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Literary Criticism and Theories

Notes on the study of female experience, rather than to adapt male models and theories. Gynocritics
begins at the point when we free ourselves from the linear absolutes of male literary history, stop
trying to fit women between the lines of the male tradition, and focus instead on the newly visible
world of female culture.
This does not mean that the goal of gynocritics is to erase the differences between male and female
writing; gynocritics is not "on a pilgrimage to the promised land in which gender would lose its
power, in which all texts would be sexless and equal, like angels" (New, 266). Rather gynocritics
aims to understand the specificity of women's writing not as a product of sexism but as a
fundamental aspect of female reality.
Showalter acknowledges the difficulty of "[d]efining the unique difference of women's writing"
which she says is "a slippery and demanding task" in "Feminist Criticism in the Wilderness" (New,
249). She says that gynocritics may never succeed in understanding the special differences of
women's writing, or realize a distinct female literary tradition. But, with grounding in theory and
historical research, Showalter sees gynocriticism as a way to "learn something solid, enduring,
and real about the relation of women to literary culture" (New, 249). She stresses heavily the need
to free "ourselves from the lineal absolute of male literary history". That is going to be the point
where gynocritics make a beginning.

27.3 Criticism and Controversy

Feminist Theory and Criticism
Duke-University based Toril Moi, in her 1985 book Sexual/Textual Politics, accused Showalter of
having a limited, essentialist view of women. Moi particularly criticized Showalter's ideas regarding
the Female phase, and its notions of a woman's singular autonomy and necessary search inward
for a female identity. In a predominantly poststructuralist era that proposes that meaning is
contextual and historical, and that identity is socially and linguistically constructed, Moi claimed
that there is no fundamental female self.
According to Moi, the problem of equality in literary theory does not lie in the fact that the literary
canon is fundamentally male and unrepresentative of female tradition, rather the problem lies in
the fact that a canon exists at all. Moi argues that a feminine literary canon would be no less
oppressive than the male canon because it would necessarily represent a particular socio
demographic class of woman; it could not possibly represent all women because female tradition
is drastically different depending on class, ethnicity, social values, sexuality, etc. A female
consciousness cannot exist for the same reasons. Moi objects to what she sees as an essentialist
position - that is, she objects to any determination of identity based on gender. Moi's criticism was
influential as part of a larger debate between essentialist and postmodern feminist theorists at the
time.
Hysteria and "Modern" Illnessess
Showalter's controversial take on illnesses such as dissociative identity disorder (formerly called
multiple personality disorder), Gulf War syndrome and chronic fatigue syndrome in her book
Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Media (1997) has angered some in the health profession
and many who suffer from these illnesses. Writing in the New York Times, psychologist Carol
Tavris commented that "In the absence of medical certainty, the belief that all such symptoms are
psychological in origin is no improvement over the belief that none of them are."[2] Showalter
(who has no formal medical training) admits to receiving hate mail, but has not been deterred
from her position that these conditions are contemporary manifestations of hysteria. [1]
Popular Culture
Showalter also came up against criticism in the late 1990s for some of her writing on popular
culture that appeared in magazines like People and Vogue. Deirdre English, in the American
magazine The Nation, wrote:

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