Feminist readings: the case of Christina Stead

With the development of feminist literary criticism over the past decade or so, most women writers recognised as ‘major’ now have a feminist as well as a mainstream reputation. Christina Stead is an interesting case in point, because the two reputations have emerged almost simultaneously and there is evidence of a struggle going on over the possession of her name. Male critics, in these early stages of Stead criticism, frequently challenge the legitimacy of feminist readings. They object to what they see as feminists ‘enlisting her work in support of partisan causes’ (Geering, 1978:469; Reid, 1979:112-13) and misreading her texts by an overemphasis on certain features such as her portraits of egotistical males (Clancy, 1981:42) or the ‘reductive labelling’ of her female characters as feminist heroines (Pybus, 1982:42).