英语毕业论文Influence-of-Feminism-on-Western-Women-Literature.doc

Influence of Feminism on Western Women Literature

女权主义对西方女性文学的影响

Influence of Feminism on Western Women Literature

Contents

Abstract…………………………………………………………………..…….1
Key words…………………………………………………………………..…..1
I. Introduction……………………………………………………………..…...2
II. Different Definitions of Feminism and its development trend………...…2
1. The appearance of women movement and different definitions of feminism….....2
2. The background and development of feminism.......................……………......3
III. Definitions of Women Literature and Famous Women Writers……..…5
1. Definitions of women literature and its development……………...…………..5
2. Introduction of several famous feminist writers………………..……………...6
3. The main analyze of Virginia Woolf and her works………….. ……………..8
IV. The Relationship between Feminism and Women Literature….……….8
V. Conclusion………………………………………………………….….…...10
References….....................................................................................................11

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Influence of Feminism on Western Women Literature

Abstract: Feminism, the ideology that supports uplifting the status and improving the rights of women, has been one of the most influential political ideas of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. So these two centuries were a time of sweeping ideological changes. In the 1930s women began to fight against the patriarchy to gain their right in all aspects, specifically women’s rights to vote, to own property, and to equal employment and education. At the same time women literature come into being and makes a prosperous development during this period. Since then lots of women writers have come out. In the 1960s the Women Movement made another prosperous development. In this man-dominated spiritual land, more and more people began to pay attention to the women literature, women’s works and their significance. The paper will mainly analyze the topic from three parts. The first part is mainly about definitions of Feminism and its development trend; the second, definitions of Women Literature and the introduction of famous women writers; the third, the relationship between feminism and Women Literature.
Key words: feminism; women literature; influence of feminism

摘 要: 女权主义是19世纪和20世纪最具有影响力的政治思潮，它帮助提升女性的地位和保障女性的权益。因此这一时期是人类思潮不断变化的一个时期。从19世纪30年代起，西方开始了一场为女性争取教育、政治、法律和经济等方面权益的女权运动。与此同时，女性文学创作也进入了黄金时期，涌现出一批优秀的女性作家和作品。至20世纪60年代，女权运动再度掀起高潮。在这个长久以来由男权话语统治的人类精神园地，人们将更多的目光投向女性作家和她们的作品，不仅重新审视父权制传统下的文学经典，而且开始研究女性文学的意义。如今，女性文学在西方的发展已呈波澜壮阔之景况，本论文第一部分主要介绍女权主义的定义及发展等背景，第二部分主要介绍和分析女性文学的发展和主要的带有女权主义思想的著名女作家，第三部分则重点分析女权主义与女性文学的关系。
关键词：女权主义；女性文学；女权主义的影响

I. Introduction

In this paper I try to find a suitable explanation of feminism. However，the illegibility of its explanation bring about lots of debates. By tracing the development of feminism，we find that its meaning is abundant and its content is wide. So, the explanation of feminism should not be immobile and concreting，but open and dynamic. With the appearance of feminism during the process of globalization, its term, thought, action and method are introduced into China. It is mainly about the impact of feminism to women, especially to women’ writing. For a long time women were largely trapped within a patriarchal family system, kept there by economic necessity and rigid social convention. Basically considered the properties of husband or father, women were not permitted to vote, own property, operate businesses, attend colleges, or make legal decisions concerning their children or themselves. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were a time of sweeping ideological changes. So during this period women literature come into being and make a prosperous development in 19th century while in this century women are fighting against the patriarchy to gain their right in all aspects, specifically women’s rights to vote, to own property, and to equal employment and education. This movement is called Women Movement. It is in the process of the transformation from traditional patriarchy of feudal society into the modern freedom and democratic society that makes the emergence of the female literature possible. It is a process that the female subject has transformed from absence for a long time into gradual presence in the scene of literature.

II. Different Definitions of Feminism and Its Development Trend
1. The appearance of women movement and different definitions of feminism
It has always been difficult to give a concise and very certain definition of feminism. Although there has been an enormous amount of research in feminism or women movement in the past one century, no authoritative answer has been given to “what is feminism?” Here are sample definitions of “feminism” proposed by some feminist historians: Feminism, the ideology that supports uplifting the status and improving the rights of women, has been one of the most influential political ideas of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Friedan's book displayed many characteristics that have plagued feminism: a self-centered concern for only women's issues; ignorance and disregard for the problems of other groups; provincialism; devaluation of the feminine role; resentment and hatred toward men; and a paranoid perception of ubiquitous male dominance, or "patriarchy," which they claim pervades all culture and society.
Feminism has been one of the most influential political ideas of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Since its inception, it has been both hailed as a profound liberation of society, and condemned as a philosophy of victim hood, responsible for the breakdown of the nuclear family and the degradation of society in general. There is no doubt, however, that the work of feminist activists and reformers has been responsible for enormous improvements in the position of women in the United States over the past 200 years. Equally indisputably, a glance at the power structure of most of the world's governments and businesses shows that male dominance is still very much a reality. In spite of this, feminism has changed the American social order, from the superficial, such as media portrayals of women, to the deepest underlying assumptions of science and religion.

