Feminist Theory and Class Consciousness

1. Feminist Theoryand Class Consciousness The Taming of the Shrew

2. Feminism feminism |ˈfeməˌnizəm| noun the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.

3. Patriarchy patriarchy |ˈpātrēˌärkē| noun ( pl. patriarchies ) a system of society or government in which the father or eldest male is head of the family and descent is traced through the male line. • a system of society or government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it. • a society or community organized in this way.

4. Misogyny misogyny |məˈsäjənē| noun the hatred of women by men: she felt she was struggling against thinly disguised misogyny.

5. Feminist Criticism: What is it Feminist criticism is concerned with "...the ways in which literature (and other cultural productions) reinforce or undermine the economic, political, social, and psychological oppression of women" (Tyson). This school of theory looks at how aspects of our culture are inherently patriarchal (male dominated) and "...this critique strives to expose the explicit and implicit misogyny in male writing about women" (Richter 1346).

6. A Feminist Reading of The Taming of the Shrew Not only were women in the Renaissance something like “chattel” to use for a sort of bargaining between fathers and suitors, but the qualities that made them either desirable or undesirable as wives leads to the notion of a rightful patriarchal judgment of who a woman should and should not be, that men have a right to reject or “tame” qualities in a woman that they find unattractive. These unattractive qualities usually involve a dominant, mouthy woman such as Katherine.

7. . In “Misogyny is Everywhere,” Phyllis Rackin observes, “that women were expected to be chaste, silent, and obedient probably occurs more frequently in recent scholarship than they did in the literature of Shakespeare’s time;” however, she explains, “the connections between female speech and female sexual transgression (ex: losing one’s virginity before marriage) are retraced and the anxieties evoked by the possibility of female power are discovered in play after play.”(44).

8. Class Consciousness Class consciousness is a term used in to refer to the beliefs that a person holds regarding one's social class or economic rank in society, the structure of their class, and their class interests.

9. Taming of the Shrew The Taming of the Shrew does much to highlight differences between social classes. In the frame story, Shakespeare goes out of his way to demonstrate the discrepancies between the powerless and lower class Christopher Sly and the noble Lord. Attention to such social disparity carries over into the inset play, where we're asked to recognize the similarities between class hierarchy and the gender hierarchy within the characters.

10. Power in the Taming of the Shrew Consider the following characters in the play and the power they have? Where does their power come from? Katherine Petruchio Bianca Baptisa Horetnsio Lucentio Tranio Grumio Biondello