Summary of ‘Sexual difference’ chapter 16 of Introduction to Literature, Criticism and theory, Bennett and Royle
...the violence of patriarchy, which in this case is mental, not physical. “It is what we call the soft face of oppression.” “Wyatt’s sonnet figures men and women in a number of gender-stereotypical ways. Man is hunter, woman is the hunted.” Wyatt speaks to man and not to woman in his sonnet. Though Wyatt and Gilman are greatly different in terms of time period and culture they both show very clearly the power of gender stereotypes. Showing women as subordinate, passive and hysterical. Sexual difference can also be ascertained through essentialism: where there is one form of sexual difference, which is the difference between male and female. “Various kinds of gender-stereotypes are then articulated…onto this essentialism: the male is strong, active, rational, the female is weak, passive, irrational…” “Reading literary texts in terms of sexual difference can be more complex and demanding than simply recognizing the gender opposition and hierarchies to be found at work in a text …but what is most important about literary representations of gender is not merely that a particular text can be shown to sexist or phallocentric, or even feminist.” both Gilman and Wyatt’s texts can be read not simply in terms of feminist or sexist but these two views can be seen simultaneously or in parallel to one another. Gilman in The Yellow Wallpaper focuses not only on patriarchal domination and its effect on the female psyche. It also conveys woman’...