Feminist Criticism Questions to Ask About a Text
For literature students and teachers reading a novel, play, poem or film through a feminist lens. The questions follow the order an analysis usually takes: how women and men are portrayed, who holds power, who gets to speak, how gender roles are enforced or resisted, what the author's time assumed, and then how to turn what you found into a thesis. The notes say what evidence to collect and what a thin answer looks like, with examples from 'A Doll's House', 'Jane Eyre', 'Macbeth' and 'The Great Gatsby'.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Portrayal
How are the women in this text portrayed, and how are the men?
Why ask it
Make two columns and list the adjectives and the actions the text gives each. If the women's column is mostly appearance and feeling and the men's is mostly action and decision, that contrast is already a claim you can argue, so keep the page numbers.
How do the men and women in the text relate to each other, and is any pairing between equals?
Why ask it
Go through the pairs one at a time: father and daughter, husband and wife, brother and sister, employer and servant, friends. For each, ask which of the two can say no and have it respected. If one pair stands out as more equal than the rest, the text may be using it as a measure for the others.
Which female characters are complete people, and which are there to serve someone else's story?
Why ask it
Try removing her and see what breaks. If the only loss is a reason for the hero to act, she is working as a device, whether prize, warning or motive, and naming the device is a sharper point than calling her flat. Then check whether she is ever on the page when he is not.
What do the women in the text want, and does the text treat those wants as reasonable?
Why ask it
Watch what happens to the wanting: it can be rewarded, mocked, punished or quietly dropped. A text can hand a woman ambition and still frame it as a fault, so quote the narrator's tone as well as the plot.
Do the female characters fall into familiar types, such as the saint, the temptress, the nag or the self-sacrificing mother?
Why ask it
Spotting the type is the easy half, and an essay that stops there reads as a checklist. Mark the one scene where a character slips out of her type, or where the plot seems to need her to stay in it, and write about that.
How are women's looks and bodies described, and through whose eyes?
Why ask it
Compare first appearances. When a woman arrives as a face and a dress and a man arrives as a job or a voice, ask who inside the story is doing the looking, because the reader is being lent that person's point of view.
What does the text count as manly, and which men fall short of it?
Why ask it
A feminist reading covers masculinity too. Find the man who fails the standard, the gentle one, the frightened one or the one who stays home, and report how the text treats him, since ridicule or pity there shows the rule more plainly than any hero does.
Do the women talk to each other, and what about?
Why ask it
Go scene by scene and keep a tally. If every conversation between women concerns a man, or there are none, you can say so with a number, which is the idea behind the informal check known as the Bechdel test. A tally is only a starting point, though: one honest scene between sisters can outweigh it.
Are the women in the text allies or rivals, and who gains when they are set against each other?
Why ask it
Ask what the two are competing for and who set the prize. If it is one man's attention or approval, the rivalry is doing work for him. Where women do help each other, with money, a hiding place or a lie told on someone's behalf, see whether the help changes anything, because a text can show solidarity and still let it fail.
Which women are missing from this world, or present without a name?
Why ask it
Think of the mother who died before the first page, the servant known only by her job, the wife mentioned once. An absence is hard to quote, so support it with what the same scenes do spend words on, and stay open to the gap being deliberate on the author's part.
How do class, race, age or religion change the way a woman is treated in the text?
Why ask it
Set two women side by side: the lady and her maid, the bride and the widow. A thin answer treats women as one group with one experience. A stronger one shows the text applying different rules to each and says which of them pays more.
Power
Who holds power in this text, and what kind is it: money, law, force, family name or reputation?
Why ask it
Name the kind, because 'the men have the power' is too wide to argue. Then find one scene where that power is used on someone and one where nobody needs to use it because everyone in the room already understands, which is usually the more telling of the two.
Who owns the property and controls the money, and what does that decide for the women?
Why ask it
Follow the inheritance, the dowry, the wage or the allowance. Where a woman's choices narrow to marrying well or living on a relative's goodwill, the plot is showing you an economic system, and that reads better in an essay than a general remark about unfairness.
Who makes the decisions that move the plot?
Why ask it
List the five or six turning points and write a name beside each. If no woman's name appears, look again for acts the plot does not credit as decisions, such as persuading, refusing, withholding or leaving, and decide whether they belong on the list.
What can a man do in this world that a woman cannot, and what does it cost her to try?
Why ask it
Pick one freedom the men take for granted, such as traveling alone, signing a contract, speaking in public or turning down a proposal, and find the scene where a woman reaches for it. Then state the price exactly: a reputation, a home, a child. A vague cost makes a vague paragraph.
What kinds of power do the women have, and does the text call it influence or scheming?
