Keywords

feminism, f-word, consciousness-raising, underground, Sarah Grand, The Heavenly Twins, Dorothy Bryant, Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones's Diary, Journal

Abstract

In the chapters of my thesis, I explore how "soft" consciousness-raising novels of the first, second and third-waves of feminism practice underground feminism by covertly exposing women's socio-political issues outside of the confines of feminist rhetoric. In moving away from the negative connotations of political language, the authors enable the education of female audiences otherwise out of reach. Working from and extending on various theorists, I construct a theoretical model for what I term underground feminism. Running on the principal of conducting feminist activism without using feminist rhetoric, underground feminism challenges the notion that "subtle" feminism means weak feminism. In illustrating how underground feminism works in novels and in physical activism, I hope to encourage the recognition of the political utility of women's writings that do not fit the strict archetypes of feminist authorship. Analyzing the effectiveness of covert feminist conversion narratives, I discuss one soft consciousness-raising novel for each wave. The novels - Sarah Grand's The Heavenly Twins (1893), Dorothy Bryant's Ella Price's Journal (1972), and Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary (1996) - accused by scholars of employing weak feminist politics, are investigated as feminist literature that disidentifies with the feminist label with the possibility of facilitating a wide spread conversion process in "would be" feminists. After analyzing how the novels place women's issues at the center of discourse by discussing female education, women's voice, and narrative control, I consider how the underground feminism implicit in the texts extends to activism outside of literature. I also end by arguing that these novels enable a more intricate conversation about women's issues in which the voices of both self-identified and non-identified feminists are recognized.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2010

Advisor

Jones, Anna

Degree

Master of Arts (M.A.)

College

College of Arts and Humanities

Department

English

Degree Program

English

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0003329

URL

http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0003329

Language

English

Release Date

July 2011

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Masters Thesis (Open Access)

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