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Qf Shadowboxinq and Straw-Women: Postfeminist Texts and Contexts

Aurora wallace Graduate Program in Communications McGill university Montréal, Québec August, 1994

A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts.

(cl 1994 Aurora wallace

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Canada • Abstract Thi~ chesis is a discursive and hiscorical analysis of che concepc and usage of 'poseEeminisrn' in concemporary feminisc ciebaces, The imporcance of the vocabulary used co frame these debates is demonstrated through a survey of popular feminisc discourses in the 1920s, and the circulation of the terro 'postfeminism' in 1980s and 1990s mainstream and feminist media, academic journals, and bestselling books. Foremost among these contexts are mainstream newspaper and magazine articles in which postfeminism is used as a descriptive terro applieà to trends in fashion, television and film, Through an investigation of the texts and contexts in which postfeminism is used, associations to generational disparity, antifeminism, the 'death of feminism, ' commercialism, and other 'post-' discourses such as postmodernism, will be illustrated. In the process, it will he demonstrated that feminism, as it is represented through discourses of postfeminism, resides in an area of cultural

criticism which straddles the spheres of the acad~~c and the popular.

• • Résumé Ceeee ehèse se veue une analyse hiseo~ique ee discu~sive

de la concepeion ee de l'usage du terme "pose-fémin~srne" dans le coneexee des débaes féminisees coneemporains. L'importance déeerminanee du vocabulaire employé dans ces débats ese démonerée par le biais d'une étude des èiscours populaires féministes des années 1920, et d'une èiscussion de l'emploi du terme "pose-féminisme" dans les média populaires ee féministes, les revues académiques, et les livres à succès. Plus pareiculièrement, le eerme 'post-féminisme' est employé dans les quotidiens et revues populaires afin de décrire les tendances aceuelles au niveau de la mode, de la télévision et du cinéma. L'étude des textes et contextes où sont employés le terme 'post-féminisme' indique l'existence de plusieurs liens avec d'autres discours tels ceux de l'écart entre les générations, l'anti-féminisme, la 'mort du féminisme', la

commercialisation du f~~nisme, et d'aueres discours 'post-' tel que le postmodernisme. Il sera démontré, en conclusion, que le féminisme, tel qu'il se manifeste dans les discours "post-féministes', se situe à l'intersection du domaine populaire et du monde académique.

• iii • Acknowledgements Above aIl; ! would like to t~ank my aàvisor, Professor

~ill Scraw, :0= consiscencly thoughc:ul. clear, and insightful

feeèback at eve~~ phase of this project. His participation in a reading course in the Fall in which much of this material was discussed was also invaluable. l woulà like to thank the two other members of that class, Cherie Winzell and Haidee Wassen, as friends and colleagues whose cornroentary, analyses and wit have been extremely helpful in sorting out an unruly

collection of readings. l would especially like thank Haidee for her work on a paper that we ce-wrote on postfeminism. Many long hours on the phone and late night jam sessions at the computer were indispensible sources of knowledge and support. The present work owes much of its inspiration and many of its

ideas to that collaboration. l am indebted to Anne Beaulieu

for bringing several articles on postfeminism to my attention that were crucial to this project, and to Vincent Doyle, whose eleventh hour translation help allowed me to submit on time. This thesis also could not have been completed without the encouragement, support and guidance of Murray Forman, who,

despite his own hectic workload, was always there when l

needed him. Thanks also go to my parents - they know who they are - for supporting me in all of the really important ways .

• iv • Table o~ Contents Introduction: A Plethora of P08~gminisms l

Chapter One: Femi.nism, the Death o~ Fem:i.nism, and the New Woman in the 19208 10

Chapter Two: The Emergence o~ Po.~em:i.nism in the 1980s and Early 19908...... •...... 32

Chapter Three: P08~_ini SIIl and Bestse11inq Femi.nist Book8 in the 19908...... •.•.•...... 67

Conclusion: Po.t-Po.tfemi nism.•..•.•.•...... •...... •..94

List of Worka Cited and Biblioqraphy••...... 104

• v • Introduction If chere is one defining feacure of whac has come co be cermed 'poscfeminism.' ic mighc besc be described as a scace of confusion. While boch che popular media and academics have paid considerable accention to the topic. the proliferation of texts has not yielded a specifie or comprehensive definition of che terro. In facto it may be the case that the more we hear about postfeminism. the less we know about it. A brief survey of the wide range of contexts and interpretations associated with postfeminism reveals its

elusive nature: In 1983. the April Eool's issue of ~. magazine was titled Mrs; The Magazine for the Post-Feminist

Woman. In 1985. Carol ~umens published a collection called

Making For the Opep· The Chatto Book of Postfeminist PQet~. In a cartoon caption in 1986. Nicole Ho11ander wrote. 'I was afraid to trust it to the U.S. mail so l decided to send it post-feminism.' In 1990. journalist and theorist Valerie Miner

mused. 'sometimes when l hear people discussing 'postfeminist'

literature. l am amused. imagining te1ephone po1es along the highway. each with a dead book nailed to it." And. in 1991.

venus Sucked ID; A Post-Feminist Comedy by Anne Chislett about the lives of three generations of women could be heard on CBC Radio's 'Morningside.' The appearance of the terro

1 Nicole Hollander and Valerie Miner are cited in Robinson• 1991. page 273. • 1 'postfeminism' in these disparate contexts is testament to th~ difficulty in identifying its specifie meaning and • significance. rts usa varies both within and across numerous forros of media. Not surprisingly, the terro . postferninism' occupies a highly contested and somewhat nebulous space in popular discourse.

The variable and often comic interpretations of the 'post-' in postferninism point to one source of the confusion. As the discourses of postmodernism, poststructuralism and postcolonialisrn becorne more established and familiar both inside and outside academia, the temporal identification of shifts in discourse has become increasingly rapid and specifie. The widespread use of 'postmodernism' as a catchall phrase to describe that which otherwise seems to defy easy description has resulted in a watershed of eras, trends and movements being ·post'-ed. Recently, for example, Esquire magazine has lauded the 'post-sensitive male,' and performance artist Annie Sprinkle has demonstrated what it means to be a 'post-post porn ferninist.'2 Significantly, the prefix 'post-' in these applications is not unproblernatically assumed to mean, simply, 'after'. The relationship of 'post-' to its adjunct 'modernism,' for example, has a range of subtleties and nuances of meaning which are renegotiated through each

2 Harry Stein, "The Post-Sensitive Man is Coming," Esquire May 1994: 56; Annie Sprinkle publicity poster, Check Hit Out Productions, April 29th 1993• • 2 p~acticioner. This 'post-' can mean chronologically following, in contradistinction to, in response to, ir.tegrati~g some 0: • the elements but not precluding the existence of, O~ no ~elation at aIl to, modernism.

The general preoccupation with '~ost' discourses within popular and 3cademic work during the 1980s and 1990s is one of the more tangible ways in which the 'death of' something is represented. In relation to feminism, however, there is nothing particularly new about these death pronouncements. The death of feminism has been proclaimed throughout its history, and has become so recurrent that it now functions largely as a cliché. The conception of feminism as dépassé and anachronistic, along with the postmodern tendency toward apocalyptic death discourses, might help to explain the appeal of calls for feminism's death and the emergence of 'postfeminism' in both popular and academic discourse.

Throughout its history, feminist politics has frequently experienced crises of naming, as one of the most identifiable markers for recurring 'identity crises' and definitional conundrums. The nature of feminism as a movement is such that it must allow for diversity while trying to achieve sorne measure of consensus. It aims to improve the lives of the largest number of women, and yet as the involvement of women increases, it becomes more and more difficult to unite in • 3 co~~on struggle. It must therefore contend with women both as a group and as individuals, as an abstract category and as • material subjects. Feminism must be flexible and multiple and shifting while maintaining an underlying co~~onality. It is aiso both temporaiiy specifie and endures in different ferms over time. Many of the crises which emerge within feminist debates are in response to these potentialiy divisive tensions. Throughout the history of feminist poiitics, it is evident that the vocabuiary and terminoiogy used to describe and propei the movement shift to accommodate and respond to these dynamics both inside and outside the movement.

The second wave of feminism has been associated with effecting change in society through poiiticai activism, both inside and outside of universities. This separation of the poiiticai and the theoreticai finds a corollary in the separation of the academic and the popuiar. The academic is seen as abstract and inteiiectuai, the popuiar is considered to be based in practice and ei."eryday lived experience. Importantiy, as bridges begin to be made and overlaps constructed among feminisms, we aiso see the biurring of the distinction between the spheres in which there are practiced. Feminism can be said to merge the disjunctures between practice and theory, and the academic and the popuiar. In fact, to conceive of these spheres as discrete or mutuaiiy exclusive might predate the emergence of second wave feminism • 4 altogether. As a political movement anè a boày of ideas,

ferninism resièes in bath co~texts. Further, bath academic a~d • popular spheres of~en share co~~on terminology despite offering differing definitions. The te~. ~pos:femi~ism' has recently emerged as one of these terms. By examining the use of the term postfeminism in both popular culture and recent academic debates, the illusory nature of the dichotomy between the two contexts will be elucidated.

In this work, sorne of the labelling processes and the discourses surrounding feminism will be foregrcunded as a way of understanding shifts and patterns in the way we conceive of the movement. It will underscore the importance of how we frame certain debates and how this impacts on how we understand what the goals and successes of the movements are.

To this end, the fr~~ing and articulation of debates surrounding postfeminism are instructive. A discursive and historical analysis of the concept and usage of 'postfeminism' will be made in order to explore the contradictory meanings attributed to the term as it is used in and through 1980s and 1990s mainstream and feminist media, academic journals, and bestselling books. Through an investigation of multiple and often conflicting meanings and uses, associations to generational disparity, antifeminism, the 'death of feminism, , and commercialism will be illustrated. In the process, it will be demonstrated that feminism, as it is represented through • 5 disco~rses 0: post:emi~is~. ~esides ~~ a~ area of çul~u=al • c~iticism which s~=aèèles the spheres of the academic and the ~opular. The role chac neologisrns such as poscferninism play

in t.he way chat issues are named, t:-amed a.nd debated is J.nscrumencal in underscanding how academic and mainscream wricers on feminism each use che discourse of che oCher as subjecc macerial and objecc of scudy.

Through links made co academic discourses of poscrnodernism and poscscruccuralism, and discourses in che popular media surrounding generacional disconcenc, che 'deach of feminism', and policical correccness, poscfeminism is invesced wich a myriad of pocencially diverse and confliccJ.ng meanings. Postfeminism presents a unique hybridization of both the academic and the popular, and it is often articulated in these contexts in spaces usually reserved for feminism and/or postmodernism. So while it is not reducible to the conflation of these two areas of inquiry, it often occupies a similar terrain in both the academic and the popular. Much of the contested territory and definitional conundrum which surround the discourses of poststructuralism and postmodernism can be seen in the primary stages of 'postfeminist' discourse. As Adrian Rifkin has pointed out, Mhere and there in the disparate literature of postmodernism there is a tone of unashamed confusion. sometimes reified into a naming or defining process" (Rifkin 1992: 73). As a term which is • 6 invoked in innumerable contexts to convey a multitude of often contradictory ideas, postfeminism is deeply ernbedded in this • "naming and defining process."

This examination of postfe~inism will trace the emergence of the concept from its earliest use in 1919, from which point popu1ar feminist discourses of the 1920s will be shown to parallel those of postfeminism in the 1980s and 1990s. A prominent feature of the discourse of the 1980s has been the construction of this very paral1el, in an effort to present the 1920s as an allegory to the 1980s as a previous era of backlash against feminism. The intricacies of the construction of this parallel will be exarnined through a survey of the

discourse of f~~inism in the 1920s. This survey also reveals that as certain terms within feminist discourse come to be seen as inapplicable or inappropriate to feminist tasks, they experience fluctuations in their popularity. The use of the label Feminism itself has frequent1y fallen out of favour throughout the history of feminist politics. As new versions of f2mininity and roles for women are advocated, as is the case of the perennially invoked 'New Woman' prototype, establishment feminism advances or recedes accordingly.

In Chapter Two, postfeminist discourses in the popular periodical press and academic journals following the period of the second wave of feminism will be explored. Integral to • 7 this analysis will be an investiga~ion of the snowball effect • chat postfeminism expe~ienced afce::- the publication cf an article in the New York Times Magazine in 1982. To provide insight into the definitional crisis surrounding postfeminism. a survey of the different contexts in which the term is used will be outlined. Foremost among these contexts are mainstream newspaper and magazine articles in which postfeminism is used as a descriptive term applied to trends in fashion. television and film. In this section. it will be suggested that the use of the term postfeminism in popular media and academic journals is often shorthand for labelling what is construed as antifeminist backlash and/or generational difference. and is often carelessly used to disregard a priori 'dissenting' feminist views.