Why ask it
Women in a story may run the household, hold everyone's secrets, or get their way through wit or beauty. Check the verbs, since a man in the same book may 'persuade' where a woman 'manipulates'. A text that only lets women act indirectly and then distrusts them for it has built a double bind, and showing how it is built is a stronger essay than objecting to it.
How does marriage work in the text: as love, as a contract, as rescue or as a trap?
Why ask it
Different couples in one work often get different answers, and the contrast between them is the argument. Pay attention to weddings near the end, because a marriage offered as the reward says something very different from one offered as the defeat.
Who is punished in the story, and for what?
Why ask it
Compare a man and a woman who break the same rule. If he is forgiven and she is ruined, sent away or killed, the text is either endorsing a double standard or exposing one. Deciding which, with quotations, can be the whole essay.
Which institutions keep men in charge in this text: the family, the church, the law, the school, medicine?
Why ask it
When an assignment says patriarchy, this is usually what it means: a set of institutions that back each other up, more than any one cruel man. Find the character who speaks for one of them and read those lines slowly. That person is often kind, and kindness that still removes someone's choice deserves a paragraph, as with the physician husband in 'The Yellow Wallpaper'.
Voice
Who tells the story, and whose thoughts are we allowed inside?
Why ask it
Identify the narrator, then note whose head the narration enters. A woman can be at the center of a plot and still be seen only from outside, as Daisy is through Nick in 'The Great Gatsby'. List what you never learn about her and ask whether the text seems aware of the gap.
In a poem, who is speaking, who is being addressed, and does the one addressed ever answer?
Why ask it
Love poems are the place to try this. The beloved may be praised feature by feature, eyes, lips, hair, and never given a line, so ask what she might say back and whether the poem leaves any room for it. If the speaker is a woman, look at who she is allowed to address and what she has to ask for.
Who speaks most, who gets interrupted, and who is spoken for?
Why ask it
In a play you can count lines, and the totals are often a surprise. In prose, look for reported speech: 'she agreed' in place of her actual words is a small silencing. Bring two or three such moments to class, because an impression alone will not hold up.
When a woman speaks up, how do the people around her react?
Why ask it
She may be believed, laughed at, called hysterical, talked over or sent out of the room. Whichever it is shows the rules of that world faster than any speech about them. Then decide whether the text sides with the room or with her.
What do the women leave unsaid, and where does it show up instead?
Why ask it
What cannot be said aloud may come out as an illness, a diary, letters, sewing or a song. Treat these as speech by other means and quote them as closely as dialogue. The weak version of this answer fills the silence with what the reader wishes she had said.
What words does the text use for women, and what are the matching words for men?
Why ask it
Collect the nouns and forms of address: girl beside man, first names beside titles, pet names, animals, flowers, objects. Sort them by speaker. A narrator's word choices weigh more than a villain's, since nobody in the story answers them.
Which images and metaphors gather around the female characters?
Why ask it
Cages, birds, dolls, houses, mirrors and weather are common ones. Follow a single image from its first use to its last and say how it changes. An image that shifts, like a locked door that ends up open, gives you a beginning, a middle and an end to arrange the paragraphs around.
Does any woman get to give her own account of events, or do we only have it from others?
Why ask it
Look for a testimony, a confession, a letter read aloud or a chapter in her voice. If her account is cut short or retold by someone else, compare the two versions line by line. Bertha Mason in 'Jane Eyre', known almost entirely through what others say of her, is a good case to practice on.
Roles
What does this world expect of a woman as a daughter, a wife, a mother and a widow?
Why ask it
Write one line for each stage and you will see which the text cares about. Some stories lose interest in a woman once she marries or passes a certain age, so mark the page where the attention stops and note who the story turns to instead.
How do girls and boys in the text learn what is expected of them, and who teaches it?
Why ask it
Look for scenes of instruction: a corrected posture, a warning about reputation, a joke at someone's expense, a brother's advice. Mothers and aunts often enforce the rules on girls, and a careful essay explains what they stand to lose if they do not, instead of simply blaming them.
Who breaks the rules for their gender, and who is the first to push back?
Why ask it
Check whether the first objection comes from an authority, such as a judge or a priest, or from someone close: a mother, a friend, a neighbor. Pressure from close by tends to arrive as advice, gossip or a joke, and a text that shows this is saying the rule needs no officer to enforce it. Then see whether a man who steps out of line gets the same treatment.
Does any character take on traits the text assigns to the other gender?
Why ask it
A woman who commands or a man who nurtures tests where the text draws its lines. Note the language used when it happens, such as Lady Macbeth's 'unsex me here' as she prepares to act, and whether the trait is shown as borrowed, unnatural or simply hers.
Who does the cooking, cleaning, nursing and child-rearing, and does anyone in the text notice?
Why ask it
Domestic work is often offstage, done between chapters by people with few lines. Where a text does put it on the page, look at whether it is shown as skill, as love, as drudgery or as nothing at all. A meal that simply appears on the table, with nobody shown making it, is a small fact you can quote.