2. The background and development of feminism
Throughout Europe and the United States, the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were a time of sweeping ideological changes. A new humanism was developing, with a focus on the rights of man. The principles of both American and French revolutions of the late 1700s and the publication of the Communist Manifesto in 1848 were examples of this new atmosphere of brotherhood and justice. As white males were discovering and outlining their inalienable rights, women were still largely trapped within a patriarchal family system, kept there by economic necessity and rigid social convention. Basically considered the properties of husband or father, women were not permitted to vote, own property, operate businesses, attend colleges, or make legal decisions concerning their children or themselves. Politically aware women had already begun the work to change these conditions, such as Abigail Adams and Mercy Otis, who unsuccessfully lobbied the authors of the United States Constitution to include women's rights in their plan for the new country, and Britain's Mary Wollstonecraft, who published the landmark Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792.
By the early 1800s, many progressive men and women began to join the abolitionist movement to work for the end of slavery. One liberation ideology led naturally to another, and a number of abolitionist women drew parallels between the slavery they fought and the plight of women. "The investigation of the rights of the slave has led me to a better understanding of my own," wrote anti-slavery activist Angelina Grimke in 1836. This growing understanding of the condition of women led to the first Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848. Organized by abolitionists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, the convention drew dozens of women and a number of supportive men as well. Together, convention participants drew up the Declaration of Sentiments, outlining both the rights of women and a set of demands, such as equality in law, education, and wages and the right to vote.
By the 1860s, the fight for women's rights led to a split in the abolition movement. Some anti-slavery activists felt that women should step back and focus on the fight against slavery, even if that meant prioritizing the rights of black men, while others felt that changes in the status of slaves and changes in the status of women must go hand in hand. Foreshadowing a recurrent issue in the struggle for women's rights, men's role in the women's movement also became controversial. In 1867, as the 15th Amendment to the Constitution was giving the vote to black men, the abolitionist movement divided. The National Women's Suffrage Association, led by Stanton and Susan Brownell Anthony, was an all-women's organization, which opposed the 15th Amendment. The American Women's Suffrage Association, led by Lucy Stone and Julia Ward Howe, supported legalization of black male suffrage and included men in its membership.
By the 1890s however, both factions reunited to push for the still-elusive women's suffrage. Women's clubs began to form to foster discussions about politics, culture, and education. In 1896, The National Association of Colored Women formed, uniting the separate black women's clubs. Other important women's organizations were the temperance societies. Often mocked as prim and puritanical, the temperance societies were in reality an attempt to protect women and children from the abuse and poverty that were often a result of male drunkenness. Toward the end of the suffrage battle, the word "feminism" first came into use. The feminists differed from the suffragists by claiming to work for a broader liberation of the social order.
Gradually, some states began to grant the vote to women in local elections. In 1917, Jeannette Rankin of Montana became the first woman elected to the U.S. Congress, and in 1920, women finally won the vote. Within two years of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, the National Women's Party proposed an Equal Rights Amendment, which was defeated.
Both before and after suffrage was attained, feminist activists continued to work on gaining a measure of control over their lives, bodies, and property. Gradually they chipped away at the laws that put women in the power of men, and women won the right to own property, attend college, and many of the other rights they had demanded at the Seneca Falls convention. Because childbirth and the work of raising children have affected women's lives so deeply, birth control and abortion have always been central issues in any feminist movement. The American Birth Control League, organized by Margaret Sanger in 1921, was one of the earliest attempts to make family planning available to U.S. women.
The "Roaring Twenties" was a decade of new independence for women. Once women were able to vote and obtain birth control, even fashion followed suit, as Coco Channel and other modern designers discarded the painful, restrictive corsets women had once laced around themselves. The new fashions emphasized freedom and even androgyny, as women cut off long, time-consuming tresses and sported the free and easy bobs that symbolized the era. With the approach of the depression of the 1930s,the feminist movement subsided into acquiescence, though women were given unprecedented opportunities to work in male dominated industries during World War II, when the war ended, they were unceremoniously sent back home. The 1950s was a paradoxical decade, conventional and conformist on the exterior and seething underneath with repressed rebellion. In the upper and middle classes, more women than ever before were attending college, where they developed intellectual comradeships and learned to take themselves seriously before being isolated and often ignored raising families in suburban homes. In the working class, women were frequently stuck in repetitive dead-end jobs, which generally paid those around 50 cents for every dollar earned by the men working next to them. Within all these women the knowledge began to slowly awaken that something was not working in their lives.

III. Definitions of Women Literature and Famous Women Writers

1. Definitions of women literature and its development
“Women” literature or “female” literature is the literature generally written by women. And for example Virginia Woolf herself, who deplored lectures on the grounds that the printing press had made them obsolete (1978, 5), also pointed out acerbically that it was men who tended to write soliloquies: "The garrulous sex, against common repute, is not the female but the male; in all the libraries of the world the man is to be heard talking to himself and for the most part about himself. The Second Sex is a carefully researched and highly intellectual work. Book 1 of Le Deuxième Sexe was published in Paris, France, in June of 1949; with book 2 following in November. It is considered to be a classic in women's literature. Using all the resources available to her both in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris and in the United States, Simone de Beauvoir in this book delves into anthropology, biology, philosophy, psychology, psychoanalysis, politics, sociology, and literature. Book 1 includes topics ranging from the destiny of women to their history and myths. Book 2 covers the formative years of women through their old age as well as the justifications for women's attitudes, concluding with an array of ideas that s he insists lead toward the liberation of women.

2. Introduction of several famous feminist writers
In the early 1840s, Margaret Fuller (1810-1850), part of an intellectual circle that included Ralph Waldo Emerson, held a series of "conversations" in Boston which led to her 1845 essay entitled Woman in the Nineteenth Century. In this essay she wrote that men had kept women subordinate and that it was in the best interests of both sexes for women to be allowed to develop to their full potential. Anna Julia Cooper's A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman of the South (1892) took on the issue of the status of black women because "not many can more sensibly realize and more accurately tell the weight and the fret of the long dull pain than the open-eyed but hitherto voiceless Black Woman of America." To Emerson's comment that "woman only show us how she can best be served," Cooper, the fourth African-American woman to receive a Ph.D., responded: "the chance of the seedling and of the animalcule is all I ask--the chance for growth and self development, the permission to be true to the aspirations of my