Every theory has its pet names. What does Feminist Theory think of literature, authors, and readers?
What is Literature?
Literature is writing that's been done by real people living real lives. Some of those lives are full of wealth and down-time and lots of tramping around the world getting to know the place because you have the money and the know-how to get things done; others are limited to domestic spaces or looking after the world-trampers when they're home putting their feet up.
That variety doesn't make one kind of story better than another: a novel about war, peace, and manly men doing manly things isn't any more complex than a novel about courtship, petty gossip, and social etiquette. Or about slavery, abuse, oppression, or attempts to resist the powers-that-be. All of that can fall under the "lit" umbrella; what matters is who gets to have the voice that the audience listens to, and what that voice can tell us about the hierarchical system in place.
What is an Author?
Feminist theorists aren't too keen on making up definitions of what it means to be an author: they're more interested in thinking about how some authors get to be famous while others don't. Feminist theorists want to know about authors' social circumstances and how that affects the way they paint the world.
For example, where and when did they live? What kinds of social resources made it possible for them to write? Who did the dishes and took care of the laundry and the kids while the great Western classics were being penned? Or if we're out of the West, whose language is getting used? An author is the person the audience listens to, whether they believe everything that author's got to say or instead read between the lines to find the hidden power structures.
What is a Reader?
Feminist theorists won't lay claim to any definition of readers in general, but they do like to talk about what a feminist reader looks like. At its base, a feminist reader is someone who pays attention to a text's gender politics: someone who asks why there are so few interesting women in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, or why Jane Austen is so nasty to her loudmouthed female characters.
A feminist reader is also someone who searches out writing by women, and learns to evaluate it on its own terms—instead of comparing it to conventionally "great" works by men. A feminist reader looks for the dynamics underlying the voice that's telling the story—and understands that sometimes that form of reading can tell an even more interesting story than the original one.