In Chapter Three. the investigation of postfeminism shifts tO the sphere of book publishing, as the discourse begins to be elaborated through a series of bestselling non­

fiction books by Naomi Wolf. Susan Faludi. Camille Paglia and Katie Roiphe. These books respond to the proliferation of material in the periodical press surrounding feminism's identity crisis. and one of its major symptoms, postfeminism. These bestsellers are yet another embodiment of the blurred distinction between academic and popular writing on feminism, and they occupy a prominent position in both spheres. The subject matter that these books take as their focus and their • 8 reception in the popular meàia inserts c:tem :"nto la::-ger • debates which :'evolve a:::ound both the unive:::si ty and feminism. conce:::ning cu:::riculum debates and political correctness. In this way. the popularity'of these bestselling books and thei::: authcrs has contributed to the overall popularity and

marketability of feminism in the late 1980s and early 19~Os.

Throughout this investigation of the texts and contexts of postfeminism, an attempt will be made to evaluate the term's utility for articulating feminisc politics and

advancing feminist debates. T~e discussion will focus on the term's applicability for designating new projects, addressing new concerns and providing' a new vocabulary with whü,h to

explore the shifting dynamics of the ~~vement of ~eminism.

• 9 • Chapter One Feminism, the Death of Feminism, and the New Woman in the 19208

The emergence of the term 'feminism' to describe a social movement aimed at improving the material conditions of women, has become a significant feature of the social landscape in the twentieth century. It is not only the movement itself. but the very existence of the term which has shaped politics and had an immeasurable impact on the status of women. Within the history of feminist politics. there have been frequent crises of naming and definitional quandaries in the process of labelling new political formations initiated by the women's movement. As feminist movements evolve and fragment, debates surrounding the suitability and applicability of different terms to shifting political goals has become a fundamental part of the continued stability of the movement. As certain terms come to be seen as elitist. outmoded or restrictive. for example. they are contested and modified by others. As the history of feminism becomes more accessible through academic and popular investigation. recurring features of these naming processes can be identified.

The decade of the twenties occupies a somewhat problematic position in the written history of feminism. It • 10 is often assurneè chat che 19205 was a ~elatively un~ernarkable period in che women's movemenc, that afcer suffrage had been • won, very litcle of significance cook place. Social commentators ac the time noced that the women's vote failed

co change eleccoral politics in any fund~~ental way, and thac the vote accually brought about the demise of the women' s movement. Since the emergence of the second wave of the women's movement, however, the twenties have been studied wich renewed interest by historians and feminisc scholars as a crucial period in the history of feminism. There has been a

concentrated effort by a few, incluàing J. Stanley Lemons (1973), William Chafe (1972), William O'Neill (1971) and Nancy Cott (1987), to reclaim the 1920s as crucial to the understanding of present feminisms. Through these historical investi;ations, it becomes possible to see the feminisms of the 1920s as paralleled with the feminisms of the 1980s and early 1990s. In both eras, the contextual factors that combine to influence the development of feminism are relnarkably similar. Importantly, it is during these two eras that the popularization of debate surrounding feminism, the mythic •death' of feminism and the subsequent •New Woman', have more prominence in periodical literature than at any other time in the history of the women' s movement. Within these early feminist discourses, as in contemporary ones, elements of conservative backlash, generational complaints. and commercialism can be identified as dominant components . • 11 The discou::-se sur::-ounding ferninism in the 1910s and • 1920s, as COtt and othe::-s describe it, is remarkably simila::- to that of 'postfeminism' in the 1980s. The same st::-uggle to name, and the definitional conund::-um that still plague the use of ferninism, and more recently postfeminism, are found in the terrn's ernergence and earliest usages. The universal applicability of the terro was a contentious issue very soon after its ernergence, as ferninism came to be associated with an elitist and institutionalized hierarchy. The extent to which 'feminism' could represent the interests of women from diverse class and race backgrounds was, as it is in conternporary ferninism, a highly divisive issue. The legacy of the 'woman movernent,l left by pioneers such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony was such that the 'natural heirs' to ferninism at the turn of the century would also be middle class white WQmen. During the previous era, the struggle for women' s suffrage had gained significant momentum from the antislavery movernent in the United States, just as the second wave of ferninism had ties to the Civil Rights activism in the 1960s . However. as feminisIù became more organized in both periods, issues of race and class were seen as secondary to the main struggle for gender equality. Hence. the status of concerns over class. race and sexual orientation within

3 References to the woman' s movernent are more common in first wave literature. whereas the second wave is more often referred to as the women's movernent . • 12 inscicutionali=ed feminism has fluccuaced g=eacly i~ the • hiscory of feminist politics. According co sorne hiscorians, when it has benefitted the women's movement to recruit members and support from all segments of society, the movement has been eager to join forces with other struggles for social equality. Once gains in the women's movement have been made, however, the movement as a who1e has been much less accommodating to the needs of a diverse constituency (Ryan 1992). The inabi1ity of 'feminism' to function as a suitable umbre1la term for the interests of al1 women has been a recurring contributing factor to the crises of naming that have beset the history of feminism.

The tendency to neg1ect the decade fo1lowing the ratification of the Nineteenth Amenctment is a mis1eading oversight which obscures much of the history of the women's movement. Cott notes that 'in any recent history of women in the U. S. you are 1ike1y to find comment on the demise of feminism in the 1920s rather than recognition that the name and phenomenon had just recent1y cropped up' (Cott 1987: 3). Further. this apparent demise 'was. more accurate1y. the end of the suffrage movament and the ear1y strugg1e of modern

feminism" (Cott 1987: 10). An important distinction is made between feminism and the woman's movement in this statement. Mari Jo Buhle helps to clarify the difference in stating that feminism 'was not synonomous with the struggle for the ballot • 13 or ·....ith the demand for equal ·....ages." that. in fact ~t "seer:led • to supercede most specifie issues associated with the historie movement for women's advancement" (8uhle 1981: 290). while the woman's movement had been in progress since the mid nineteenth century. the movement cal1ed feminism did not emerge in

popu1ar discourse in North .~erica unti1 the early twentieth century. In this way, feminism was associated with something distinct1y modern right from its inception, whi1e the woman's movement was bound to ideas that had been around for at 1east fifty years by the turn of the century. It remains an important task not to confuse thesE: two projects for the purpose of understanding the rise and fal1 of feminism.

Through her anaiysis of the ernergence and popu1arization of the terrn Feminism, Cott discovers ·none but depreciating remarks with which to document ear1y usages· of the terrn (Cott 1987: 14). Further, she finds that in its early uses - usually capitalized - the word had shock value and an encompassing yet unspecified referentiality. AlI who used it felt they had to define it to sorne extent and yet, curiously assumed their listeners would know what they were talking about. (Cott 1987: 13) This 'unspecified referentia1ity' is crucial to the understanding of how the ernergence of the terrn does not contain within it ~~ inherent meaning or instructions for how it shal1 be used. While it may contain the potential to be a unifying or explanatory terrn, this exarnple suggests that it does not lniraculously materialize with these attributes. Cott • 14 desc=ibes how the terro feminism was often used initially to • describe that which ·....as Other; far from being a badge of honour, it was a term to denigrate and malign those people and sentiments thought to be dangerously disruptive to social order. She explains further that the term feminism migrated to England in the 18905, when detractors more than advocates used it usually surrounded by quotation marks - to refer more often to unwanted Continental doctrines than to English developments. (Cott 1987: 14) This observation is supported by Buhle, who notes that "although Europeans had used the term for decades, Americans adopted it only around 1910,' at which point 'debates raged over its precise meaning' (Buhle 1981: 290). In America, Buhle continues, 'few users could manage an exact application. There was no doubt, however, that Feminism would become the watchword of the unconventional and daring' (Buhle 1981: 290).

Within a few years, however, as the woman's movement began to gain momentum, the use of Feminism became more widespread. Cott suggests that this was due to the fact that it answered a need to represent in language a series of intentions and a constituency just cohering, a new moment in the long history of struggles for women's rights and freedoms. In part it was a semantic claim to female modernism...In part it was an explicit and semantic effort to exceed the bounds of - to insist on goals more profotind than - the rising advocacy cf women ' s suffrage. (Cott 1987: 15) The importance of coining new terms to represent paradigm shifts is integral to the understanding of the dynamics of • 15 social movements and their discourses. In the struggle for gender equality, new terminology was needed in order to • provide a vocabulary to describe a social organization which did not yet exist. Buhle writes that "although Feminism never gained a precise definition and quickly became (as it is today) an all-encompassing term, it managed nevertheless to convey for a few years and within special circles a meaning distinct from the established women's movement" (Buhle 1981: 292). The desire to represent something new through language, that would be at once recognizable to those both inside and outside these circles, added to the allure of the new label. Cott adds that despite the early muddle, the very rapid and intense gravitation toward the term feminism about 1913 suggests that it was not merely convenient, but marked a new phase in thinking about women's emancipation. (Cott 1987: 15) The early struggle for the permanence of the term 'feminism' during this period illustrates the importance of new concepts and new terms to the strength, longevity and fortitude of a social movement. While the term itself is merely an abstract sign, it soon gave its users a feeling of unity and cohesion.

As Buhle notes, nit was difficult to derive an accurate definition, because Feminism did not represent a 'concrete thing'" (Buhle 1981: 290), but it nevertheless seemed to fuse many disparate goals and aims into one category which allowed for a common language and the possibility of consensus building. The process of naming, then, was a crucial starting • 16 • point in the activism to follow. It is important to note, however, that shifts in language use and advancements in the women's movements did not occur simultaneously across North America. June Sochen writes of a group of young artists living in Greenwich Village in the decade between 1910 and 1920. In many ways, their feminist stance was an integral element of their participation and interest in socialism, and as such developed outside the more bourgeois woman's movement that was taking place elsewhere.' It is, in fact, here that Cott identifies the origin of 'post- feminism', as early as 1919. A group of •fernale literary radicals" first used the word to describe a journal that they published, which ·promised to be pro-woman without being anti­ man, and [they] ca1led their stance 'post-feminist'· {Cott 1987: 282}. S This of course precedes the decline in the

popularity of feminism by a n~~er of years, but may be seen as an early indication of the demise that was looming.

The onset of World War l caused advancements in the

~ June Sochen, The New womanj Feminism in Greenwich Village. 1910-1920 {New York: Quadrangle, 1972} 123.

SCott's example of post-feminist sentiment from the twenties is quoted extensively by Faludi, Showalter, Rapp and others, as evidence of the cyclical nature of backlash patterns. However, as this journal was somewhat obscure (to the extent that it leaves no documented evidence of its existence today) , it is reasonable to suggest that its scope of influence was minimal . • 17 woman's movement to occur at a greatly increased rate. Many • attribute the swift passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the fact that the war made women' S involvement in the public sphere inevitable. In facto the war has generally been regarded by historians as one of the most significant factors

influencing feminism and the woman' S movement. As Lemons points out. The exhilaration of war service and the suffrage victory charged the feminist movement anew. Leading feminists felt no immediate sense that the movement might lose its direction and purpose. Most women felt that real possibilities for change now existed; that they had the key to open the door. Women would simply have to get organized and educated for the old-new tasks. They responded by creating new kinds of organizations tO focus social and political action. and they cooperated more closely in their national lobbying efforts than ever before. (Lemons 1973: 41) However, as women were afforded a wider variety of acceptable roles in the public sphere, many saw their activities as no longer necessarily grounded in emancipatory struggle. While the role that voluntary associations has played in the history of women's activism is a significant one, approaching the mid- 1920s their development began tO contribute to the declining popularity of feminism.

The decline of Feminism was compounded by the fact that after the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920,' the

• The passing of the 19th Amendment gave the vote to women on a national scale in 1920, although many western states and local municipalities had had it as early as 1913. Even after 1920, however. voting reforms were enacted in many southern • 18 worna~'s ~oveme~t. anè by associatio~ the :eminisc ~ovement. began ta experie~ce a crisis 0: pu=pose, ide~tity and • perception. The goals had been so narrowly defined in terms of achieving suffrage that, once this was attained, the next

steps were ~~clear. Struggling solely for the vote. according to Cott. failed to "ignite a grassroots rnovernent toward the transformation of consciousness" (Cott 1987: 80). Once again

the difference betweeT'l the wornen' S movement and feminists could be seen, as Cott points out in terons of voluntary association membership: Where their nineteenth century predecessors collectively constituted the woman movement and would have recognized themeselves as such. the twentieth century women' s voluntary associations did not collectively constitute the feminist movement - nor would rnost members have recognized themselves as feminists; indeed, they had varying and ambivalent relations to feminism, some opposing it directly. That was much because feminism was a more dernanding and ideologically laden concept than woman movement. (Cott 1987: 96) Lemons notes that it was "the proliferation of professional and special-interest organizations [that] eventually weakened feminism in general" (Lemons 1973: 33). As the label feminism fell out of favour with the coming of age of a new generation, it was also more difficult to recruit younger members to participate in the name of feminism once suffrage had been achieved. It became increasingly important for the movement to redefine its terms and situate itself ideologically both

states that placed restrictions on immigrant and non-white voters. (Cott 1990: 159) • 19 • for its const~c~e~ts a~è :ts adve~sa=ies. Anoche= c=ucial te~sion which erne=ged in the c=isis of 19205 feminism that COtt points to was the challenge that class and race presenced co the unifying version of feminism that was being promoted. As Feminism became increasingly associated with organized political associations such as the National Woman's Party, it was seen as less relevant to and Dy working class and women of colour. One of the major factors contributing to the dissatisfaction toward the NWP was their proposal of the Equal Rights Amendment in 1923, which was opposed largely Dy those advocating protectionist measures for working women.' Organized feminism was not particularily concerned with the plight of black women in the fight for suffrage, in fact, during this period "the white women' 5 movement abandoned its earlier nineteenth century ties with the black freedom struggle in favor of an alliance with white supremacy" (Higginbotham 1990: 200). Where the suffragists of the previous generation had seen the fight for black and women's rights as fundamentally related, the early twentieth

century woman' 5 movement was far 1ess sympathetic. By 1920, after suffrage had been granted, "large numbers of black women turned out to register on1y to be turned back" (Higginbotham 1990: 201). In this regard, it was unlikely that the Feminism

7 It is worth noting that the reemergence of the ERA in 1982 may be one of the crucial factors prompting historians to see the decades of the 1920s and 1980s as paral1el. • 20 of the 1920s co~ld, or nad any desire co, c1aim any meas~re • of representaciveness for all women.

