Faculty of Humanities and Social Science > English

Ecriture feminine...2nd WAVE of feminism...

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Gopa B. Caesar:
What is PATRIARCHY?

1. male domination and limitation of women in society;
2. male superiority in ideologies (e.g. Aristotle declared that "the female is female by virtue of a certain lack of qualities"; St. Thomas Aquinas:woman is an ‘imperfect man’; Confucius）
3. in language and literature (e.g. chairman, the universal "he"; God as "He";
4. in sex and biology (women as rapable, receptacle of sperm)

Gopa B. Caesar:
Male Dominance in Literature

-Predominance of male writers
-Women limited to writing in certain genres
 (e.g. diary, letter, romance).
-Stereotypical presentation of women

Gopa B. Caesar:
Male Dominance in Literature (2): Images of Women

1) as objects of desire--e.g. "Araby," "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" "To His Coy Mistress" and courtly love poetry, “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?”
2) as symbol--"Young Goodman Brown," "Grecian Urn" "To Autumn"
3) as Other or Villain – Snow White’s Stepmother; Fatal Attraction
4) women inferior or subordinate--Eve, romance (knight and lady), 007 films and the other Hollywood films (Working Girl, Coma, Silence of the Lamb)

Gopa B. Caesar:
Male Dominance in the Other Cultural Products

-Classical Nude Paintings
-Hollywood Films 
 (contemporary ambivalent ones: Switch)
-Music videos
-Commercials, advertisement

Gopa B. Caesar:
Ways of Seeing by J. Berger

-nudity is a sign, different from being naked.
-The nude in traditional oil paintings either look at "us" (the spectator-owners in the past) or look at the mirror
-The nude shows signs of submissiveness (e.g. being languid, passive and thus available).

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