Looking through a Feminist Eye

When looking at a literary text, feminist critics are drawn to women’s social roles in all aspects of society. “The text of Jane Eyre speaks that desire in the interstices of the debate on woman’s social role, between the romance/realism divide, the conflict between Reason and Imagination in her heroine’s consciousness”(Pg.171). In other words the desire in the small spaces or argument over the debate of woman’s social role in romance and realism divide conflict between reason and imagination in the dominant female character’s mind. This is something a feminist critic would be interested in reading and writing. But lets look at this from a male point of view about female’s writing especially in Romanticism where feminist critics may feel of importance. On page 170 it says “Romanticism becomes a problem for women writers because of its assumptions about the nature of femininity”. They this because of women’s “tidal rhythms of menstruation, pregnancy, victims instinct and intuition, and women’s mysterious pulsations of the natural world”. Feminist must be outraged from this remark because that is not what feminist author’s write about. They write stories with heroins trying to be equal with the dominant class in society. But lets look at what feminist critics are drawn to in all text. How do males use females in texts, well on page 174 in literary theory is says “the feminism of the text (jane eyre) resides in its ‘not said’, its attempt to inscribe women as sexual subjects within the systems”. When they say “not said”, it means that it is not directly said that woman are sexual subjects within the system. But reading the text you get that message, which is a problem for feminist critics when looking for equality with the dominant class (males). It goes for the same thing with music video’s today looking at woman as sexual objects, which is part of the reason why it is hard for women to be treated equal in society, because of the way males depicts them.