Organized Feminism was slight1y more interested in recruiting (white) blue co1lar working women, but the drudgery

of their work seemed untouchable by the promises of feminism. Within socialist circles, there was also much dispute over the prioritization of sex over class as the primary source of oppression, a debate that continues to circulate in contemporarJ feminism. In this context, once again "a strugg1e over the terro feminism became part of the controversy" (Cott 1987: 134). Workers expressed contempt for "over-articulate theorists [who] were attempting to solve the working woman's prob1ems on a purely feministic basis with the working woman's own voice far less adequately heard" (Cott 1987: 135). Once the vote had been won, associations such as the National Women's Party remained militant in their fight for equa1ity in politics, despite the fact that they experienced a drastic decrease in their membership (Lemons 1973: 49). Cott accounts for this downfall in stating that, having declared the party the tool of the 'ru1ing class,' women allied with labour (and the left), even if their everyday actions challenged male domination, had to separate themselves from feminism identified with the NWP. These distinctions by anti-ERA spokeswomen forwarded public perceptions of feminism as a sectarian and impracticable doctrine unrelated to real life and blind to the injustices other than sex inequality. By the end of the 19205, women outside the NWP rarely made efforts to reclaim the terro feminist for themselves, and the meaning of the terro was • 21 depleced. (COCC 1987: 135) • Evidence of chis deplecion can be seen in F~ee~~an's obse~acion chac "che cerro feminism nea~ly disappea~ed f~om

hisco~ical accouncs excepc in somewhac pejoracive ~e:erences

co che Woman's pa~cy" (F~eedman 1974: 374). The popularicy of feminism as a favourable label, cherefore, was relacively short-lived. As soon as its use became established, it was already too closely associated wich the establishment. As such, it faced many of the definitional complications and representational issues which still make feminism problematic

today. Even in che forrr~tive stages of organized Feminism. issues of authentic voice, race and class emerged as

potentially divisive challenges. An effort to specify what che terro feminism could or could not mean. who it was designed to speak for and to, were all considerations that would be important questions for the future development of feminism.

The periodical literature of the mid to late 1920s suggests that Feminism was regarded as an experiment thac had failed. Article titles such as "The collapse of feminism," "Confessions of an ex-feminist, " and "Feminism destructive of wornan's happiness," proliferated in popular magazines.· This

shift was accompanied by a general conse~atism in society

which was influenced by "the political repression of World War

S Listed in the Reader 1 s Guide to Periodiçal Literature, 1925 to 1931. • 22 l and che Red scare chac followed che success of che second • Russian Revolucion" (Rapp and Ross 1983: 95). .:>'c che same cime, feminisc organizacions began co find chac cheir social programs and accivicies were blocked in che courcs and Congress, and cheir policical enemies used Red-baicing language co scare away popular supporc: feminism and socialism were labelled anci-American and anti-family. (~.: 93) The massive rescruccuring of che American economy which saw che emergence of assembly line produccion, new eleccric appliances, and large scale home and car ownership, ushered in a new age of consumerism in which the role of women was pivocal. It was no longer seen as necessary or desirable to have large groups of women organizing around social causes, as they were more useful to the growing economy as individuals. In whac has been reierred to by many historians as che first period of feminist backlash of the cwenciech cencury, Rapp and Ross find thac che new commercial culture of the twenties was not so much directly antifeminist as it was cooptive of feminist issues and concerns. By the late twenties, much that passed for feminist thought dealt with individual choices and personal fulfillmenc life-style feminism supplanted its activisc predecessor. (Rapp and Ross 1983: 103-4)

As capital 'F' Feminism disintegrated, it was

overshadowed by a new accepcable position for women that was presented in the popular press under the rubric of the New Woman. The emergence of the New Woman, as Lemons points out, was one among many of the 'New' indicators of modernism that were prominent during this time. He notes that "the periodica1 • 23 lite~ature abou~èed with commencs on woman's 'New Wo~k.' 'New • World. l 'New Society, l'New Politics,' 'New Social Vision.' and even the 'New Man.' who must appea= as the complement to the 'New Woman'" (Lemons 19ï3: 63). Du=ing 1926 and 192ï. the magazine The Nat ion ran an influential series of essays

written by 'modern women' which focused on their life choices and career patterns.' In 192ï, an article in Harper's Maga-ine entitled "Feminist - New Style" illustrated the extent to

which a new kind of fa~nism had become an established feature of the social landscape: 'Feminism' has become a term of opprobrium to the modern young woman. For the word suggests either the old school of fighting feminists who wore flat heels and had very little feminine charm. or the current species who antagonize men with their constant clamor about maiden names, equal rights, woman' s place in the world, and rnany another cause...ad infinitum. (Bromley 192ï: 552) The terms of the dispute between generations during this period are clearly laid out in the periodical literature heralding the advent of the New Woman. Several of these descriptions bear an uncanny resemblance to the generational complaints within the contemporary women's movement: The pioneer feminists were hard-hitting individuals, and the modern young woman admires them for their courage--even while she judges them for their zealotry and their inartistic methods. Furthermore, she pays aIl honor tO them, for they

; These essays have been reprinted in Elaine Showalter, Tbes@ MQdern women; àutQbiQg~aphiçal Essays FrQm the Twentips (New York: The Feminist Press, 1989). The 'modern woman' judging by these examples, was exclusively white and upper­ middle class, and bore little resemblance tO the majority of working women during this decade . • 24 fought her battle. But she does not want to wear • their mantle. (Bromley 1927: 552) One of the central accusations that was levelled against the

old school feminists by the younger generation was that their rigid dogma was getting in the way of harmonious relations with men. The older activists were blamed for creating a "sterile intellectual" stereotype for women which inhibited the natural fraternization with men that the New Woman was seeking. In Bromley's description, the Feminist -- New Style ois hard put to it to understand the sex antagonism which actuates certain 'advanced' women who secretly look upon their husbands - and all men - as their natural enemies from whom they must wrest every privilege and advantage possible" (Bromley 1927: 556). It was assumed, by the new generation of feminists, that women had won the right to a family and a career, that men would be allies as partners and in business, and that therefore the struggle of older feminists was anachronistic.

A central featur~ of the discourse surrounding the New feminism is the inclusion of details of what the proponents of each camp are wearing.:o Fashion is made a primary signifier of the New Woman which allows for easy distinction

:0 The issue of dress and dress reform has been a central conce= within the women's movement. established with the reforms of Stanton and Anthony in the mid-nineteenth century. It has maintained significant currency as a symbol of the role of women in society throughcut the history of feminism. • 25 from the previous generation. The prominence of fashion to the • New Woman also helps to illuminate the dominant role of cornrnercialism in the construction of the 1920s model woman.'· For example, a discussion of fashion takes precedence in noting the differences between the generations in a Harper's Magazine article by Lillian Syrnes:

My own generation of feminists in the pre-war days had as little in cornrnon with the flat-heeled, unpowdered, pioneer suffragette generation which preceeded it by a decade or two as it has with the post-war, spike-heeled, over-rouged flapper of to­ day. We grew up before post-war disillusionrnent engulfed the youth of the land and created futilitarian literature, gin parties and jazz babies. (Syrnes 1929: 678) Similarly, Bromley's characterization not only dictates the look for the New Wornan, but also mocks the previous generation in the process. With regard to the styles of the earlier generation, the Feminist - New Style ponders: Certainly their vanity must have been anaesthetized, she tells herself, as she pictures thern with their short hair, so different from her own shingle, and dressed in their unflattering rnannish clothes -- quite the antithesis of her own boyish effects which are subtly designed to set off feminine charms. She rnay not be quite as srnartly gowned as the society wornan ...yet every year sees her better dressed and infinitely better groomed than the erstwhile professional and business wornan. (Brornley 1927: 557) The ernphasis on fashion is also reflected in the social cornrnentary and historical tracts which focused on this period.

H To speak of the 1920s model woman, as one might a Ford, was cornrnonplace in the literature of the day. As Ida Clyde Clarke writes in The CentJ!rv, "The typical new feminist, the 1929 model, is a well rounded, perfectly balanced, thoroughly inforrned and highly intelligent person" (Clarke 1929: 753). • 26 Freedrnan recoum;:s how a book written in 1930 encitled ~ • Grpaç Crllsaàe anà ,:>,frer' 1914-1928 helped to define the prominent features of this age: Shorter skirts, more comfortable undergarments, shorter hair, the use of cosmet~cs, smoking, drinking and the 'breezy, slangy, informaI' f1apper characterized the era... (Freedrnan 1974: 378)

These attitudes found in the popular press reinforced the importance of dressing fashionab1y and attractive1y to men as a major tenet of the new feminism, and also promoted the idea that style in fashion must be frequently updated. In this sense then, the New Woman functioned as an important market segment to whom the concept of built-in fashion obsolescence could be effectively promoted and exploited. The cracks in the ideology of the liberated woman that the downfa11 of organized Feminism seemed to represent, created an opportune space in which advertisers and marketers could sell the wares of a new industrial age. While fashion had been one of the first industries to employ methods of seasonal trends to turnover merchandise,'· it was during the twenties that the advertising industries began to hone the skills of target marketing. Once they learned that women controlled the lion' s share of household spending, it was not long before images of women, modernity and feminism were represented, packaged and resold to a new generation of style conscious women. In an attempt

~2 Stuart Ewen, All Copsuming Images; The Politics of Style in Contemporary Culture (New York: Basic Books. 1988) 242 . • 27 to appeal to an active and market conscious consumer, the New • Woman prOtotypë served this function well. She was flattered by reassurances that she was intelligent, capable. young and attractive, and apparently eager to consume the goods that guaranteed her liberated and modern status. As Cott notes, she was "no longer the demure. diffident, delicate or submissive housewife. the modern woman liked to have fun. knew what she liked. and was attractive to men" (Cott 1987: 174).

The symbols of modernity in the New Woman disco~rse were easily equatab1e with those of fashion. Being out of date po1itical1y. as in the case of being an 'old-fashioned' or 'outmoded' feminist. is most concretely representable as being out of date sty1istically. Indeed. in many cases the jargon seems to confuse. or at least tOQ easily conflate. the two: "The idle. middle-aged spinster. of independent means. nursing a pet cause...is ,as much out of style as the fashions in Godey's Lady's BOOK' (Clarke 1929: 754). This lesson is not lost on advertisers. whose main function was to reassert the association between style and politics a marriage of principles that inf1uenced many aspects of social life. In this regard. Cott suggests that, The purposive agents of modernity had to take women' s desires for and emb1ems of emancipation into account. As one evidence of the new era, Feminism supp1ied a resource drawn on by many takers. The culture of modernity and urbanity absorbed the messages of Feminism and re-presented them. Feminist intents and rhetoric were not ignored but appropriated. Advertising col1apsed the • 28 emphasis on women's ~ange and choice to individual consumerism; the social-psychological p~ofessions domesticated Feminists asse~tion of sexual • entitlement to the arer.a of mar~iage. Feminists defiance of the sexual division of labour was swept under the rug. Establishing new formalism, these adaptations disarmed Feminism's challenges in the guise of enacting them. (Cott 1987: 174)

The profound influence of social psycho1o~y on this conception and treatment of women during this period cannot be overstated. As Cott notes, the connection between the medica1 profession and the advertising industry in containing feminism is c1ear. They combined to promote an image of women that was both 1imited and 1irniting, but which served the econornic irnperatives of the 1920s extremely we11.

One of the fDndamental flaws that Freedman identifies in the New Woman paragon is its 'excessive generalization': Othe tendency to write about the American woman, when race, class, region, and ethnicity have significantly divided wornen in

twentieth-century America" (Freedman 1974: 393) • By

constr~cting a singular ideal for The New Woman, the range of possible roles and behaviors for wornen is symbolically dirninished. To talk about 'her' as though there is only one of them also serves to decrease the perceived number of wornen in society in general, perhaps to reduce them as a threat. In addition, while the notion of the New Woman itself is stabilized through reinforcement in the media, the actual qualities which are attributed to it are shifting and ephemeral. The idea of a New Woman remains constant throughout • 29 the mid- to late-1920s, although in order to be New she must be changing regularly. It seems reasonable to suggest that the • label 'New' would have a limited shelf life for this reason. However, while the New Woman fared a little less well through the Depression, World War II and the Baby Boom periods, she was valiantly resurrected in the 19:0s, when, following the second wave, feminism began once again to recede.

