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Student Name: Institution: Course Name / Number: Instructor Name: Date: Feminism in the American Literature "Feminist Literature" is, in the broadest sense, the culmination of feminism's ideology: that females are equal to men. However, it is even more difficult for women, who may show disdain for other women who disagree with their view of "feminist" and "feminine" balance. Mary Wollstonecraft's "mother of feminism." best summarized the perceptive argument in 1792 (Carlson). In her publication, “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,” she stated, "I hope my own sex will forgive me if I treat them like logical beings, rather than praising their interesting graces and seeing them as if they were perpetually children, who cannot stand alone." Feminism is a general term that encompasses a wide range of social ideologies, political movements, and moral philosophies. However, the context and expression of the phrase have evolved. Becoming a feminist is self-defining; women decide to pursue it in their own lives and can serve as role models for others. In general, its goal is to oppose, resist, and ultimately abolish male-dominated culture's customs in favor of equality for all (O'Connor). "Feminist literature" gave these movements a voice and called for women authors to be recognized as valid artistic outlets. Many female writers in the nineteenth and twentieth century adopted male identifiers to be successful. This article aims to discuss feminism in American literature. Through the everyday consciousness, Americans dedicated their lives to issues such as slavery, civil rights, the end of the Vietnam War, and fair pay for work of equal value. In 1910, during the suffragette movement led by Came Chapman Catt, known as the National American Woman Suffrage Association, the word "gender equality" was first used to associate women's freedom and equality as citizens (O'Connor). This new platform of women's rights aided "a global resistance against those regulatory boundaries the rules and norms invoke between females and personal freedom," as Catt put it, as well as women's revolution in all academic, economic, cultural, and sexual realms. Anne Hutchinson's struggled for religious freedom in the 1600s, the Canienga. Brant's contribution to American Indian rights during the Revolutionary War, and so on. In the mid-nineteenth century, African-American Sojourner Truth fought for better rights for both blacks and women (Wood). Anna J. Cooper fought for social justice in the late-nineteenth century and up until she died in 1964, publishing “A Tone from the South—By a Black Woman of the South” (1892), which is regarded among the first progressive black literature. Tillie Olson was imprisoned in the early 1930s for fighting for women's rights. Lillian Hellman's anti-fascist efforts in the 1930s. Between the two world wars, Zora Neale Hurston’s anthropological study among African Americans from New York to the Caribbean during the Harlem Renaissance (Strong, 12). Betty Friedan's rising awareness of middle-class females in the 1960s. She published “The Feminine Mystique” in 1963, the same year as The Bell Jar, and it is widely regarded as the single most significant book about American women's oppression in the postwar years (Wood). The American women's movement arose soon after as part of the 1960s general political movement. The student and black rebellions faded over time, but the feminist movement continues to exist, although in a more subdued form. This seems to show not only that people have not completely realized its objectives, but also that it is critical to society's growth and development. In the background of this revolution, a surge of female's literature emerged in the 1970s and 1980s that is rich and diverse enough to be considered one of the most significant revolutions in American literature and culture this century. Maya Angelou's multi-volume autobiography of “Growing up black,” published in the 1970s. Lesbian Nation: Jill Johnston's support for lesbians in the 1970s. Shulamith Firestone's appeal for women to "dare to be evil" in the 1970s (Wood). Feminism has reached into every aspect of society, linking sex and gender to not only late-twentieth-century art criticism, where feminist organizations have concentrated on postmodernism, particularly its element of socially created situations in which awareness is relative instead of absolute, and in focus on new trends rather than constant patterns but also too polite society. However, the progress that women are making in these political and social sectors, like academia, has provided current feminist scholars with the option of creating more obscurantist feminist philosophy instead of the conventional literature of the early feminists (a task that has been developed in culture and history and the essence that there is an essential foundation for feminism that exists cross-culturally). Our present situation is comparable to that of early female white settlers and partially or fully oppressed Black slaves. At the time, writing by a woman was a threat to the educated men who controlled Western culture. Even though there are three significant historical times of female's groups in America old south period (1830-60). The revolutionary era (1900-World War I); and the civil rights movement and student protests of the 1960s and early 1970s it is every confident woman expressing her ideologies, her art, her religious beliefs, and her right to survive, acquire state schools, and procreate that is most important (Strong, 15). For example, in the early 1800s, the little-known doctor Harriot Keziah Hunt was denied admission to Harvard Medical School. She fought the medical establishment and presented the created theories that women, like anybody else, would benefit from a deeper understanding of how their bodies work, such as the opportunity to view their health records and thus participate in their health and well-being. In 1856, Hunt published his autobiography, Glances and Glimpses; or Fifty Years Social, Comprising Twenty Years Professional Life. Nellie