Published in 1975, The Woman Warrior transformed autobiographer Maxine Hong Kingston into one of the most important female voices of her generation. As gender/feminism studies programs developed at major universities across the United States, professors added Kingston's story to their curricula as an example of finding one's feminist voice through female authorship. However, while feminists discovered an encouraging message within the text, critics argued that the book was not only culturally inaccurate in its depiction of Chinese culture, but also irresponsible, as it reinforced the stereotypical American view of China as an entirely patriarchal society and oppressive. In articles written in The Woman Warrior on both sides of the debate, critics such as Yuan Shu focus primarily on feminist theory and concepts taught in the 1960s and 1970s. However, although it seems appropriate for critics to base their research on feminist theory studied at the time the autobiography was written, Kingston's ideas contained in the text were in many ways ahead of their time. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Contemporary feminist critics have included recent feminist theory in their analyzes of the text to reveal priorities other than focusing on the differences between Kingston and her mother, or the Nameless woman and the warrior woman; more 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 that took place during what is commonly referred to as the second wave of the feminist movement (in the 1960s and 1970s) rather than recognizing more contemporary feminist research. In this analysis of both the novel and the critical essays that followed, 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 passages of the novel and its critical critiques. analysis to base one's arguments rather than focusing on the novel or criticism as a whole. In the 1960s and 1970s, second-wave feminists focused their efforts on achieving equality for women around the world. When The Woman Warrior was published, feminists used the work as an example of the narrative of a woman directly affected by the patriarchal restrictions of her culture (Brave Orchid) and of a child (Kingston) who, although born in the United States, rather than in China struggles to find its own feminist voice. While second wave feminists were not entirely wrong to focus primarily on gender in their analysis of the novel, third wave feminists such as bell hooks believe that the multicultural aspect of the novel is equally important and should be treated as such. In her article Feminism A Transformational Politic, Hooks states that the problem is to suggest, as the second-wave feminist movement did, “that racism and class exploitation are simply the offspring of the parenting 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). Especially because the majority of the second-wave feminist movement in the United States was made up of privileged white women, women from other cultural backgrounds were reluctant to jointo a movement where they felt they would be forced to lose their cultural identity to fight for gender equality. Although there are many differences between third-wave and second-wave feminism, third-wave feminists' incorporation 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 about autobiography over the past twenty years, such as Shirley Goek-lin Lim, have incorporated a more multicultural approach into their analysis, while simultaneously taking into account the fact that the autobiography was published during 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' insistence on the importance of taking a multicultural approach to feminism when states that Kingston “has not an autobiographical story to tell but a racial and gender consciousness to imitate and create” (264). However, while Lim clearly demonstrates an understanding of third-wave feminist theory in her article, Yuan Shu, a critical antifeminist, misunderstands or completely ignores this type of response when he states: “Critics such as Yuan Shu also argue that Kingston's mother, Brave Orchid, and herself are characters of each other and that her mother represents patriarchal tradition as opposed to 'Kingston individualism.' However, while feminist critics such as Ruth Jenkins "explore the double bind of the articulation of the female voice in cultures that command silence as the expression of female experience" (1), critics do not, as Shu believes, attribute the culture alone Chinese to the patriarchal tradition that promotes female silence. Jenkins, however, highlights in the autobiography the event in which a young Kingston realizes that “girls had to whisper to make themselves American-feminine” (Kingston 200) to reveal that American culture is just as responsible for women's oppression as any other. Kingston herself has said that she is a feminist and that her work largely represents herself and her struggle against gender restrictions in society part of the analysis of the novel, there is a false representation of feminism that leads critics to contrast the Nameless woman with the warrior woman, seeing them as representations of the "victim" and the "feminist" rather than looking at the faults and contradictions of each to determine what Kingston is attempting to say about the relative nature of truth. Although critics of feminism have exploited 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 denies the female voice”(2), she “others” Chinese culture by implying that the Patriarchy and oppression are unique to traditional Chinese values. While there is evidence in the text to support Jenkins' claim, Kingston is also critical of American culture and its tradition of female silence in her autobiography. She states that as a child she was quiet because she “invented an American-feminine speaking personality” (Kingston 172). Yet critics, rather than looking solely to the text to support their claims that Kingston “others” Chinese culture that she has never personally experienced, focus their arguments on the analysis.