oppressed by the patriarchy patriarchy being this male-dominated male-controlled culture and society that we've had for you know thousands of years now that men have really been on top and men have really been seen as the dominant dominant sex and and had more opportunities and and greater opportunities the women have had so that the and and have that men have been really systematically as a result systematically displaced women and and undervalued women and treated them equally so that women have been oppressed by the patriarchy we also as part of the one of the premises see the Western culture is deeply rooted in this patriarch patriarchical ideology perhaps more so than other cultures where there is more imbalance probably in Western cultures than there are in other cultures in terms of some other cultures not all but some other cultures as far as how women are treated and whether or not they're seen as equals and where their value lies that the Western culture is deeply rooted in that sort of patriarchy that while sex meaning male or female is determined by biology that gender masculine or feminine is determined by culture and that different cultures identify what is you know kind of masculine and what is feminine as opposed to biological determinants determining what is male and female we have this you know differing ideas about masculine or feminine that are entirely based on culture and that whether we're consciously aware of the gender issues that they play a part in every aspect of human production and experience including the production and experience of literature and other artifacts so the things that we might be examining here in terms of artifacts that that culture those gender issues play a part in that just because they're they're sort of a they have become sort of our and a human viewpoint based on how deeply they're rooted in our culture and that they are then exhibited through as a natural byproduct in the types of art that we produce and the types of literature that we produce and also how the respective sexes are represented in those works so some common questions that you see in feminist criticism some of these will not surprise you how is the relationship between men and women portrayed so how does this piece or this artifact whatever it is this book this piece of music this whatever how does it indicate or what what kind of relationship does it indicate that men and women have how does it portray that relationship what are the power relationships between men and women or are they or characters assuming male female roles are they assuming those traditional roles but what and if so what are the the power relationships like who's in charge here who has the who has clearly has the power in this particular relationship and how is that represented in that work how are male and female roles defined you know again is this a fairly traditional breakdown of male versus female attributes and responsibilities and roles and things versus a little more contemporary way of some more androgynous portrayals you know males just representing feminist ideals and vice versa female representing male ideals and things like that what constitutes masculinity and femininity in this in this work and how do the characters embody these traits so how does this work seem to define masculine versus feminine and then how do the characters embody those traits what is it they do or don't do I say or don't say them that gives the idea that they embody those traditional or nontraditional roles the characters take on traits from opposite genders how so and how does this change others reactions to them right so our do we have men again acting in an androgynous way or acting in a feminine way where you have men portraying feminist traits or feminine traits and females portraying masculine traits and if so how so and if so how does that change the way people react to them or is it is it considered commonplace or is it considered out of place for people to do that so how do people respond to them doing so what is the work reveal about the operations in economically politically socially psychologically of patriarchy so what does this tell us about how patriarchy is is maintained and how it's established in a particular culture all those types of things about the operations of those things what is the history of the works reception by the public and by the critics tell us about the operation of the patriarchy so you know again how do people's responses to this what does that tell us about the patriarchy and then finally what role does the the work play in terms of women's artistic history and artistic tradition so looking back what does this particular piece tell us about that particular artistry or tradition okay shifting gears here just for a second let's take a look at gender studies criticism again very closely related but different from feminism here we have gender studies criticism gender studies criticism examines artifacts using a framework that considers roles and issues of sexuality power and marginalized populations in an artifact so I can not just looking exclusively at the dichotomy between men and women now we're looking at all aspects of sexuality power and marginalized populations in an artifact so in kind of a brief history of gender studies it's really is an offshoot of feminist criticism it started kind of within that framework of feminist criticism we started looking at you know again how women were represented in and how this patriarchy was represented in in artifacts and in literature and all different kinds of of media and so then as an offshoot of that people started thinking well you know this is really kind of too binary too binary and so they focus started generous gender studies really started focusing on what they call the in-betweens the in-betweens so it's again a less binary approach than feminist criticism which is very much masculine feminine that's it let's look at