In the following essay, VanderWolk examines the "considerations of gender" in Madame Bovary to identify Flaubert's views on masculine versus feminine writing.

Questions of gender in recent French literary criticism have generally been posed by feminist critics. Writers such as Hélène Cixous, Julia Kristeva, and Luce Irigaray have pointed out that men do not need to pose such questions, as they are already in possession of the dominant language system. "What does it mean to write as a woman or to read as a woman?" has been a common question in feminist criticism whether one speaks of a feminist critique, a Female Aesthetic, gynocritics, or gynesis. Male critics have indeed rarely felt the need to formally pose such a question, but with the rise of gender theory, the comparative study of sexual difference, men have felt empowered to ask: "What does it mean...