Aimee Bender: "Mfer"

A feminist critic might read the story written by Aimee Bender in two different ways. In Showalter’s case a feminist critic can either be a woman as a reader or woman as a writer. “The first type is concerned with woman as reader- with woman as the consumer of male-produced literature, and with the way in which the hypothesis of a female reader changes our apprehension of a given text…The second type of feminist criticism is concerned with woman as writer- with woman as the producer of textual meaning, with the history, themes, genres and structure of literature by women.” The first type of feminist critic includes the image and stereotypes of woman in literature. In Aimee Bender’s story, there are many stereotypes that can be found from a feminist critic viewing the story in the reader perspective. They might say that a woman is stereotypically portrayed as nurturing, independent, pretty, and impractical or vulnerable. In this text, the characteristic of impracticality or vulnerability included the notion that the women did not know that the man was an “Motherf**ker” until he revealed his identity. "I f**k mothers," he said to anyone who asked him. "And I do it well,' he added. All the women display the quality of nurturing by being mothers and by being single and in charge of their children. The “pretty” characteristic is shown when there is a description of their looks. The described appearance of the starlet with her shiny hair is one example of this. One example can be that the women are independent because they are the providers. She is strong, in opposition to the stereotypical female characteristics of being weak, because she is able to survive the tabloids and the people around her, who were too "scared" to speak to her because of who she was.