Published in 1975, The Woman Warrior made autobiographer Maxine Hong Kingston one of the most influential female voices of her generation. As gender and feminist studies programs grew at major universities across the United States, professors added Kingston's story to their curricula as an example of how one can find one's feminist voice at through the writing of a woman. Yet even though feminists found a thought-provoking message in the text, critics argued that the book was not only culturally inaccurate in its depiction of Chinese culture, but also irresponsible, in that it reinforced views American stereotypes that China was an entirely patriarchal and oppressive society. In articles written about The Woman Warrior on both sides of the debate, critics like Yuan Shu focus largely on feminist theory and concepts taught in the 1960s and 1970s. Yet while it seems appropriate for critics to base their researching feminist theory that was being studied at the time the autobiography was written, Kingston's ideas in the text were in many ways ahead of her time. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Contemporary feminist critics have included recent feminist theory in their analyzes of the text to reveal priorities other than focusing on differences between Kingston and his mother, or the nameless woman and the warrior woman; most important is the conforming and transformative nature of each respective character. However, contemporary critics (and arguably anti-feminist critics) of the autobiography continue to base their arguments on the initial feminist response to the work which took place during what is commonly referred to as the movement's second wave feminist research (in the 1960s and 1970s) rather than recognizing more contemporary feminist research. In this analysis of the novel and subsequent critical essays, I will illustrate the distinctions between second and third wave approaches to the work, and I will also illustrate how antifeminist critics have singled out specific pieces of the novel and their critical approach. analysis to base their arguments rather than focusing on the novel or review as a whole. In the 1960s and 1970s, the second wave of feminism focused its efforts on achieving equality for women around the world. When The Woman Warrior was published, feminists used the work as an example of the story of a woman directly affected by the patriarchal constraints of her culture (Brave Orchid) and of a child (Kingston) who, although born in the United States, than in China, is struggling to find its own feminist voice. While second-wave feminists were not entirely wrong to focus largely on gender in their analysis of the novel, third-wave feminists, such as bell hooks, believe that the multicultural aspect of the novel is everything as important and should be treated as such. In her article Feminism A Transformational Politics, Hooks argues that it is difficult to suggest, as the second wave of the feminist movement did, “that racism and class exploitation are merely the offspring of the parental system; patriarchy” is that “this has led to the assumption that resisting patriarchal domination is a more legitimate feminist action than resisting racism and other forms of domination” (465). Particularly because the majority of the second wave feminist movement in the United States was made up of white womenPrivileged, women from other cultural backgrounds were hesitant to join a movement in which they felt they would be forced to lose their cultural identity in order to fight for gender equality. Although there are many differences between third-wave and second-wave feminism, third-wave feminists' integration of multiculturalism is considered one of the major transitions between the two waves. Specifically, in the case of The Woman Warrior, most feminist critics who have written on the autobiography over the past twenty years, such as Shirley Goek-lin Lim, have incorporated a more multicultural approach into their analysis while taking into account consideration the fact that the autobiography was published at the height of the second wave. For example, in Lim's article The Tradition of Chinese American Women's Life Stories, she acknowledges the gap between second and third wave feminist theory and expands on bell hooks' emphasis on the importance of adopting a multicultural approach to feminism when she states that Kingston “has not an autobiographical story to tell but a racial and gender consciousness to emulate and create” (264). Yet while Lim clearly demonstrates her understanding of third-wave feminist theory in her article, Yuan Shu, an anti-feminist critic, either misunderstands or completely ignores this type of response when she states: "Critics like Yuan Shu also argue that Kingston's mother, Brave Orchid and herself are character clones of each other and her mother represents the patriarchal tradition as opposed to Kingston's individualism. Yet while feminist critics such as Ruth Jenkins "explore the double bind of expressing the female voice in cultures that ordain silence as the appropriate expression of female experience" (1), critics do not do not, as Shu thinks, blame Chinese culture alone for the patriarchal tradition that promotes female silence. Instead, Jenkins highlights the event in the autobiography where a young Kingston realizes that "girls were having it hard." whisper to make themselves American-feminine” (Kingston 200) to reveal that American culture is just as responsible for female oppression as any other. Kingston herself has stated that she is a feminist and that her work largely represents herself and her struggle against gender restrictions in society. Yet, in much of the novel's analysis, there is a misrepresentation of feminism that leads critics to contrast the nameless woman with the warrior woman as representations of "the victim" and "the feminist” rather than considering them as representations of the “victim” and the “feminist”. to each person's flaws and contractions to determine what Kingston is trying to say about the relative nature of truth. Although critics of feminism have capitalized on the opposing traits of the Nameless Woman and the Warrior Woman, part of the blame for the misrepresentation of these characters lies in the feminist response to the text. When Ruth Jenkins states in her article, Authorizing Female Voice and Experience, that through her aunt's pregnancy and suicide, “Kingston takes revenge on the culture that refuses the female voice” (2), she is doing “another” Chinese culture by implying that patriarchy and oppression are unique to traditional Chinese values. Although there is evidence in the text to support Jenkins' statement, Kingston also criticizes American culture and its tradition of female silence in her autobiography. She states that when she was a child,.