How does the text treat mothers, and women who are not mothers?
Why ask it
Sort the mothers into idealized, absent, smothering and ordinary, then look at the childless women and the unmarried ones. Pity, suspicion or comedy aimed at a woman without children shows what the text assumes a woman is for.
Which spaces belong to whom: who stays indoors and who gets to leave?
Why ask it
Map the settings, with kitchens, bedrooms and gardens on one side and offices, roads and battlefields on the other. A woman crossing a threshold is nearly always a turning point, as when Nora closes the door behind her in 'A Doll's House', so look at what waits outside and whether she comes back.
What happens when a woman in the text writes, paints, studies or earns money of her own?
Why ask it
See whether the work is encouraged, hidden, belittled as a hobby or taken over by someone else. A character who has to write or paint in secret raises the matter of who is permitted to create, and who in the story would have to give the permission.
Does the text treat its gender roles as natural, or does any character notice they are learned?
Why ask it
Search for a line where someone says, in effect, this is what is expected of me: it is very quotable and can anchor a whole paragraph. Collect the narrator's 'of course' and 'naturally' as well, which mark what the text expects nobody to question. If no character ever notices, only the reader sees the arrangement, and you can say so.
Does the ending reward obedience or resistance?
Why ask it
Endings pass judgment, so set the last page for the woman who complied beside the last page for the one who resisted. Then ask whether the ending felt earned or imposed. A rule-breaker the narration plainly likes, destroyed anyway, suggests a text whose sympathy runs against its own plot.
Does the text imagine another way to live, or only show what is wrong with this one?
Why ask it
A community of women, an equal partnership, a character who walks away and is not punished: any of these counts as an alternative. If you find none, avoid marking the text down for it. Showing a closed door accurately can be the criticism.
Context
When and where was this written, and what could a woman there legally and practically do?
Why ask it
Look up the specifics for that country and decade: property, schooling, the vote, divorce, paid work. The rules differed sharply from place to place and changed over time, so one checked fact with a source beats 'women had no rights back then', which a teacher will circle.
Who wrote it, and how might their own position have shaped what they could see or say?
Why ask it
Use biography as a lead and never as proof. A woman publishing under a man's name is relevant background, but 'the heroine is really the author' cannot be shown from the page, and neither can 'a man cannot write women'. Return to the text for the evidence.
What arguments about women were live when this was written, and does the text join one?
Why ask it
Depending on the period that might be schooling for girls, married women's property, the vote or women in paid work, and the introduction or notes in your edition are the quickest reliable place to find out. A character who voices the fashionable opinion of the day, and is laughed at or proved right, shows which way the text leans.
What did the first audience take for granted that you do not?
Why ask it
An arranged match, a father's veto or a woman barred from a profession may have passed without comment at the time. Mark the places where the text explains nothing because it expected agreement. Those unexplained places are where its assumptions sit.
How was the work received when it first appeared, and has its reputation changed?
Why ask it
Find out who reviewed it, whether it was waved away as domestic or sentimental, and whether it fell out of print and was later recovered. If you cannot find the reception history, leave the point out, because a guess here is easy to spot.
How does this text handle gender compared with others from its period or genre?
Why ask it
One comparison is enough: another novel of the decade, another tragedy, or a work from the same years by an author of the other sex. It stops you from crediting the author with what was merely convention, or blaming them for it. What stands out against the neighbors is what belongs to this text.
In a film or a staging, what do casting, costume and camera add that the script does not say?
Why ask it
Note who the camera stays on, who is background in the frame, and how each is dressed and lit. Two productions of one play can make opposite arguments about the same lines, so name the version you watched and write about that one.
Which of your own assumptions are you bringing to the reading?
Why ask it
A reader today may see a quiet character as weak or a marriage plot as a defeat where the text sees neither. Write the reaction down, then test it against the page. The warning sign is an essay that scolds an old book for not having been written last year.
Thesis
Overall, does the text reinforce the gender roles it shows, question them, or do both?
Why ask it
A sexist character is not a sexist book, so weigh tone, irony and who pays in the end before you decide. 'Both' is allowed and often right, as long as you say where each happens. Draft the sentence as 'Although the text does this, it also does that', and you have a thesis with its counterargument built in.
Which single scene would you use to prove your reading?
Why ask it
Being unable to choose usually means the claim is too broad. Pick the scene, quote six or eight lines and build outward from them. A paragraph of close reading earns more than a page of plot summary.
What in the text works against your reading, and how do you answer it?
Why ask it
Go looking for the strongest counterexample: the sympathetic patriarch, the wife who seems content. An essay that takes it on reads as an argument, and one that leaves it out reads as cherry-picking. Sometimes the counterexample is right and the thesis needs to bend.
