"I'm a feminist": Gender issues in selected short stories by Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker made her "I'm a feminist" claim in a 1956 Paris Review interview with Marion Capron. This thesis proposes that Parker showed an acute awareness of women's issues. As a working woman who demanded equal pay for equal work, she was aware of gender influenced inequalities. Parker examined the cultural institutions that subordinated women by gender, class and race through her realist fiction. She anticipated the political feminist critique as we know it today. This thesis will examine three of her works of short fiction which reveal her political feminist consciousness: "Big Blonde," "Clothe the Naked," and "Mr. Durant."