Throughout contemporary women's history, the label feminism has experienced varying and often contradictory meanings through its application to different tasks. In its first use in North America, it was a rare term of 'unspecified referentiality' imbued with incredible power to designate and mark those outside the mainstream. As the women's movement became more widespread, the acceptability of the term experienced a comparable boost in popularity, only to fall out of favour for being too closely associated with the elitist party politics of the National Women's Party. The Depression and the subsequent onset of World War II produced social and economic conditions that proved less conducive to feminism through the promotion of a new femininity. The vocabulary of feminism was thus seen as outmoded and anachronistic in relation to the new domesticity advocated for women. Feminism as a widespread descriptive label did not resurface again until the second wave of the women's movement in the early 1960s, when the term once again began a cycle from marginality • 30 • to widesp~eaà accepcabilicy, followeà by a pe~ioà of c~isis .

• 31 Chapter Two • The Emergence of P08tfeminism in the 19808 and Barly 19908

3y most accounts, the terro 'postfeminism' entered popular vernacular in 1982, with the publication of a coyer story in the New York Times Magazine entitled "Voices From the Post-

Feminist Generation," by Susan Bolotin. While this article did not use the word anywhere except the title, it received enough attention to initiate a new media phenomenon. D Many of the features and rhetorical devices employed by Bolotin in this article endure through subsequent usages of the terro and. in fact. help to shape and frame the ensuing debate surrounding postfeminism throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. Bolotin 1ays the foundation for the construction of postfeminism's association with generational discontent. the negation of feminism. commercialism. and its place within both popular culture and academic discourses. Several articles which emerge in popular magazines and newspapers cite Bolotin as the catalyst of the fervour surrounding this new media trend. However. as Bolotin provides no exp1icit definition or justification for her use of the terro. it is also quickly appropriated in very reactionary ways which bear little resemblance to its use in the context of this article. Given

:3 Since the terro appears nowhere in the story, it remains a possibility that the head1ine may not have even been written by the author, but by an editor; making the reemergence of the terro if not unintentional. then certainly less illustrious . • 32 that this first article sets up many of the debates that • emerge about postferni~ism, anè many subsequent wricers cite it as a point of àeparture. close attention to it is warranted.

Above all, "Voices From The Post-Feminist Generation" raises the issue of generational disparity within feminism. which is couched in a lamenting nostalgia for the glory days of the Women's Liberation Movement. Unsettled feelings about the younger generation prompt the author to go back to her old university and to the town where she grew up to talk to some 18 to 25 year old women about their views on feminism. Bolotin is surprised and disappointed to find that most express reservations about the label feminism. Interestingly, none of these young women refer to postfeminism, and yet all of them

come to be associated with it by virtue of the title of the

article. As the author goes back to the locations of her past to interview these young women, she remembers her own

consciousness raising, the books she read and the struggle~ she took part in. These movement indicators. such as the

naming of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique and S~mone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex. are important features that figure prominently in many of the diatribes on postfeminism written later. In this way. the debate surroundinq postfeminism functions partly to create a space in which to reflect on the righteousness of the Women's Liberation Movement of the 1970s. • 33 This is conc::asted wich the lackadaisical and a;;lolicical • attitudes and actions of younge:: wornen. which a::e ;;lresented as a self-explanatory and self-sufficienc argumenc in cavou:: of the way things used to be.

Bolotin's research leads her Co conclude chac "for che first cime [shej felc a backlash againsc che philosophical core of feminism" (Bolotin 1982: 103). Thus. while she is clearly opposed to chose sentiments which her citle describes as postfeminist. the use of the word in the headline is subsequently taken as evidence of the media's declaration of the death of feminis::-.. and the emergence of new social movemenc againsc feminists, even though this article makes none of these claims. The manner in which the article is cited suggests that the opponents of a 'postfeminist age' (of whom

Bolo~in is one) are less concerned with the meaning of the term than the term itself. It is as if the written word alone

has the power to bring about the death of feminism simply by naming it dead. The use of 'backlash' terminology here also

initiates what will ~ecome a familiar trope in the discourse of postfeminism, which gets used in conjunction with both feminists and anti-feminists, and finds its pinnacle in the publication of Susan Faludi's bestselling book of the same name.

Bolotin cites Yale Professor Nancy Cott, who, although • 34 ic is noc scaced in che arcicle. is crediced wich having • 'discovered' 1920s poscfeminism. To invoke Cocc here is co defer co experc academic credibilicy. co bridge che popular and academic discourse or. che subjecc. and also co suggesc anocher cornerscone of 1980s poscfeminism. che nocion chac periods of backlash exisc on a linear yec cyclical cime line. on which che 1980s is only Che lasc incarnacion. Bolocin wrices. che rejeccion of femil.ism has a long hiscory in che Uniced ScaCes. Every period of advancemenc has been fol1owed by one of recrenchmenc - ac che beginning of che 20ch cencury. afcer women gained encrance inco che professions. parcicularly medicine; during che 1920s. afcer che ratification of the 19th Amendment. after World War II and the successful integration of women into the workplace. (Bolotin 1982: 31) This initial reference to the 1920s as a previous era of backlash against feminism is a significant one. and it maintains some currency throughout further postfeminist discourse. Even though evidence for postfeminist sentiments in the 1920s is limited to a single citation in a single journal in 1919. noted only by Professor Cott (making claims to a 1920s postfeminist 'era• difficult to support). the comparison continues to be made. Whi1e there are scriking similarities between the discourses of feminism in the 1920s and the 1980s. the sca1e of articulation of postfeminist statements is hardly comparable. The allusion to the 1920s is an attempt to bolster the credibility of these journalists by conveying a sense of historical facticity. despite the dubious • 35 nature of the evidence. The uncritical citation of Cott' s • singular example leads these writers to draw much more definitive parallels than evidence can support. For example. it is not often mentioned that Cott' s postfeminists were actually pre-Equal Rights .;mendment and even pre-suffrage. Further. her example of postfeminism was hardly a result of male-centred media or conservative backlash; it was advocated bY a small group of radical literary intelligentsia. and was meant to foster feminist thought rather than stifle it. This of course, is not the way the example is appropriated in the 19805, where it is most often used as evidence of the ever­ recurring patterns of resistance to feminism.

Through repeated references to Cott's discovery (Bolotin 1982, Rapp and Ross 1983, Showalter 1989, Robinson 1991. Faludi 1991), the 1920's postfeminist 'era' is constructed and revered as allegory: a backlash that must not be allowed to occur again. In sorne cases, these cyc1ical patterns are presented as though they have an agency of their own, which exist despite any and all efforts bY feminist activists. At the same time, however, these patterns are also seen as evidence that the movement has been 50 &uccessful that it is finally worthy of the attention of conservative backlash forces. Both arguments tend toward justifying complacency within the movement, which is a large part of the complaint lodged against the younger generation. This idleness is • 36 labelled 'poscfeminisc' , and ~s accribuced co an • unàifferenciaced mass of young female perpecracors. To idencify che yo~~ger generacion in chis way allows second wave acciviscs co cargec their message more specifically and justify continued struggle.

One recurring component of this cyclical argumenC is che

reinforced construction of a linear chronology of femin~sm. such that feminism and postfeminism are constituted as occupying specifie and mutually exclusive parameters on this fictive time line. The preoccupation with dating the emergence and life span of such eras is a common element in this discourse. as though one can point to pre-feminist. feminist and postfeminist eras without consideration for overlapping. contradictory or geographically disparate feminist thought and activity. These categories serve to pre-empt debate on

postfeminism ~ simply equating post~eminism with prefeminism. astate characterized as undeniably and morally wrong. Holly Brubach draws this parallel in an article on fashion. which she sees as ·one more way in which the 50 called post-feminist era bears considerable and disconcerting resemblance to the pre-feminist era. as if feminism were finally nothing more than a blip on the screen· (Brubach 1992: 64). Geneva Overh01ser sees the same pattern operating in terms of women's work: ·since women are at work. something has to give. The pundits of post-feminism say women shou1d give. That's • 37 familiar enough--distinct1y pre-feminist· (Overho1ser 1986: • ;,34). To make the pre-/post- comparison is another way of glorifying the magnitude and importance of the second wave. by emphasizing the successes and goals that have been won. However. these writers' wi11ingness to make comparisons between prefeminism and postfeminism actual1y produces the effect that they are fighting against: that the emergence of postfeminism will negate the existence of feminism. In fact. this negation process is aided in part by their semantic conflation of postfeminist and prefeminist.

Within this endless search for origins, the emergence of the social phenomenon of postfeminism is often dated from 1982 (Buechler 1990, Ryan 1992, and others) coinciding with both the Bolotin article and the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment. The post-legislation identifier furthers the parallel with the 19205, when the ERA was first proposed. In fact, sorne have argued that it is questionable whether feminists would be 50 inclined to construct this circular time line were it not for the reemergence and defeat of the ERA in the 19805. Cott asks;

Would the sixt~ years from 1923 (when it was first introduced ~nto Congress) to 1982 be reconceptualized to reveal the ascending progress of equa1 rights, as the history of the 'woman movement' from 1848 to 1920 has been conceptualized to reveal the ascending suffrage campaign? (Cott 1990: 173n) Buechler sees 1imlted uti1ity in this ERA comparison because • 38 he finds che ca~oral or chronological indicacor 'posc-' ill- • suiced co che movemenc of feminism. These prefaces aid in defining evenc-orienced eras, such as wars or legislacion, buc are less usefuI wich reference co movernencs such as feminism or modernism. In Buechler's view,

ch~ cer.m 'poscsuffrage' is meaningful because enfranchisement required concrece legislacive accion, which occurred ac a parcicular momenc. No analogously specifie accion provides any comparable meaning co che cer.m 'post-feminist', because the goals of the movement have been much broader {hence che defeac of che ERA in 1982 did not iniciate a posc-feminisc eral. (Buech1er 1990: 220) Another argument used to resist the ter.m post-feminist that follows a similar logic is the contention that we cannot be postfeminist if we are not post-patriarchal. Such stacements are forwarded by Monika Gagnon (1990), and Susan Crean, who writes, "to even use the word post-feminism implies that we have encered a new age. Absurd, of course, for our society certainly isn' t post-patriarchal" (Crean 1986: 38). This reasoning suffers from a similar flaw in oversimplified linearity, and from a unidimensional conception of patriarchy as single and unifor.m in purpose and effect. Certainly, instances and experiences of patriarchy are as wide and varied as feminism itself, which should make it as difficult to 'post-' a singular patriarchy as it is to 'post-' a singular feminism.

That Bolotin makes no such attempt to identify the emergence of postfeminism before her own use of the ter.m, is • 39 testament to the difficu1cy of conc1usive1y identifying its • genesis. This also he1ps to understand the preva1ence in the discourse of vague phrases such as the •postfeminist era' (Goodman 1989. Buech1er 1990. Brubach 1992). the 'postfeminist generation' (Bo1otin 1982. Sa1ho1z 1986. Drainie 1986. Stacey 1987. Showa1ter 1989. Taylor 1990. Fa1udi 1991. Greene 1992.) the 'postfeminist age' (Mod1eski 1991. Gibbs 1992. Fin1ayson 1994). and the 'postfeminist period' (Gagnon 1990. Butler 1990). These indicators avoid the tricky issue of when postfeminism started and how long it is expected to 1ast. whi1e at the same time alluding to its all-encompassing presence and prevalence. They are temporal terms used in the absence of clear temporal coordinates. Equally ambiguous is the attempt to define the age group which constitute the postfeminists. a label for which age is often the only criteria. There are a number of varied tactics for delinèating this age group. many of which overlap with the strategie attempts to reinstantiate the beloved markers of second wave feminism. For Bolotin. it is simply those women between 18 and 25. whorn she finds "lazy about naming the inequalities around them" (Bolotin 1982: 116). For others. like Catharine Stimpson, the generation is seen in a rnuch less flattering light. She writes, Born in the years between The Second Sex (1953) and Sexua1 Po1itics (1970), they are the beneficiaries of the will of the active ferninists of the 1960s and 1970s. They are now living on a trust fund frorn history. Like many children with inherited rnoney, they heedlessly spend the incorne and refuse to add • 40 to the principal. (StimpsoJ"\ 1987: 196) • with each d~nigration of the younger generation is an opportunity once again to sing the praises of what is perceived as the harder working. more dedicated. older generation. represented here again in terms of the fundamental texts of second wave feminism. Regardless of the specifie technique employed. the labelling of the post-feminist generation is. more often than not. pejorative and negatively value laden.