those two things let's look at the dichotomy between how feminist how women are represented in these works as opposed to men whereas gender studies says let's look at all the elements look let's look at all the in-betweens not just this binary men and women thing but what about all the in-betweens what about the in-between sexualities what about the in-between power structures what about the things that aren't just about men versus women but still related somehow to gender so let's take a look at those types of things so it's an offshoot of criticism of feminist criticism but but it focuses more on those in-between areas and actually takes on a broader scope as opposed to a very narrow scope of feminist which is you know again men or women men versus women or you know women versus patriarchy or whatever you want to call it but generously broadens that spectrum and looks at a variety of different factors there so the major premises of of gender studies criticism are that that a binary view of artifacts is too narrow that it's just not it's just not broad enough and that there's more to this than just masculine versus feminine and that the the other issue is that the definition of those concepts of masculine and feminine and so forth and any kind of term along those lines is constantly changing within a culture which also then defies attempts at binary classification so when we look at you know we look at feminism again we've talked about there are three different waves to feminism they're all different but we just look at the idea of what is what do we consider masculine and feminine these days as opposed to you know 50 years ago 50 years ago let's say well let's just say in the 1950s our idea of feminism and what it meant to be feminine is different than what our idea of feminine is today right that the the idea of you know the prospect in the 1950s if you'd said that that a woman wearing genes and you know things like that would have been appropriate and would have been considered you know sexual or sexy or whatever or you know would have been considered feminine still if a woman was wearing pants even in the 1950s that would have been you know absurd women don't wear pants right so our idea of feminists what feminism what it means to be feminine has changed over the years and is constantly changing and so our ideas about everything else they're all culturally bound and as we know our culture evolves and changes over time so so our definition of these things changes over time so it's you know gender studies says it's not just as simple as a masculine versus feminine because those things aren't even stable those things aren't even static they're changing all the time those those notions of what it is to be masculine or feminine right so so how can our study of those things remain the same be static so gender studies both allows for looking at those in-betweens but also broadens the scope into saying okay let's adapt and go with the times here and and look at things in a different light so this is the major premises of cultural gender studies sorry gender studies in criticism a couple common questions that you have in in general studies when you're looking at these types of things first of all what what sort of support if any is given to the elements and characters who question the masculine feminine binary and what happens to those elements or those characters so what do you what happens when a character doesn't fit neatly into you know the traditionally masculine or traditionally feminine viewpoint and and how is that character treated in the in the artifact and and what happens to those characters in those elements as a result what elements in the text exist in the middle between the perceived masculine feminine binary in other words what elements exhibit traits of both so where do we see androgynous behavior between character or within a character where they're exhibiting both masculine and feminine or maybe those you know just some other non-binary connection between whatever it is that people are working at them what is the word or what does the work rather contribute to knowledge of queer gay or lesbian experience and history including artistic history okay so again looking at those kind of marginalized populations what does this work contribute to our knowledge of that culture and of that of that population including their artistic history and the way that their artistic history relates to the artifact that we're looking at and how does the artifact illustrate the problematics of sexuality and sexual identity what approach does it take on that or does it avoid it completely yeah which would be very telling in and of itself so you have some common questions that we oftentimes associate with gender studies criticism so as an example here just real quickly i just wanted to go through you know kind of a well-known piece of literature or film or however you want to look at it it's both it was literature first and then it was film and has branched into every other kind of media i think as well but i think it's it's it's an interesting because it's very very popular many people have have experienced this and are fans of this series and so wanted to take a look at it in terms of feminism feminist theory because it's very well known work here so we're going to take a look at the harry potter series just in again not any one particular book or movie or whatever just in general harry potter as a world and that was created there by jk rowling and and so again just scratching the surface here's just just giving an idea of what some of these look like in application so if we look at some common questions from feminist criticism and relate them to the harry potter world how is the relationship between men and women portrayed i think there's you know there's a lot of interesting connections between men and women you you have women in some ways that are in positions of power like professor mcgonigal