Аннотация
The article explores the theoretical concepts of gender studies, which are reflected in theliterary criticism of the 1970s, which fell on the second wave of the feminist movement.The texts createdby the pioneers of gender researches in philological science were a significant scientific fact, but untilnow this direction is in the process of institutionalization and development.The author analyzes the works of scientists from France, Great Britain and the USA, which havebecome classics of gender studies in literary criticism. It is traced how this trend developed, which influenced the formation of modern philological science, how researchers fought against patriarchal ideology, discriminatory practices rooted in social culture, and stereotypes prevailing in public consciousness.The article introduces how the conceptual apparatus, methodological tools, and the theory of genderstudies were formed, which brought serious changes to hermeneutics and interpretation of literary texts.The works of S. de Beauvoir, H. Cixous, L. Irigaray, N. Shore, A. Rich, E. Showalter, S. Gilbert, and S.Gubar, who examined the dominance of the patriarchal symbolic order by the example of representative experiments of classical literature. The author introduces the details of the methodology, criticalinterpretations and conclusions of feminist literary criticism, represented by diverse, often contradictoryscientific texts, challenging both patriarchal gender norms and the order on which gender imbalancewas based.Key words: feminist literary criticism, gender theory, method, S. de Beauvoir, Hélène Cixous, L.Irigaray, N. Shore, A. Rich, E. Showalter, S. Gilbert, S. Gubar.