Imagine a child sitting in front of the television watching The Wizard of Oz. For them it is an assortment of magical beings, a land full of wonderful places, with varieties of different colors. They don't imagine it as something with much more meaning than just a fairy tale. On the other hand, gender/feminist critics have been able to analyze The Wizard of Oz as well as Wicked, in order to find a more elaborate meaning behind the story itself. They discussed what lies behind the story regarding the issue of sexism and masculinity towards the book itself and the characters. There are also many concepts that help further explain feminism and gender criticism. The four concepts that will be discussed later are gender, feminist writings, patriarchal society, and gynocriticism. These concepts will then be revisited to see how they play a role in the Wicked book. A definition of gender is the membership of a word or grammatical form, or of an inflectional form showing membership, to that class. Gender critics consider masculinity and feminism, as well as the masculine and the feminine, and use these theories to analyze writings. In books or other writings, masculinity and feminism are used to describe how a character is viewed by other characters. Feminism is the doctrine that defends the social, political and all other rights of women equal to those of men. She is also a female character. After the women's rights movement, women began to write works and express their opinions and beliefs. This era became known as the era of feminist writing. The women felt that by writing their feelings and then publishing their works, people would understand why women should be equal to men. The Magician... in the center of the card... analyzes the feelings and portrays them through the main character Elphalba. It's as if he took a part of himself, the part full of anger and frustration, and built the character of Elphalba with it. She is the feminine, yet somehow masculine, part of him that is revealed through the book. Watching Wicked from a child's point of view, you only see the surface. A surface full of brilliant colors and magical beings. But instead, there's much more to the story than that. Looking at the story from the perspective of a feminist/gender critic, you begin to see the layers unfold one at a time. You understand that there is more than what's on the outside. They see masculinity and sexism tied to the Wizard of Oz story, as well as Wicked. I am able to find more elaborate meaning about why books are written and why stories are told.