Gwendolyn Brooks Feministic PhilosophyKey Idea’s and Terms

A. Examine representations of women in literature by men and women.B. Explore the question of whether there is a female language ad, ecriture feminine, and whether this is available to men.C. “Re-Read” psychoanalysis to further explore the issue of female and male identity.

Your doing well if you can establish a connection to the following idea: “presumably, though, the characteristic of a ‘women sentence’ are that the clauses are linked in looser sequences, rather than carefully balanced and patterned prose. Generally, then the female writer is seen as suffering the handicap of having tonuse a medium (prose writing), which is essentially a male instrument fashioned for male purposes. “Dale Spinder Men Made Language”

Key Words: ‘contractedness’ of femininity, this symbolic facet of language.

Student Examples:1. Brooks crafts a poem from the perspective of a young girl peaking into a world much different than her own. 2. Gwendolyn Brooks speaks upon the way young females are susceptible to becoming infatuated with the vision of what they think a woman should be and idolizing that particular image. 3. The speaker is probably raised by old fashion parents who think that a girl should stay home and do lady things. The speaker doesn’t wish to follow the status quo; she wants to be free to roam and do whatever she wishes. 4. The speaker’s mother wants to restrict her daughter from growing up to fast. Putting on makeup and dressing inappropriately would men conforming to society’s image of women. The mother wants to preserve her daughter’s innocence, rather than have society conform her.

Expanding the idea:

Within feminism there is a strong emphasis on the “contractedness” of femininity, that is, on such matters as conditioning and socialization, and the influence of images and representatives of femininity in literature and culture. All these formations are ways of avoiding “essentialism” , which is the contrary view that there is some natural, given essence of the feminine, that is universal and unchangeable.