~. promptly seized the opportunity to fight Bolotin's identification of the 'postfeminist generation' in their

April. 1983 issue. An article by Ann Hornaday refers to "many of the post-feminist justifications for eschewing feminist politics (most notably those quoted in a recent New York Times Magazine coyer story announcing, once again. the death of feminism)" (Hornaday 1983: 45). The use of 'many' and 'most notably' imp1ies a much more widespread trend than the publication of one article would suggest, setting a precedent for the embellishment of a postfeminist movement which remains standard throughout the discourse. There is no mention of 'the death of f eminism • in Bolotin' s article. but the semantic equation between postfeminism and the death of feminism is quickly made and firmly established.

In the event that the reference in the New York Times • 41 Magazine had gone unnoticed. this same ~ssue of ~. magazine • flogged the story with their April Fool's insert. called Mrs,; The Hagazine for the Post-Feminist Woman. The joke issue contained editorials. letters to the editor. phoney book reviews. and other pseudo articles announcing the arrival of postfeminism. The editor's note read. If you haven' t already heard the good news. let ~. be the first to tell you: you're not going to be hearing about 'feminism' any more unless its in the past tense and with the prefix 'post'. (~. 1983: 43) This joke issue sets a precedent for the reactionary appropriation of postfeminism. while simultaneously defeating its own goal of extinguishing the terrn. In an attempt to

resist the emergence of postfeminism. the authors of ~. are more accurately participating in its propagation through its repeated naming. In this way it becomes clear that. as with the emergence of feminism at the turn of the century. its detractors are more responsible for its growing popularity than are its advocates.

This issue of ~. also initiated another common feature of the postfeminist discourse. in which there is a peculiar

characterization of. and relationship to. the media. ~. and other writers that follow attribute the media with an uncharacteristically strong power over feminism. In many of these articles. there is an overwhelming use of the passive voice explaining that the 'media have declared' and that we • 42 are 'being told' about the death of feminism and the rise of • postfeminism. To assume a passive role in this somewhat illusory example of trend journalism and media construction seems an inefficient strategy for maintaining vigorous feminisms. It places feminists in the subordinate position in an imaginary battle with unidentified enemies, which they, in large part, help to construct. Further, in their denunciations of 'the media,' many of these writers seem incapable of acknowledging the extent to which they themselves are constitutive of it. While it may be powerfuI rhetoric to construct the media as being a monolithic patriarchal institution with a highly organized agenda to dismantle feminism, this is an inaccurate and misleading way of conceiving of these same writers' participation in the debate. In the process of arguing that it is always 'them' and not 'us,' it is in fact the 'us' that has the strongest voice in the debate on postfeminism.

Despite ~. magazine's claim that the media's promotion of the concept of postfeminism was widespread, the issue was not significantly raised again until 1986. In the March 31st issue of Newsweek, Eloise Salholz wrote an article entitled "Feminism's Identity Crisis, " in which she stated that "an emerging 'postfeminist' generation, in their 205 and early 305, has expressed a sense of alienation from the very movement that brought them unprecedented opportunities" • 43 (Salholz 1986: 58). On Septa~er 19th. an editorial in the ~~ • York Times by Geneva Overholser titled. "What 'Post-Feminism' Really Means" suggested that

.~ong the people who use the terro 'post-feminism.' there seem to be two schools of thought. The first holds that women went rampaging off to work only to discover that they were cheating home and family. The second holds that women went rampaging off to work only to discover that work wasn' t so great after all. (Overholser 1986: A34) That these citations use postfeminism in quotation marks

suggests that they are both sceptica1 of the terro's ve~acity. yet there are subtle differences between each use. In the first example. there is an acquiescence with the terro in presuming that there is such a thing as postfeminism by using it as a descriptive label. The second example uses the terro to describe a phenomenon in order to criticize the notion itself. Within the discourse of postfeminism which follows these initial references. the distinction between these two usages is often unclear. The terro is used to describe and label a perceived phenomenon by those who both do and do not believe it to exist. Consequently. the 'discourse of postfeminism' is used here to refer to all such references in an attempt to demonstrate that regard1ess of a given writer's perspective in the debate. each of these references contribute to the construction of what the concept of 'postfeminism' means.

Following the publication of these two articles• • 44 'postfeminism' reemerges with vigour, with a string of • articles (particularly in the Canadian media) announcing it as "the hot topic of the autumn season" (Crean 1986: 37). There is, in fact, more than a cursory association to seasonal trend, as postfeminism becomes increasingly associated with fashion and the commercialization of a new look for women. Janet Lee points out the redundancy of this trend through historical investigation: The term 'new woman' seems to reappear with nearly every generation - from the 'new woman' of the late nineteenth century, who so shocked society with her 'independence,' to that of the present day, who so preoccupies the theorists of 'post-feminism'. Through the decades it has served as a recurrent sales technique. At different periods Dior and Chanel both pioneered clothes for the 'new woman'; it was marketing magic that made them rich and 'infamous'. During the Second World War the propaganda machine got women to work by celebrating the 'new woman' as one who could labour and love in perfect unison. And when the war was over, the very same 'new woman' was the one who preferred housework to paid work. (Lee 1989: 168)

In an attempt to reverse and capitalize on the characterization of second wave feminists as dowdy and unstylish, the postfeminism of the 19805 aimed once again to put the 'feminine' back into 'feminism'. A large part of this rhetoric focuses on how fashion, as in the 19205, is the

marker of the New Woman, by contrasting the way feminists have been perceived by the media in the past with how they are 'free' to look now. In 'Meet the Post-Feminist Woman, , Bronwyn Drainie writes that, In the working world, at a simple but symbolically • 45 imporcanc level, che cloches women wear are undergoing a cransformacion. A few years ago, an • army of grim faced female M.B.A.s donned cheir Harry Rosen chree-piece pinscripes wich scring cies, gripped cheir Samsonices and headed for Bay Screet. 'Now,' s~ys a middle-level executive at a mammoth corporacion, 'we all wear whac we want: dresses, skircs and blouses ...or suies'. (Drainie: 1986: 95) There are a number of suspect elements co chis apparenc trend, many of which are pointed ouc by Susan Crean's commencary on Drainie in This Magazine. Crucially, however, Crean is unable

to see chis arcicle as a fashionable me~ns of discussing che lifescy1es of a few Canadian women, a scaple componenc of Chatelaine magazine, racher than che sounding of the deach knell for feminism. Crean sees this postfeminism as an example of che mainscream appropriation of feminism, which ois abouc making feminism safe for the fashion induscry" (Crean 1986: 39). Accordingly, she sees postfeminism as noching bue an invention of demographers designed to dictate a new fashion code to a lucrative market segment. She writes, The post-feminist woman. you will quickly discover, is inescapably upscale (no doubt the second op' in Yuppie now stands for postfeminist) and ever-so­ well-dressed. Which is to say she possesses a wardrobe and spends time and money on it. (Crean 1986: 38) The freedom to 'dress up and be feminine' which Crean id~tifies as a postfeminist fundamental. is seen as a direct reaction against the years of anti-fashion that the Women's Liberacion Movemenc was said to represent. Invoking once again the analogy wich pre-feminist times. Crean finds the new fashion code's high heels and shoulder pads as comparable to • 46 the once opp~essive co:'sec. As i~ che 19205 èiscou:."se, ou: of • date fashion is re:lective 0: out of date politics, a~è a similar vocab~la~J is ~seè ta disc~s$ bath: Fa:- rno=e devascac:':1g in the era 0: the eigheies thar: :nerely being colè you have outliveà YO'~r usefulness. is being declared passé. and post:­ feminism bl~ntly dec:."ees chat feminisrn anè aIl ics works is out: of st:yle, out: t:o lunch and off t:he agenàa of any right:-t:hinking woman wit:h get:-up-and­ ambit:ion. (Crean 1986: 37) The post:feminist: career women, as she is const:ruct:ed t:hrough t:hese debat:es, may acknowleàge t:hat: feminism has made more opport:unit:ies and resources available t:o her, but: int:erpret:s any success t:hat: she achieves as a result: of her own indiviàual hard work and merit .. This rhet:oric of indiviàualism, according to feminist critics, serves to pre- empt col1ect:ive action on the part of women, and thus negat:es the possibility of feminism.

While the defining feature of this postfeminism appears to be a successfully dressed, upwardly mobile career woman, another seemingly contradictory characterization operates simultaneously. The corresponding postfeminist prototype that

is ~~nstructed out of the popular discourse is that of the modern woman, who, given a wide variety of career options, chooses to stay at home to raise children. Critiques of this model are as prevalent as the defences, and both combine t:o

forro a clear image of the New Traditionalist postf~inist as a woman who chooses freely among a number of ent:icing • 47 lifescyle pos:;:"bilicies. anè èecièes l.:l favou:- 0:: \;.npaid • domestic labol,;:". ·lJ'omenls popula:- :nagazines are ::.-i:e with exarnples of ".-;ornen who, bl..:.:"èe:'led by the guilt of domestic

~eglect, have left p:,omising ca:-eers to spenè mc:"e cime at home. This shifc. whether =eal or irnagineè, has been

charnpioned by the New Right and conservative women's groups

such as R~;L women, who promote traditional domestic roles for women. It has also received notable attention. however.

through fe~inist critiques of postfeminism. These critiques question the veracity of these images. focusing on the inherent class and race biases in the 'freedom to choose' to

stay at home, by pointing out that these stories often revolve around economically stable white women whose decision is greatly facilitated by their husband's income. Whether this image is being defended or attacked. however. it is reinforced through continuous debate, which contributes to its formation as a cultural type.

Thus, under the umbrella term 'postfeminist, , there exist two paradoxical types: one which is expressed in the careerist language of 'power dressing, , 'pink collar' and woman of the

'90s,' and the other which is signified by domestic catch­ phrases such as 'nesting,' 'cocooning' and 'cult of motherhood.' Insofar as individualism has always been heralded as a virtue by a conservacive Right, these discourses may have more in common chan is immediately evident. Boch funccion to • 48 serIe a commercial imperative, and to this end the impact of • 1970s feminism lS unde~played, due to its perceived association with a more grassroots, non-material lifestyle." Whether in order to bolster the sales of Quaker oatmeal (whose advertising campaign is often cited as a leading promoter of the New Traditionalist paragon), or to sustain fashion and adjunct industries, there are obvious profit motives at work in constructing these cultural types. As a journalistic conceptual shQrthand, these easily identified and evoked stereotypes are reworked in and through the media, bath in fictional narratives and human interest trend stories. Notably, however, a significant portion of the detailed elaboration of this image is located not in the copy of advertisers and marketers, but in the vilifications of feminists trying to outlaw postfeminism.

Surprisingly, within the postfeminist discourse which emerges out of these repudiations there is a conspicuous absence of political issues. Stories bemoaning the onset of post-feminism's apolitical laissez-faire approach contain only marginal acknowledgement of pay-equity, daycare, reproductive rights, and other points of feminist struggle. While feminists

,. As Walters points out, however, when previous generations of feminists are referred to in the media, they are described through their media constructed image as weIl. Hence the strident bra-burning feminist image is a recurring motif in the post-feminist declarations, even though this representation has no material referent. (Walters 1991: 105L • 49 argue that the postfa~inists are not sufficiently engaged with • feminist issues and politics. for the most part the discourse of postfeminism steers clear of traditional feminist issues. Again. those who are most involved in the postfeminist debate. and who have access to media space. do little to elevate the level of discourse beyond the superficial trend speak of fashion commentary and "mommy-tracking.· and clichéd nostalgia for the 1970s.

A similarly remarkable aspect of this discussion is that in the lament over feminism and its ensuing identity crisis. one of the significant markers of this identity has fallen out of discourse. In earlier stages of feminism. it was commonplace to distinguish different feminisms. in order to elaborate the enunciative position of the author. and to convey the diversity of feminism itself. The terms 'socialist feminist.' 'radical feminist.· 'liberal feminist.· and 'marxist feminist' brought a certain legitimacy to their

authors by making their particular feminist views more easily

recognizable. As these terms appear less and less frequently in recent feminist works. it becomes more difficult and time consuming to establish an area of common ground from which to discuss issues. It seems reasonable to suggest that the more generalized the teI.:n feminist becomes. the more nebulous is the debate. The absence of these once useful modifiers makes it more difficult to identify the particular feminism which • 50 is being 'post'-ed, and serves to level the rich distinctions • between them rather than nourish them. As the media trend of postfeminism amplifies and explodes toward the end of the 1980s, several new associations begin to be forged within the discourse, The directions that postfeminism takes as a descriptive category, can, however, be traced back to Susan Bolotin's 1982 New York Times Magazine article, in her unabashed admission to the 'compulsive watching of 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show" as a formative consciousness raising experience (Bolotin 1982:29), In this way, Bolotin echoes what is an increasingly influential field of study in academia which focuses on the relationship between women and popular culture. This reference is highly significant in the discourse of postfeminism as it is manifest in late 1980s literature, Not only is postfeminism by this point firmly entrenched in a commercialized context through print media, but postfeminist sentiments also become increasingly located in film and television.