but not in the ultimate sense of power right and then when there is a woman in the ultimate sense of power over hogwarts for example it's the evil woman right who takes over after dumbledore and in place of dumbledore and is is very cruel and and just so it's interesting that when when a woman does finally get in a position of power over hogwarts that she has to be the the cruel headmaster and and you know the one that everybody hates it's also interesting the relationship between men and women when you look at the main characters between harry and ron and and hermione i think that hermione hermione is received some interesting character work she's portrayed as really probably the smartest of the people there and the most accomplished most capable and yet not the main character that's interesting that she's not the main character in some ways is is is is consigned to that kind of second tier and her power only comes through really when it's in combination with harry and oron but but you know there's there at least is a significant bond or relationship between the three of them including both men and women one of the power relationships between men and women or characters assuming male female roles i think that obviously the the it's this is sort of a traditional even though it was written by women it's sort of a traditional men and power type of work here that again hermione really isn't the focus of this book but or this series she's not the title character of course but she's also not the main character she works really in conjunction with other people and never really on her own for that for that matter so so there are some power relationships here that where men tend to be in the powerful and controlling roles however the male and female roles defined somewhat traditionally i mean even in the in the in the instance of the weasleys for example ron's parents his dad is the one who goes to work the mom stays at home for the most part and and does home body type stuff home stay at home mom type stuff which is not knock on stay at home moms but but not very progressive in that sense right that we don't see a lot of women we don't have a lot of strong examples of women who are who are leading the charge there so their the roles are fairly traditionally defined in these in these books and movies what constitutes masculinity and femininity and how the characters embody these traits so it's interesting a lot of times there are fairly standard displays of masculinity and femininity especially when you look like Iran and you know Hermione or Ginny or people like that the women in these roles that have a fairly traditional masculine and feminine relationships Henry is somewhat androgynous he's a little bit more sensitive and would be characterized as having a few more feminine traits i think than than the others but but really not so much there are a few cases of women who are portrayed with highly masculine traits again for the most part these are women who are in the quote-unquote evil roles right you have you have Bellatrix Bellatrix Lestrange is a very strong woman but very masculinely strong in those senses has a lot of masculine traits in that sense the the new headmaster whose name is case-racking remember um umbridge i think her name but uh anyway very masculine oriented very you know powerful very very strong in terms of her power but uh but does not wield it in a very feminine sense if you will the characters take on traits from opposite genders how so does this change others reactions to them as i said harry does a little bit he's a little bit more sensitive a little more empathetic and and get some flak for it right he gets called a lot of names and people tend to think he's weak as a result of that so um so he does a little bit but but not no it's not necessarily portrayed in a positive way what's his work reveal about the operations economically politically socially or psychologically of patriarchy what we see the men in charge of pretty much everything for the most part and the men making all the decisions men uh men kind of run on the show so it does kind of reveal itself in that way somewhat i think um what is the history of the works reception by the public and the critics tell us about the operation of patriarchy well it's very popular obviously one of the most popular book series in the world uh in in the history uh of the world one of the most popular movie franchises and highest gross movie franchise franchises so there's a a lot of positive reception by the public that they must not mind so much that that this is primarily male driven and and really women have at best subordinate roles what is the history of the works reception by the public and by the critics tell us about that's what we just looked at so let's take a look at what role does the work play in terms of the women's artistic history and artistic tradition you know that's a tough one i don't really know um it could because it's it is sort of falls into that patriarch patriarchal framework where it is fairly traditional despite having a couple of strong female you know characters those characters really have more male attributes in terms of personality so it really kind of falls into that old the old system of supporting that kind of patriarchy and patriarchal system or ideological system anyway okay so next time we're we're looking at something we can think about it through this lens as well this feminist and gender studies theory and just try to consider it from as always from a variety of different viewpoints and and standpoints if you have any questions about this feel free to email me i'd be happy to respond to any email so that you might have so don't hesitate to do that but in the meantime i hope you'll consider next time we're looking at an artifact or piece of literature or whatever you consider the the kind of feminist implications or the general gender studies implications of that work as well