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Reading

Feminist Analysis – Reading

Active Reading
The most important step toward crafting any effective literary analysis is to become as familiar as possible with the text you intend to analyze. Reading a text for analysis purposes requires a bit more effort than simply reading for pleasure. This is called active reading and often involves note taking, annotating, and questioning. In other words, the purpose of active reading is to really immerse yourself in the text.

A few tips for active reading are:

  • Read the text more than once. After becoming initially familiar with it, a second or third reading will give you the chance to pay closer attention to details and ask yourself questions along the way. 
  • Mark up the text and take notes. While reading, be sure to mark or make a note of anything that you feel might be useful for your analysis or you have questions about. This can include anything from a word you need to look up to a point in the plot that seems significant. For a feminist reading, almost any male/female interaction or specific mention of a character’s gender will be important.
  • Ask Questions. As you reread your text, write down questions you have about the text. See my Reading and Asking Questions example here.
The Feminist Lens
There are certain elements you should look for and make note of as your read the text. This is referred to as reading through a feminist lens. While reading, ask yourself these questions and mark passages or take notes accordingly:

  • How are women characterized versus men? Either by the author or the other characters.
  • How do the men interact with women? Women with men?
  • What roles/work/responsibilities do characters of either gender have?
  • What is considered socially acceptable behavior for each gender?
  • How are characters who transgress those norms treated?
  • Is there evidence of characters being fundamentally shaped by gender expectations?
  • Do the men and women use language differently?
This cartoon by Malcolm Evans illustrates how both modesty and hyper-sexualization of women subjugate women’s sexuality to men’s desires.
By paying attention to the questions above, you’ll be able to see the text in a whole new light.
It will also help you gather all the information you need in order to begin inventing.

For my essay, I studied “A Jury of Her Peer” by Susan Glaspell. This is the copy I used for my analysis. Note the markings, notes, and highlights I made. You can see how, as I read and reread the story, I teased out different elements of the text until I was able to form and answer my own questions.