The extent to which postfeminism becomes a descriptive term applied to film and television is both astounding and curious. Equally remarkable is the degree of consensus which writers on the subject seem to achieve on which texts qualify

as positive and productive for feminism and, by contrast, those which are considered postfeminist. Throughout the • 51 discourse, for example, beginning with Bolotin, . The Mary • Tyler Moore Show' is heralded in the same vein as the struggles of the second wave. It recurs as the feminist litmus test against which all subsequent prime time television will be judged. Bronwyn Drainie asks, "Whatever happened to Mary and Rhoda, those cute spunky baby feminists of the early '70s?" (Drainie 1986: 59). Walters laments that "we have moved from Mary Tyler Moore' s complex rendering of the city as reconstructed family to Murphy Brown's witty but strangely sterile sitcom 60 Minutes" (Walters 1991:110). These references i1lustrate yet another set of cultural markers used to differentiate 'feminist' texts from 'postfeminist' texts.

The propensity to locate postfeminism in film and television is problematic at a number of levels. As a threat to feminist politics, its severity is undermined by the fact that no actual person is named as a postfeminist, but many fictional characters are. Similarly, to name a television show or film as postfeminist seems to function as a simplified way to e7ade the more demanding task of defining what postfeminism actually is. It remains unclear in many of these reviews whether it is the texts themselves, characters within the text, actors playing the characters, the era in which the text emerges, or the mode of analysis which is brought to bear on it, which makes something postfeminist. In many cases, it seems that texts have little in common outside of the time • 52 f~ame in which chey a~e p~oduced. lc may be pa~cly due co che • definicional c~isis su~~ounding poscfeminism chac ic finds ics mosC common elabo~acion ch~ough ficcional na~~acives. As a

~esulc. che labelling of a group of cexcs as poscfeminisc concribuces co ics meaninglessness as a cerro, as ic is

~epeacedly invoked as an easily applicable adj eccive wich liccle comprehensive explanacory supporc.

This shifc co locacing poscfeminism in popular culCu~al cexts also signifies the bridging of academic and popular discourses on che subjecc, as academics increasingly use che cexts of popular culture as their objecc of study, and the vocabulary and discourse that are generated ouc of chese analyses are found back in the popular sphere. Just as postfeminism begins Co be a feature of boch academic and popular discourse, postfeminism itself fragments in cerms of the various meanings that it is inscribed with as a result of chese diverse concexts. During the late 1980s, a greac deal of material which circulated about postfeminism originaced from academic journals and university presses, as popular postfeminist discourse achieved notable status as an object of study. While many authors writing on che subjecc are writing from within a university, their participation in and experience with popular culture must not be overlooked. The distinction is blurred further bY the fact that the subject material is almost exclusively located in the popular, and • 53 these popular texts are occasionally reproduced for use in • academic study. Given that the same author can often be published in more than one sphere,:; and the diverse contexts in which these works are produced and received. the distinction between academic and popular contributions to the discourse of postfeminism is difficult to make.

Tania Modleski is one example of a feminist writing in an academic context, whose defining characteristics of 'the postfeminist age' and 'postfeminist texts' are later appropriated by those working both inside and outside

acadernia. Fgminism WithQut Womep- Culture and Criticism in " 'Postfeminist' Age (1991) is an important foundational book in that it sets out new terms for postfeminist discourse. It is a1so important in contributing to a genre of cultural criticism which can be said to bridge academic and popular

discourse. She does this by taking as her focal point several popular films from the late 19805 and early 19905, and subjecting them to a feminist cultural analysis. At the same time, however, her work is discussed and reviewed in a more popular context alongside such bestsellers as Susan Faludi's

15, Two cases in particu1ar exemplify this blurring of boundaries. Elayne Rapping' 5 Media-tions; Forays into the Culture and Gender wars (1994) is a collection of articles taken from popular magazines and i~ pub1ished as a 'women's studies' text, and Tania Mod1eski's Feminism without Women' Culture and Criticism in a "postfeminist 1 age (1991) is a collection of scho1arly essays. but is also sold in non­ academic bookstores . • 54 Backlash and Naomi Wolf's The 3eauty Myrb . • Modleski' s enduring concribucion co che liceracure of poscfeminism is che concencion chac "cexcs chac. in proclaiming or assuming che advenc of poscfeminism. are accually engaged in negacing che criciques and undermining che goals of feminism--in effecc, delivering us back inco a prefeminisc world" (Modleski 1991: 3). Among che cexts thac she defines as poscfeminist, are those chac foreground che narracive possibilicies of male characcers, and in che process. succeed in writing female characters out of the script. Examples such as 'Three Men and a Baby.' 'My TWo Dads, , and 'Full House' are seen te be enacting this perilous trend. Mod1eski's formula maintains significant currency both in po?ular and academic spheres as one strand of postfeminist analysis. Rer arguments are subsequently applied in Vande Berg' s analysis of China Beach, which is interpreted as "depicting male military characters enacting stereotypically female values and roles, " (Vande Berg 1993: 356) and in the work of Walters, who sees the trend at work in n'Uncle Buck, , 'Who's the Boss,' 'Major Dad,' 'Coach,' 'Runter,' 'Matlock,' 'Wonder Years,' 'Dear John,' 'The Fanelli Boys,' 'Jake and the

Fatman,' [and] 'The Young Riders'" (Walters 1991: 110). Clearly, such a broadly defined standard for what constitutes postfeminism does little to illuminate the meaning of the term, but makes it widely applicable as a descriptive category for cultural criticism. • 55 Arnong those who find the best examples of postfeminism • on prime time television, it is generally agreed that 'Roseanne,' 'Murphy Brown,' ' L..~. Law,' 'The Cosby Show,' 'China Beach,' and above all, 'thirtysomething,' are the definitive offerings. As Elspeth Probyn points out, "the word 'feminism' is never mentioned in any of these shows," (Probyn 1990:149) much less postfeminism, which makes it reasonable to suggest that their characterization as such owes more to their interpretation by critics and theorists than to qualities inherent in the texts themselves. Probyn outlines postfeminism using three popular examples: In television terms, [postfeminism] means that you can be a top corporate lawyer and be pregnant ('L.A. Law'); a hot shot current affairs anchor and consider single parenthood ('Murphy Brown'); or you can just choose to stay home and indeed be home ('thirtysomething'). (Probyn 1990: 151) The archetypal postfeminist who is evoked throughout the discourse, according to Gibbs and others, is "Hope Steadman, the exalted, blissful, breast-feeding mother of the 'thirtysomething' television drama. who provided a postfeminist contrast to the neurotic spinster and ball- busting single career woman" (Gibbs 1992: 41). This characterization is contrasted with that of Press and Strathman, who locate postfeminism in "highly 'feminine' professional women characters, such as Clair Huxtable on 'The Cosby Show,' 'L.A. Law' 's professionals, and the lead characters of 'Designing Women'" (Press and Strathman 1993: 11). What makes these characterizations postfeminist• • 56 according to these authors, is that their "femininity • traditionally conceived, as both glamorous and mat:ernal ... determinedly refut:es potentially unconvent:ional, feminist

images" (~.:ll). However, in the case of 'Murphy Brown,' the criteria for postfeminism is considerably different: Here is an autonomous professional woman who in many ways is quite feminist. The attention paid, and fun poked, at precisely these qualities makes this representation more postfeminist than feminist. (~.: 12) Press' s version of postfeminism is similarly expressed in terms which allow for widely diverse interpretations, which helps to account for its applicability to a range of television programming: Paradoxically, television offers us a conglomerate ideology, which l call postfeminism, advocating newer work roles for women but also presenting on uncritical picture of older, more traditional family roles. (Press 1991: 46)

Thus, in the identification of postfeminism in television, both the modern career women type and the New Traditionalist type are invoked, but the principle for declaring the texts themselves postfeminist is at best ambiguous. The definitions are often widely defined and contradictory, and while they are not entirely arbitrary, the

meaninglessness of the term is underscored by its multiple and inconsistent uses. Using television as the illustrative examp12, definitional clarity is not achieved despite the fact that: the boundaries of preferninist, feminist and postferninist

are rigidly maintained through the se:i.~ctive citation of • 57 programs for each era. As yet another strategy for conflating • prefeminism and postfeminism, programs such as '! Love Lucy' and 'The Honeymooners' are compared to 'Hurphy Brown' and 'Roseanne,' in order to demonstrate similarities between these two eras of programming. The texts that are defined as postfeminist are equated with those that are prefeminist, and are consequently understood to be necessarily regressive.

!n the realm of film criticism, postfeminism is described in sorne cases as constituting its own genre of films. Press and Strathman, Walters and Rapping all refer to a postfeminist genre, which includes films such as 'Baby Boom,' 'Fatal Attraction,' 'Working Girl,' 'Pretty Woman,' 'The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, , and 'Presumed Innocent.' Elayne Rapping describes these films in these terms: "innocence and helplessness on the surface, (and] promises of hot nights as subtext. Isn't that what pre-feminist women were all about? We've come a long way around in a circle" (Rapping 1994:40) . In many of these films, both the professional and the domestic stereotypes of women are found, although it is disputable whether the concept of postfeminism as it has been elaborated thus far is adequately precise to comprise its own film genre. For example, 'Presumed Innocent' qualifies for inclusion in the genre on this basis: No longer satisfied with the standard virgin/whore dichotomy (played out to such effect in 'Fatal Attraction'), no longer appeased by the good woman/bad woman dualism, popular culture now • 58 conscruccs a world where chere are no good women, only good men. (Walcers 1991: 109) • Similarly, Walcers finds chac, The popularicy of David Lynch among che young and rescless should noc be overlooked in a àiscussion of poscfeminism. Lynch has che uniquely poscmodern knack of caking chac which is, afcer aIl, an old scory ...and presencing ic as radical new fare. (Walcers 1991: 100) The appeal co poscfeminism seems, chen, in recrospecc, an explanacion for che popularicy of certain popular texts, racher Chan che cexts themselves being responsible for the popularity of postfeminism. In either case, however, postfeminism as a descriptive category does lictle co define a genre of films chat seem co have little in common other than their dates of release, and does not enhance any further underscanding of the appeal of such films. Whether this cultural criticism emerges from a popular or an academic source, che readings of these films tend to be similar in their disavowals of postfeminism, and similarly lacking in explanations for why, if this phenomenon is so widespread, it can only be located in fictional narratives.

A further bridge that is forged between academic and popular spheres within the discourse of postfeminism is made evident through their mutual acceptance of its association with postmodernism. Postfeminism and postmodernism straddle the spheres of the academic and the popular, in as far as they

are often invoked in conjunction, by cultural theorists who • 59 occupy positions in both spheres. One of the ways that the • meaninglessness of the term postfeminism is elaborated is through a comparison with the similar fate of postmodernism. as a terro which is at once a journalistic labelling shorthand and a genre of cultural artifacts and criticism. In many instances, postmodernism and postfeminism are used interchangeably, thus evoking their almost synonyrnous nature. Daphne Merkin, writing in New York Times Magazine refers to "the post-modernist, post-ferr.inist, closing decade of the 20th century" (quoted in Walters 1991: 109). Tad Friend in Esquire writes, Postfeminism began f10ating through newspapers in 1983; the terro, used both by young homemakers and young professiona1 women to distinguish themselves from their predecessors, soon becarne as meaningless a catchall as postmodern. (Friend 1994: 52) 7he nonsensical nature of the terro, and its relationship to postmodernism, is articulated by Susan Crean, who, upon hearing postfeminism for the first time recalls that, It sounded too much like those overstuffed terms we learned about in art courses - post impressionism, post painterly abstraction, post (and post-post) modernism -which l always suspected had more to do with the wiles of the art market and art critics than anything the artists were doing. (Crean 1986: 37) In this way the futility of postfeminism is elicited through the comparison with the overused and now vacuous term postmodernism. It is too easily applied to that for which journalists have no other narne, and serves as trite shorthand in place of adequate description. However, there may be an • 60 • unde~lyi~g basis which ~arrancs compariso~ between che cwo. '?oscfemi::.i.sm,· like 'postrnoèe:-nis:m,' is a label for an era with no idencity of ics o-w-r:--an era invented in reaction to the one before it. Soth movernents were founded on the conviction that the previous generation's revolution was a failure, and both disdained the idealisrn that had prompted feminists and modernists alike to believe that they had come up with the solution to what's wrong with the world. Lik~ postrnodern architecture, post­ feminism seeks refuge in historicisms, invoking a time when women, like buildings, were more decorative, more intent on pleasing the eye of the beholder. (Srubach 1992: 66)

