1) CUET-ready definition
Feminist literary criticism analyses literature in relation to:
- gender and patriarchy,
- representation of women and men,
- power relations in language and culture,
- and the ways texts construct, reinforce, or resist gender norms.
It also asks:
- whose voices are included or excluded from the canon,
- how literary forms encode gendered assumptions.
2) Core concepts (high-yield)
A) Patriarchy
A social system in which:
- men hold primary power,
- and gender hierarchy shapes institutions (family, law, culture).
B) Gender vs sex
- sex: biological categories (simplified)
- gender: socially constructed roles and norms. CUET may test this distinction.
C) Representation and stereotypes
Feminist reading asks:
- how women are portrayed (angel/monster binaries, “ideal woman,” “fallen woman”),
- who has agency,
- who speaks, who is silenced.
D) Canon and recovery
Feminism challenges:
- male-dominated canons,
- recovers women writers and forms (letters, diaries, life writing).