A term introduced by American feminism literary critic Elaine Showalter to classify critical work such as her own which focuses exclusively on literature written by female authors. Its twofold aim is to recover âlostâ or âneglectedâ women writers and to understand in its specificity womenâs construction of textual meaning. The term is not widely used today, but the two key examples of gynocriticism, namely Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubarâs The Madwoman in the Attic (1979) and Elaine Showalterâs A Literature of their Own (1977), are still read today, so the practice of gynocriticism, if not the word, is very much alive.