Can you state your claim so that a reasonable reader could disagree with it?
Why ask it
'The novel shows that women were oppressed' is a claim nobody would dispute, which is why it fails as a thesis. Add the how and the so what: through which device, to what effect on the reader. Read it to a classmate, and if they just nod, sharpen it.
What would a different critical lens see that this one misses?
Why ask it
A reading through class, race, empire or psychology may explain the same scenes another way. One sentence admitting what your lens leaves out makes the essay more credible. And if the other lens accounts for your evidence better, it is good to find that out before you hand it in.
What does your reading change about how the whole text should be understood?
Why ask it
Save this for the conclusion. A good answer shifts something: a minor character becomes central, a happy ending looks less happy, a villain starts to look like a symptom. If nothing shifts, the lens has only been used to attach labels.
Reading through a feminist lens without forcing the text
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before you start asking
Read it once without the lens
Get the plot, the characters and your own reaction down first. The questions work on a second pass, when you know where the story goes and can notice how it gets there. With a film, that means watching it through before you pause to take notes.
What the lens asks
Feminist criticism asks how a text represents gender and what it treats as natural about men and women. It applies to texts with no female characters, to texts by women and by men, and to male characters as much as female ones. It does not ask you to decide whether the author was a good person.
Terms the assignment may use
Patriarchy means a society arranged so that men hold most of the authority, inside the family and outside it. Gender is the set of roles and expectations a society attaches to being male or female, as distinct from the body. The gaze is the point of view a text or a camera looks from. Critics do not all use these words the same way, so go by the definitions your course gives.
Collect before you conclude
Answer the Portrayal, Power and Voice questions with quotations and page or line numbers before you form a view. A list of twenty small observations will show a pattern you could not have guessed, and an essay built from the pattern is easier to defend than one built from a first impression.
Use the groups your text answers
A lyric poem may have little to say about property and a great deal about voice and imagery. A courtroom drama may be all power. Work through the two or three groups that produce the most evidence and leave the others.
Turning answers into a thesis
Find the pattern, then the exception
Lay your notes out and look for what repeats: who is described by looks, who is interrupted, who pays. Then find the one place the pattern breaks. The thesis usually lives in the relation between the two, in why the text keeps a rule everywhere except there.
Use a frame, then delete it
Start with a sentence in three parts: what the text appears to do, what it does on a closer look, and how it does it. For 'A Doll's House' that might be: the play appears to show an affectionate marriage, but through the pet names and the housekeeping money it shows a wife treated as a child. Rewrite it in your own words once the idea is firm.
Give each paragraph one question
A body paragraph can be one question from the list, one short quotation and three or four sentences on its wording. Keep the plot summary to a clause. If a paragraph has no quoted words in it, it is probably retelling the story.
Bring in context sparingly
One fact about the period, checked and cited, placed where it explains a detail in the text, is enough for most essays. Ask your teacher how much historical background the assignment wants and which sources count, since courses differ on this.
Mistakes that weaken the reading
Mistaking depiction for endorsement
A text that shows a woman silenced may be the one objecting loudest. Before you call a work sexist or feminist, find evidence of where its sympathy lies: in the narrator's tone, in who is given the last word, in what the ending costs.
Judging the past by the present
It is fair to notice what a text assumes, and unhelpful to mark it down for not sharing views that came later. Describe the assumption, show how it shapes the story, and leave the verdict to the reader.
Treating characters as real people
Asking why a character did not simply leave forgets that an author arranged every door and window. Turn the question toward the writing: why is she given no way out, and what does that arrangement make the reader feel?
Finding only victims
A reading in which every woman is oppressed and every man an oppressor is easy to write and easy to answer. Look for the power women do hold, the men the system also harms, and the women who keep it running. The essay gets more accurate and more interesting at once.
Counting without arguing
Line counts and tallies are evidence, and they still need a sentence saying what they mean. A woman with few lines may hold the scene, and a talkative one may never be heard.
Using the list in a class or seminar
One group per table
Give each table one group of questions, such as Portrayal, Power, Voice or Roles, and ten minutes with the same chapter or scene, then have the tables report in that order. The class hears a full reading assembled from parts, and each table has had to produce quotations.
Start with a short text
A poem, a fairy tale or a single film scene lets students practice the questions in one lesson before they try them on a novel. Familiar stories work well because nobody has to be reminded of the plot.
Let two readings stand
When one student reads a character as trapped and another reads her as choosing, ask each for the line that supports them and leave it unsettled. Showing that the same passage holds both is a better lesson in criticism than a ruling from the front of the room.
Set ground rules for the discussion
Talk about the text and the reading, and keep personal remarks about classmates out of it. Some works deal with violence or mistreatment, so say in advance what is coming and offer a way to take part in writing.