Bly's tenacity as a journalist led her to campaign for female patients' rights in psychiatric institutions and uneducated workers' working conditions. Later in life, she dedicated her life to assisting homeless children. The main difference between early American women authors and their English contemporaries was their interest in religious and political topics. The cause of the American female started with pioneering explorers, including Anne Hutchinson. In the first half of the 17th century, she disrupted the male domination of religion by attending talks for women in her Massachusetts Bay home. Hutchinson believed in an arrangement of salvation that could be understood by a personal self, contrary to the clergy's teachings of a covenant of works, as to which one could only receive grace from those whom God had chosen. She was kicked out of the group. Anne Bradstreet, a good citizen of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, had eight children and wrote verse in her spare time in 1678, six years post her death (Wood). Puritan society did not prohibit white females from receiving an education in reality, the controlling men encouraged it but it did frown upon those who took advantage of it. Governor John Winthrop of Massachusetts, where Bradstreet lived, popularized the idea that a female’s excess reading and understanding may lead to mental illness. Despite the problems, the women of white origin got education while the men and women of the black race served as slaves. Almost six years after the arrival of Phillis Wheatley America, she published her first poem in 1767. Phillis Wheatley was a West African slave who was brought to Boston at a tender age of seven and adopted by John Wheatley. She became very popular in England as compared America releasing her novels on various topics, religion and morals in London in the year 1773 (Jacobs). The warm reception she received from the family of John Wheatley was very instrumental in pursuit for her goals, for example, Mary, the daughter of Wheatley’s used to teach her English. The wife to John Wheatley, Susana, never regarded her as a slave but a kid. Things changed when Phillis got her freedom and decided to engaged a business man of black origin. During this time, her properties were taken away from her and she was also denied her job release. Phillis Wheatley died at the age of thirty-one, few years after her liberation. Most of her work were composed before she attained the age of twenty. In addition, other women like Judith Sargent Murray who in 1779 wrote on the “Equality between sexes”, the first systematically womanist declaration between in America literature and Abigail Adams, Otis Warren and Susan Rowson who utilized their talents into popular discourse and literature, majored on epistolary correspondence as an effective means of reading in the 18th century. Mercy Otis Warren was a mother of 5 kids, she majored on poet and drama and wrote several styles including dramas on democracy and independence, articles in the newspaper, political satires and pamphlets in her poetic works (O'Connor). Mercy Otis major work was the three volume; “History of development, progress and the termination of the American revolution”. In most cases she corresponded with Abigail Adams who was expressing the views on women’s role to her husband, President John. In one of her letters to the president, Abigail Adams condemned her husband for discriminating women in the country. She also reminded the president on what the women were capable of doing should the oppression continue. Other authors who were instrumental against the oppression of women included Mary Wollstonecraft, who published the revolutionary “A Vindication of the Rights of women”, which encouraged the women in the early 19th century to fight for their freedom. Hanna Mather Crocker, a Boston native also supported the Wollstonecraft idea more so her fight for women’s education (Wood). Crooker was a mother of ten and a widow for thirteen years. She wrote various letters on freemasonry, advocating for women’s right. Crooker argued that women were equal to men because God wasn’t biased during the creation and He distributed grace without regarding the gender. The fight on human right gained popularity in the late 1700 and early 1800, this was as result of the educational system that included women education as one of its components. In addition to that, Sarah Pierce, Mary Vial Holyoke and Susan Haswell Rowson formed the female educational institution that promoted the young female to work on their abilities and strengths. Later on, they were joined by Emily Dickinson, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Louisa Mary. Stowe was majorly inspired by her need to stop the slavery. The fugitive law of the 1850 which required the Northerners to return the slaves who ran away back to southern owners inspired her work. Despite Alcott being a committed Feminist who fought against the oppression of women, her famous novel, “Little women” while biographical in its depiction of four sisters coming of age, does not represent her political ideology (Birch). It also doesn’t reflect other types of Alcott’s fictions such as the down to earth tales of female in the work place or her gothic suspense. Harriet Jacobs was born on a slave plantation in North Carolina and escaped together with her children to the North explained the life of a slave girl and how she managed to escape. A southern Actress and a writer known as Fanny Kemble separated with her husband and ran abandoned the children to flee to the plantation owned by the husband where she lived with slaves. Slave women faced hard labor and were used as sex objects in the development of potential slaves for masters, according to Kemble’s later work, “Journal of a Residence of Georgian Plantation” (1868). Some groups of authors led by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau became popular in the early 1800s and were actively involved in the movements that fought for the abolition of the slavery. In exception of Margaret Fuller, an author and a well-known conversationalist, women were not