Toril Moy's book, published in 1985, not only has not lost its relevance, but, on the contrary, has become one of the classic works on the history, theory and methodology of women's literary criticism. It highlights major theories of feminist and non-feminist criticism concerning the concepts of women's literature, women's authorship, women's reading, women's experience, and so-called women's writing styles. The author analyzes in detail the strengths and weaknesses of the Anglo-American and French schools of theoretical thought, considering the works of such critics as K. Millett, E. Moers, S. Gilbert and S. Gubar, E. Showalter, as well as S. de Beauvoir, Yu . Kristeva, L. Irigaray, E. Cixous and many others. etc. The book covers the relationship between women's literary criticism and the theories of new criticism, structuralism, deconstructivism, psychoanalysis. Written in a popular, living language, the book may be of interest not only to students and specialists in the field of women's literature, modern foreign philosophy and criticism, gender studies, but and for readers interested in modern cultural processes, new trends in the field of humanities.