In an attempt to integrate this disjuncture in what can be seen as academic and popular speculations on the subject of postfeminism, Walters offers this explanation: There are really two strands of what we could calI 'postfeminist' discourse in the current period. In recent years, 'postfeminism' has emerged both as a descriptive popular category and as a tentative theoretical movement loosely associated with the postmodern and poststructuralist challenge to 'identity politics'. (Walt~rs 1991: 105) With reference to Walters' second category, postfeminism maintains sorne utility in describing a cultural moment which occurs once the basic tenets of feminism have been found to be lacking in the task of universal representation. '6 Press and Strathman explain that Sorne feminists ...have used the cerro postfeminism to signal the recognition that the women's liberation ,. The characterization of academic postfeminism here refers to its appropriation in a North American scholarly tradition, and is ~n no way meant to speak for postfeminisms which are articulated within French philosophical feminist th~=y, which has produced yet another distinctive body of theory. • 61 mov~~ent of the '60s and '70s no longer presents a unifieè f::·::>nt; cha: the pa::-:icula= ci::c..:u..'1istances 0: race and class are not mereiy 'add-ons' to the • cenc::-al ci::cl;.msca:lce of being a ·..... oman. (Press and Stratr_~an 1993: 11) Whethe:."' ic be through popular postfeminism, or this more

academic version, both are seen as p~:entiaiiy dange=ous to ferninisID. As Walcers explains, These two ve=sions of postfeminism...seem to me to have serious points of overiap that equaiiy. aibeit with different intentions. contribute to the dissolution of feminism as theory and prao:tice. (Walters 1991: 105) While 'intentions' may be a suspect point of entry into the evaluation of postfeminism. Walters provides a detaiied explanation for her mistrust of the term: Both postfeminisms seem to share a distorted and revisionist (in the worst sense) history of feminism. signalling the end of something even though we have hardly achieved it in the first place...And. tellingly. both put into question the possibility for any sense of a unity for women, any sense of sisterhood. popular postfeminism. in claiming a generational dislocation. distances us forever from 'those women' proclaiming the irrelevance of feminism for the hip but overwrought generation of late capitalist yuppies. Academie poststructuralist feminism (which is surely post­ everything). similarly denies the possibility of sisterhood. this time not through a generational schism but through a denial of the category of 'woman' altogether. For postmodern postfeminists. feminism was doomed from the start by its allegiance to those nasty master narratives (e.g. patriarchyl and its reputed denial of difference in favour of a naive and utopian vision of empowered sisterhood. (Walters 1991: 110-ll Again. through the relationship to postmodernism. postfeminism is critiqued for inhibiting the potential of feminism. By invoking the phrases 'sisterhood' and 'empowerment.' the • 62 battle cries of second wave feminism are foregrounded, and the • crisis of representation that postmodern theorizing demands of feminism is negated. Press and Strathman articulate the danger of postfeminism using a similar strategy: The terro 'postfeminism' like its fellow, 'postmodernism,' is an ideological terro. Like postmodernism, it attempts to foreclose on the promise of the earlier concept. The terro postmodernism implicitly criticizes the universalizing tenàency in modernism, and its unbridled faith in progress. (Press and Strathman 1993:11) Certainly the 'post-ing' in both postmodernism and postfeminism serves to do more than merely 'foreclose on the promise of the earlier concept.' And, as the variable uses of postfeminism show, the terro can be infused with multiple and contradictory meanings. The tendency to equate the 'post' with negation of the movement it is affixed to is a particularly salient usage arnong those most wishing to deny its existence. To insert postfeminism into the discourse of postmodernism as

a way of illustrati~g its usel~ssness, is simply one more, albeit more elaborate, semantic conflation intended to protest the usage of postfeminism.

Cultural criticism may occupy a realm which is neither entirely academic nor popular, as the work of Rapping, Modleski. Walters and others has shown. There are significant points of overlap in the discourses which can be seen through their mutual negation of the utility of postfeminism as a terro, and the strategies that are used to ar~iculate this • 63 negation. Importantly, there is not a great difference in the • way that academic ferninists talk about the discourse of postfeminism, and popular feminists talk about postfeminism itself. While popular writers most often focus on the way other media have articulated the terro, and academic feminists are more often focusing on the discourse of those writers and other cultural texts, each declare that it is a 'media concocted rnythology.' However, while feminists writing in the popular sphere rnay underestirnate their role as 'the media, ' academic feminists also underestimate their contribution to 'the discourse.' What results is that the commentary on 'Fatal Attraction,' 'Murphy Brown' or 'thirtysomething' rnay come from either context, but it rernains rernarkably similar in its conclusions, with varying levels of theoretical sophistication.

Most acadernic work on the subject suggests that postferninism is contributing to the dissolution of ferninism. which is fundamentally the sentiment also found in the popular sphere. It seems a goal of bath discourses to instill a sense of scepticism about the terro. as Crean does in her warning that ·we should care about post-feminism. Not only because it has arrived...but because it means a lot more than the word immediately srggests· (Crean 1986: 37). Or. as Valerie Miner writes with reference to her own writing which spans both journalistic and academic articles• • 64 In recent years l have been disturbed by the growth of 'postfeminist discourse' - not only because l disagree with much of it, but because just as the • women's movement gave me and others permission to writc, tn~s line of criticism silences us by denying our ccntinuing existence. (Miner 1990: 16) The simi1arities between the two discourses can also be seen in the passive tone used by both to describe the 'media's declaration' that we are told' about postfeminism. Importantly, the acadernic discourse, accustomed as it is to investigating the ro1e that popu1ar texts play in influencing perceptions and ideas. does not assume a privileged position of invulnerability to the power of the media. While these academics may be engaged in the task of analyzing the discourse, they nonetheless position thernselves as equal recipients of the media message that postfeminism has arrived.

Given the diverse and contradictory texts that get labelled postferninist, it seerns reasonable to suggest that its primary definitional feature is at best an arnbiguous relationship to feminism, although the nature of that arnbiguous relationship may vary. Most usages of postferninism are obvious critiques, sorne are clearly ironie commentary, and sorne, like the popular television and film texts that are labelled postfeminist, make little or no acknowledgernent of ferninism at all. In a futile atternpt to name all of these seerningly unnarnable but conternporaneous texts, postfeminism emerges a suitable and overused catchall phrase. Through its widespread association with 'the death of feminism,o pre- • 65 feminism,' 'postmodernism,' and the 'New Woman.' and. by • implication. 'anti-feminism.· the terro is categorically emptied of any substantial meaning. Paradoxically, this meaninglessness does not translate into it3 impotence as an anti-feminist force, as it continues to be constructed in the discourse as a powerfuI and dangerous threat to feminism.

• 66 Chapter Three • Postfeminism and Bestselling Feminist Books in the 1990s

l believe chac ac leasc parc of che reason American women are rejeccing feminism che way a new 604-page book every monch says chey are is because chey are cired of being yipped at by 604-page books. l envision a world in which che books chac lead co che magazine arcicles chat lead co the T-shircs are eliminaced alcogecher."

8y che beginning of che 19905, che growing popu1aricy of che cerro 'poscfeminism' in che media 1ed co che pub1icacion of a series of book-lengch scudies of chis and re1aced phenomena. These inc1uded Naomi WoU's The Beauty Myth (1990), Susan

Faludi l s Backlasbj The Undeclared War Against American Women (1991), Camille Paglia's Bex. Art. and America, Culture (1992), Katie Roiphe's The Morping After; Sex. F"'ar apd Feminism oP Campus (1993) and Wclf's Fire with Fire; The New

Fema1e Power and How Tt will Change the 21st Century (1993), among others. The publication of these books and their reception in popular media can be seen in terms of a number of overlapping discourses which continue to be prominent themes in social, political and cultural analysis. Within the sphere of popular debate on feminism, these books have made yet another identifiable contribution to postfeminist discourse, which elaborates on the articulations found through the popular periodical press. As these books take as their

.' Mim Udovitch, "Done To Death," Village VOice 1 March 1994, 18. • 67 focus feminism's idencicy crisis. che women's scudies • cur~iculum crisis anà èebates surrounàing political correccness. chey are a1so easi1y sicuaced and most identifiab1y 10cated ir. the North American university.

The connection to the university is significant on a number of 1evels. and he1ps to il1ustrate the b1urred distinction between academic and popular articu1ations of feminism. It is one of the primary contexts in which feminism is located, largely because both practice and theory find an application in women's studies curricula and campus politics. The university campus is a small scale model society which provides a litmus test for larger social movements, and is where many of the movement's practioners are based.

Accordingly, college '~nd university campuses are foremost among the locations where authors of these books promote their works on lecture circuits. In effect, these books may be said to represent the blurred distinction between academic and popular feminism. Not only is the way feminism is practised in both spheres a topic of discussion in these books, several

of them were written for wide distribution by authors working within universities, while others, written by journalists, have periodically been included on university course reading

lists ~ Sex, Art and Ameriçan Cultyre, written by Professor Paglia, is a collection of articles which had previously

appeared in The New York Times, The New Bepublic, J:œ • 68 Phi) adplQhia Inqllirpr and the Washington POst. Similarly, • Katie Roiphe, a Ph.D. student at Princeton, first published her work as as a short essay in the New York Times Magazine. AlI of these works take issue with the status of feminism in academia, in an attempt to revalorize more accessible mainstrearn versions. The fluidity of the boundary between academic and popular feminisrns thus forces the debate to be tabled in and through both contexts. As a result, the discourse and vocabulary used to articulate different ferninisms increasingly borrow from both spheres as well. The use of the terrn 'postferninism' is a particularly salient example of this phenomenon.

The publication of bestselling books on ferninism in the early 1990s rejuvenated the popularity of the topic of postferninism through the ancillary mechanisms of book reviews, talk show appearances and news coverage. In most of these books, the media's use of the terrn is seen as evidence of a crisis in feminism. and it is this crisis which provides the catalyst for the ernergence of the books. Thus, the mainstrearn media is used as a topic of study for books which are then reviewed and debated in the sarne media. In this way. the books and their coverage contributed to the overall marketability

of ferninism as a current topic. As popular mainstrearn presses took more interest in publishing these feminist works. they were granted greater access to the public via increased • 69 publicity and marketing. The emergence of these books also • coincides with an important juncture in feminist politics in which there is ar. increasingly large market for potential readers of feminist material. In addition to the women who came of age before and during the Women's Liberation Movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. a new generation of feminists born since the second wave is being educated in

postsecondary institutions by way of popular feminist works from the second wave, poststructuralist influenced feminist theory. and current mainstream popular texts. It is this juncture that provides both the topic material and the emerging context for these bestselling feminist books.

This wave of popular books published on feminism led several authors to emerge and achieve unprecedented celebrity status. particularly for female non-fiction writers. Interestingly, the 'personas' which are constructed around these authors coincide with the new female archetypes that are promoted in the discourse of postfeminism through the popular media in the 1980s and early 1990s, despite the fact that the phenomenon itself is often a focus of their work. Two of the most popu1ar of these authors, Wolf and Faludi, chronicle the media concocted 'back1ash' and 'rnyth of postfeminism,' injecting the terms further into the realm of popular public debate. Conversely, Paglia and Roiphe, are among the very few people to be actuiüly labelled postfeminist, in a most • 70 pejorative sense, for their dissenting views on establishment • feminism. postfeminism, then, is appropriated as evider.ce of backlash by one group, ar.d used as a derogatory label for the other.

The issue of labelling is also central to the identification of postfeminists. A highly suspect feature of the discourse is that while many grand claims are made about what 'the postfeminists' are doing or thinking, they are usually abstract descriptions of a position which no actual person occupies. Rather, in popular media discourse at least, what is postfeminist is most often described in terms of fictional characters or narrative plotl:nes. With the emergence of chese bestselling books, however, several authors

are decidedly named postfeminist. As with the emergence of the terro 'feminist' at the beginning of the twentieth century, these labels are affixed pejoratively to those outside the mainstream establishment; it is not a label that these people use to refer to themselves. Among those who fall into this uncelebrated category, Camille Paglia and Katie Roiphe are the most prominent. 18

18 Raymond Sokolov, "Beyond Prudery: The New Postfeminists," wall Street Journal 27 March 1991: A12; Ann Powers, "Class Conflicts: A Vindication of the Rights of Women's Studies, " Village Yoiçe Litera;v Snpplement October 1993: 10; Brian Johnson, "The Male MYth," Mac1ean's 31 January 1994: 39. Other authors who have been associated with postfeminism include writers of fiction Mary Gaitskill and Susan Minot (Faludi 1991: 462), and Marge Piercy (Finlayson 1994: C9) . • 71 The personalities and images of the authors which ~re • constructed and marketed are a significant aspect of these debates. The proliferation of the authors' photographs, on jacket covers and in media coverage, helps to consolidate the image of the author with the ideas contained in their books. For the most part, these pictures reveal young, attractive, white women. These images, and the surrounding text which, in the cases of wolf and Faludi, often makes reference to their boyfriends, are perfect postfeminist archetypes. They are young, successful, career-oriented women who can "hate sexism without hating men" (Wolf 1993: 138). Their attractiveness and heterosexuality lend them a new credibility as mainstream feminist role models,'· in contrast to the stereotyped image of the radical, bitter and man-hating feminist of the pasto Wolf and Faludi in particular embody a New Woman prototype similar to the one advocated after the demise of feminism in the 1920s. The style conscious consumer who is attractive to men and desires a family finds its corollary in their 1990s versions of feminism. and they similarly emerge in a social context as a response to the staunch radical feminist image of the previous generation. Given the extent to which these

,. That these figures have become embedded in the mainstream is evidenced ~ their appearance in magazines usually reserved for fashion. diets and beauty. The May. 1994 issue of Cosmopo1itan magazine included a 21-page special feature on 'Feminism in the '90s' which lauded Naomi Wolf. Susan Faludi and others as "the new leadership." The article began. "If you never thought of yourself as a feminist. it's time you thought again. It' s not about dungarees and nating men. Feminism is...Relevant. Positive. Powerful. Sexy. Strong." • 72 books focus on, and ter.d to be targeted to, young, white, • middle-class women, the personas of the authors which are promoted through the meèia are well suited to the orientation of the subject material.