included in its inner circle. Emerson became friends with Fuller and used her skills in oral language to teach Emerson speech (Carlson). From 1840 to 1844, they produced a transcendental journal “The Dial” with Emerson though it is rumored that she did much of the housework, her most recognized work was her novel, Women in the 19th century which was released in 1845. The first women rights convention was held in Seneca falls in 1848. It was organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott whom Stanton met at World Antislavery Convention in London. During this event, Stanton published a Declaration of sentiments and Sojourner Truth, a self-freed woman slave gave her famous speech “Ain’t I a Woman”. Stanton and Susan met in 1851 and the activist worked together for fifty years in order to secure Women’s rights (Carlson). Anthony inspired the legislature in advocating for the constitutional changes that would provide women with the right to vote and own properties in 1859. The activists were split in to two camps. one camp was led by the Swedish author Ellen Key, who wrote books “Century of the Child” (1910) and “Love and Marriage” (1911) were released and got a lot of the attention from the feminists in the united states, launching a liberation motion, and the other headed by revolutionaries like Emma Goldman and Writer Charlotte Perkins (Jacobs). Key’s transcendence of the Victorian divide between motherhood and seduction as well as her fight for unwed mothers had universal support but many of the American citizens believed in the cause of all sexual empowerment in all other fields controlled by men, contrary to Key’s belief. The critical issues, as explained by Gilman in her writings was that women capacity should be empowered to all fields other than limiting it to anatomy, sexual independence and motherhood. Women should be equal to men in all fields in the society including politics and employment. He explained that the existing route of human growth have very little to do with sex. Empowerment in all sectors is what women needed most. Despite the fact that women in the 20th century were still categorized by their families and had no voting rights, few educated women with professional goals had a wide range of options. The first minimum wage laws for women and children were enacted in 1912 and reporters like Ida Tarbell and Nellie Bly and the activists like Jane Adams took this initiative to create awareness to the public on the urban poverty (Carlson). Activists like Harriot Stanton rose to prominence in the suffrage movement during the right to vote campaign. She stressed on women engagement in politics, leadership, education and technical abilities. Emma Goldman applied her oratory skills to enlighten the public on the pregnancy prevention which was connected to many feminist ideologies, social change, economic freedom, sexual and romantic emancipation, class inequality and central question control. She was arrested for informing the masses on the use of contraceptives and this did not prevent her together with other leaders in the movement from conducting research in the settlement and advocating for the less advantaged women right birth control rather than dying due to botched abortion

Conclusion Women's literature is a relatively recent phenomenon, since men have written most literary literature. This suggests that male writers have ruled the American literary canon. This tradition was unlikely to be drastically changed. Still, the female authors who are already well-known should be given more attention and read in a way that incorporates mainstream feminist literature criticism's perspectives. These considerations can also be applied to male writers' works and portrayals of female characters. For far too long, American literature has been known as the work of a small group of male writers, with names like Faulkner and Hemingway dominating the list. Male critics and literary scholars have generally overlooked female perspectives and experiences, which have been emphasized by female authors. The fundamental cause of women writers' comparative invisibility and subjection stems from a hierarchical value system that considers women's writing to be less significant than those of men Until lately, literary criticism and tradition did not differentiate between male and female experience, with the former being regarded as generally accurate and representative. There has been little recognition that the female experience is significant and that it is an essential part of human consciousness. These beliefs, as well as deficiencies, have now been questioned and vigorously discussed by the process of transforming feminist academics is well established. These trends are revolutionary in terms of literary culture, critique, and literature, and they are likely the essential literary reorientation in the postwar period. Women's authors are likely to be read and addressed more and more in the future, with a better understanding of what they're trying to say about women's circumstances in different countries, classes, and epochs.

Works Cited Birch, Eva Lennox. Black American Women's Writings. Routledge, 2016. Carlson, Liane, F. "Historical Context for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman." Columbia College, www.college.columbia.edu/core/content/vindication-rights-woman/context. Jacobs, Fayola. "Black feminism and radical planning: New directions for disaster planning research." Planning Theory 18.1 (2019): 24-39. O'Connor, Kate. "Feminist Approaches to Literature." Great Writers Inspire: Learning from the Past | Great Writers Inspire, writersinspire.org/content/feminist-approaches-literature. Strong, Melissa J. "“The Finest Kind of Lady”: Hegemonic Femininity in American Women’s Civil War Narratives." Women's Studies 46.1 (2017): 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1080/00497878.2017.1252560 Wood, Jennie. "Top Ten Most Influential Feminist Books." InfoPlease, 11 Feb. 2017, www.infoplease.com/culture-entertainment/journalism-literature/top-ten-most-influential-feminist-books. Joe waithaka (talk) 20:32, 28 April 2021 (UTC)