What is "gynocriticism"

n. The historical study of woman writers as a distinct literary tradition.

Gynocriticism or gynocritics is the term coined in the Seventies by Elaine Showalter to describe a new literary project intended to construct "a female framework for the analysis of women's literature”.

By expanding the historical study of women writers as a distinct literary tradition, gynocritics sought to develop new models based on the study of female experience to replace male models of literary creation, and so “map the territory” left unexplored in earlier literary criticisms.