Socialist Feminist Criticism: You Dropped the Bomb on Me, Baby

Socialist Feminist Criticism: You Dropped the Bomb on Me, Baby

Feminism and gender studies have been described as having the ability to "challenge literary and culture theory to confront the difficult task of assimilating the findings of an expanding sphere of inquiry" (Contemporary Literary Criticism 567). This area of study has taken center stage during the last fifty years, not only in our society, but also in literary criticism. Although the terrain Feminism traverses can hardly be narrowed down to one single definition, the exploration of the genre can, at times, be the most intriguing feature of the criticism itself. While feminism has undoubtedly changed the way women and gender roles are considered in society today, it has also had an impact on the way that I, too, read literature, look at American culture, and view the world.

Walter Ong suggests that "'literature' itself is the product of--or completely wound up and 'imbricated' in--the social contexts out of which it grows" (CLC 461). The social contexts that exist in our society have not only affected our societal systems themselves, but also have changed the way we view our class systems, gender roles, and sexual choices. Viewing society from a Marxist perspective can also help us decipher the unspoken rules that govern us. "Not only do Marxist critics want criticism to be constantly aware of history--both present and past history--in reading and literature, they also demand that the criticism become more overtly political or... 'politically informed,' so that it attempts, as Marx said, not simply to interpret but to change the world" (CLC 462). This intent is similar to that of the feminist genre in that both camps are seeking to change the way we understand the world and to eventually change the world itself.

Feminism and Marxism are further intertwined if you consider the female sex as a social class of its own. In my analysis of Walt Whitman's poem, I Hear America Singing, I commented that "by studying cultures and societies from the Marxist vantage point we are better equipped to understand the affects of social classes on our lives. The theories of Marxism provide the thinking worker with an understanding which is capable of leading him through the many events and complex processes of society, economics, the struggle of classes, and politics." But, by utilizing these techniques in combination with those of the Feminist perspective, we are equipped with an even greater microscope under which to examine the social contexts that surround and inevitably influence us.

One way to relate these critical theories to our own lives and, more specifically, to our understanding of texts is by taking into consideration that we are a product of our surroundings. "Literature is 'relatively autonomous,' functioning within its own rules of production and reception. Thus, it both partakes of and contributes to ideology and cannot be viewed as merely a reflection of specific class interests" (Columbia Dictionary 176). Literature also cannot be separated from the common ideals of the society in which it was created. "Marxist criticism assumes that the objects we view as works of literature or art are the products of historical forces that can be analyzed by focusing on the material conditions in which they are formed" (Columbia Dictionary 175). While this is true, Feminism further expounds on this definition by stating that "class discourse is gendered discourse" (Kaplan 603), thus forever linking the two criticisms in the minds of many.

While coming to terms with the definitions of Marxist and Feminist theories and the effects that viewing the world from these vantage points can have on a person, I came across a perspective that seemed to envelop many of the ideals that triggered my curiosity. Socialist Feminist criticism is "concerned not only with establishing but also with historicizing the relationships between gender, race, and class. [Cora] Kaplan argues, that subjectivity is always articulated in social and cultural terms within systems of difference and structuring hierarchies, so that gender cannot be discussed apart from class and race" (CLC 592). This definition of feminism situates sex and gender alongside the subjects of focus of the Marxist theory, even going as far as to intertwine the two. While I, myself, have been trying to determine how much I agree with the points that each individual theory