These books targeting the younger generation of feminists were not the only bestselling feminist books to be published in the 19805 and 19905. Many of the feminist writers popularized in the second wave a1so published highly successfu1 works, most of which targeted their own generation. Betty Friedan, pioneering author of The Feminine Mystique published The SecQnd Stage in 1981 and The FQ)]ntain Qf Age in 1993. Germaine Greer wrQte Sex and Destipy in 1984, and the WQmen's mQvement's most recQgnizab1e persQnality, Gloria

Steinem, produced QutrageQllS Aces and Eyeryday Bebell ions,

Revolution From Withip, and Moying BeyODd Words. These books offered a mQre tempered approach tQ feminism than their authQrs had prQduced during the second wave, and largely focused Qn persQnal fulfillment, self-help, self-esteem, family, and aging. What the publicatiQn of all of these bestsellers most clearly represents is that the established feminist canon remained fairly intact throughQut the 19805 and 19905. The majority Qf its authQrs were white, middle-class. heterQsexual, educated. urban women, and while two generatiQns of feminists were represented. the disparities between them were reinfQrced. The generatiQnal discQurse fQund within • 73 popular articulations of postfeminism throughout the • mainstream media in the late 1980s and early 1990s was a favorable precondition for the popularity of Naomi Wolf. Susan Faludi and later Katie Roiphe.

While the second wave of feminism saw many celebrity writers emerge out of the movement. the more recent group of feminist writers ta attain notoriety emerges in a distinctly different phase of feminist politics which impacts greatly on the content of their work. The release of these books follows a relative lapse in mainstream feminist publications in the early 1980s. magnifying the impact of their sudden appearance on bestse1ler lists. Their publishing companies were quick ta respond ta shifting market forces which provided favourable candit ions for the emergence of these books. In arder to capitalize on the perhaps fleeting popularity of certain types of feminist work. the authors and their works have been thoroughly promoted through a wide range of venues. Thus their popularity may owe as much ta corporate sensitivity to current social trends as it does to the specifie content of the books themselves. While publishers have always been eager ta capitalize on work that has social currency. the resources available ta these authnr.s is one factor that distinguishes them from their predecessors.

These books also emerge in a much more highly deve10ped • 74 stage of =emi~~sm cha~ chose 0: che seco~d wave. ~ue la~;ely • co chese earlier scruggles, feminism itself has achieveè ~ore advanced stages of specializacion and inscicucionalizacion.

There are presenl:ly over 600 Women' s Sl:udies progra:ns :":1 Unil:ed Sl:al:es and Canada, and a higher proporl:ion of women are in posil:ions of influence in bOl:h I:he public and academic spheres I:han could have been foreseen in earlier sl:ages. As a resull:, I:he I:ype of feminisms which are

espoused in I:hese works are much more likely 1:0 be cril:ical of che movemenl: I:han were earlier works. They do nol: hesical:e

1:0 find fault wil:h I:he work of ocher feminisl: wril:ers, ~nd feminisc pracl:ice wichin universil:ies. The evolucion of

feminism has provided chem wil:h a vanc~ge poinc from which such cricicisms can be made, a position I:hat was not warranl:ed or seen as beneiicial in the inl:roductory stages of the movemenc.

The publicacion of chese books was also both timely and well suiced co crends in feminist praccice. They were responding to whac were commonly being perceived as crises within feminism, both in practice and membership. The

popularity of terms such a~ postfeminism was interpreted as evidence of the growing strength of neoconservacive antifeminisc f.orces in society, and many feminists were searching for a new vocabulary co express what they saw as the resulting r'c,-;ession of feminism. The identificacion of a • 75 'posc:-:=mi.:l':'s;: ge:le~at':'o::' ':'=1 t.he popula=- :neèia s,?lect~è a • YOw~g, well-educat.eè, a~è :i~ancially st.able group 0: women, ~o whom ~hese =emi~is~ bestselle=s could be ta=geted.

Inc=eased awa=e~ess of sexual ha=assment and date =ape th=ough

~he ~elevised t=ials of Cla=ence Thomas and william Kennedy

Smi~h also cont=ibuted to the topicality of these publications, as a coyer story in ~ magazine suggests of Eacklash: The timing of the book helped too, coming jUSt when the U.S. Senate and the Ame=ican media rediscovered sexual na=assment and when puzzled talk-show hosts we=e gropi~g for a new vocabulary to capture the outrage th~~ women expressed. (Gibbs 1992: 32) The 'backlash' against feminism and the emergence of postfeminism that was the fodder for newspaper articles, magazine features, Hollywood scripts and talk show agendas, p=ovided both the topic and the favorable contextual conditions for the emergence of a host of bestselling books. In addition, the proliferation of talk show forums, and the rise of the self-help movement during the 1980s provided an increasingly important sphere through which feminism was debated. The search for "a new vocabulary to capture the outrage that women expressed" was an integral part of the allure and success of these new spheres, and works such as Faludi' s and Wolf' s which were discussed within them. The vocabulary surrounding the terms 'backlash' and 'postferninism,' was central te the articulation of shifts and trends in social relations that needed to be identified. They • 76 provided ins::.ancly recog:1i:.:able narnes for sencimencs ::.ha:: • could ocherwise only vaguely be described as a social clima::.e which seemed co be ac odds wich feminism.

A greac deal of accencion has been paid, not cnly co the content of books by Wolf, F'aludi, Paglia and Roiphe, but also to the levels of success that they have attained as feminist spokespeople. Neither as journalists nor as academics had these authors received significant media attention prior to the publication of their books. As a result, much of the debate has focused on what are perceived to be the mutually exclusive roles of scholar and celebrity, or, in bell hooks' terrns, feminist and individualist: The mega-success of popular feminist books fundarnentally altered the focus on anonymity. Like any other 'hot' marketable topic feminism has become an issue that can be opportunistically pimped by feminists and non-feminists alike...Concurrently, much of the work labelled 'feminist' that is produced and marketed now does not emerge from active struggle and engagement with feminist movement or even collaborative feminist thinking. Individual authors feel quite comfortable pushing their 'brands' of feminist thought without feeling any need ta relate that thought ta feminist political practice. (hooks 1994: 26) It is often suggested, particularly in relation to Paglia, that the penchant for media status contradicts the demands of intellectual or academic pursuits. The sentiment echoes the argument within high and low culture debates that that which

is intellectual should not, by definition, be commercially successful• and that which is commerc.;ially successful can • 77 surely not be intellectual. While the success of these works

does not guarantee their scholarly ~erit, neither should it • be assurned that it negates this possibility. Feminism, as a transformation strategy, requires access to the greatest

nw~er of people in order to succeed, and once attained this access often accompanies a certain degree of commercial success.

Within these debates, the emergence of the term postfeminism is interpreted by mainstream establishment feminists as alarming and destructive to feminism. In this way, the media's initial construction of the term is maintained intact as the discourse shifts into book length investigations. Wolf writes of postfeminism: This scary word is making young women, who face many of the same old problems, once again blame themselves - since it's aIl been fixed, right:.••We n,;)ver speak complacently of the post-Democratie era: Democracy we know, is a living, vulnerable thing that every generation must renew. The same goes for that aspect of democracy represented by feminism. (Wolf 1990: 281)20 As ide from the dubious claim to democracy, what is particularly striking in this passage is the use of the vocabulary of postfeminism and the extent to which the media's conception of the term is appropriated verbatim by those

20 To equate feminism with democracy here belies the fact that democracy has never necessarily implied feminism, and that many feminists reject the rhetoric of democracy. It is an attempt to de-radicalize the notion of feminism in order to make it palatable and acceptable to a larger number of people• • 78 inside and outside the media. It is assumed tO be a symptom • of feminist backlash and equated with antifeminism, and the majority of feminists who employ the terro use it in this way. Its uncritical use as evidence contributes to its potency as a manufactured threat, and also demonstrates the slippery exchange of vocabulary between the popular and academic spheres. In this sense it becomes more difficult to distinguish qualitative differences between the use of the terro in the popular media and its use in more comprehensive, often academic, studies. wolf's statement that it is a scary word' accepts the terro as defined through the media, rather

than divesting it of its force by refusing ic. The terro could be used otherwise to positively represent a stage in feminist politics that reflects the goals achieved and the gains that have been won; to promote a success oriented ideology rather than embracing it as a powerful and dangerous threat to feminism.

The concern over naming which is an integral part of the discourse of postfeminism is interPreted as one of the central indicators of feminism's identity crisis. It is represented

in the context of these book length studies largely by the

question of why 50 many otherwise intelligent wornen do not choose to call themselves feminists. The polls and studies aimed at analysing this problem which are cited throughout

• 79 this discourse are n~~erous." Faludi and Wolf in particular • take this problem as a central focus. suggesting chat it is of dire concern to the successful continuation of the movement. They see the contestation over naming as one of the more tangible ways that feminism's identity crisis is manifest. the implication being that if people are not calling themselves feminists then feminism must be waning. Those who try to dispute this apparent trend argue that it is an unfounded media conspiracy. In Faludi's view, just when record numbers of younger women were supporting feminist goals in the mid-'80s (more of them, in fact, than older women) and a majority of all women were calling themselves feminists, the media declared the advent of a younger 'postfeminist generation' that supposed~y reviled tl:le wornen's movement. (Faludi 1991: xix)'· However, in the process of trying to figure out who is and who is not a feminist, the naming process itself is reified as the central goal rather than questions of what the label represents.

One of the fundamental reasons for rejecting the label • feminist' is to contest the unrepresentative nature of mainstream feminism. To this end. issues of race. c1ass, and

21 By far the most often cited pollo however. is the "Time/CNN" poll of February. 1992 in which 63% of women polled did not consider themselves feminists.

22 Faludi cites a 1986 Gallop/Newsweek pollo and a 1989 Yankelovitch/~/CNN poll for this statement, although the statistics she mentions are in answer to the question "Do you believe feminists speak for the average woman?, " not "Do you call yourself a feminist?" (Faludi 1991: 465) . • 80 sexual o~ientacion incersecc aIl of these 'crisis' discourses • within feminism. One of the central forces responsible for the fragmentation of the movement was the acknowledgement that feminism did not and could not speak for aIl women. Charges of racism and elitism within the ferninist movernent led many women ta renounce the label, and establishment ferninism' s 'identity crisis' ensued. In acadernia, this crisis was recognized with the emergence of identity politics, in an atternpt to include and value a wider definition of experienced oppressions. As hooks points out. this change "cornpelled feminist thinkers to problematize and theorize issues of solidarity, to recognize the interconnectedness of structures of domination. and build a more inclusive movernent" (hooks 1994: 42). This shift had a very tangible result in the reevaluation of what carne to be known as the Dead White Male canon which dominated the curriculum.

In atternpting ta investigate the 'identity crisis' within feminism, ferninist critics looked to the university to explain why young women were not actively responding to the injustices of gender inequality with the sarne enthusiasm of previous generations. Within the university, they found that a nurnber of other shifts were taking place that had parallels within ferninism. The bestselling books that result from this investigation focus on the status of acadernic feminism, the women' s studies curriculum, and feminism' s larger identity • 81 crisis, ail of which have maincained considerable currency in • che media ch::-oughouc chis pe::-iod." Th::-ough an ongoing c::-icique of academic feminisc discou::-se. accessibilicy is laudect as becce::- suiced co policical sc::-uggl e. Feminism' s idencicy c::-isis is chus f::-amed in ce= of che seemingly incer::-elaced faces chac young women are refusing che feminisc label, and chat women's studies courses in universities and colleges are increasingly abstracc and elicist.

Throughout the criciques of academic feminism offered by l'lolL Faludi, paglia and Roiphe, one of the underlying

problems is diagnosed as f~~inism's too eager acceptance of, and too easy alliance with, poststructuralisc theory. Whereas in the popular mainstream media the association wich postmodernism is used to convey the meaninglessness of che terro ·postfeminism'. in the debates on academic feminism, it is the association with poststructuralism which is seen as the

core of the crisis. As Ann Powers notes, both women's studies and poststructu:ralism have been construed as problematic within the discourse of curriculum crises: Most neoconservative attacks on the university have viewed poststrucuturalist theory and women' s studies as the Evil Twins that innocent students must battle, desperately trying to capture son;(" real book-learning in the process. The two are inextricably linked, yet oddly oppositional: one, amoral, apolitical, and too heady for the average

.3 See, for example, cover stories of 'The Atlantic, October 1993, Mocher Jones September/October 1993, and ES~lire February 1994 . • 82 smart person to grasp; the other. pruàish. strangling stuàents with political correctness. anà haràly qualifying as mind-stuff at all. (?owers • 1993: 10) Other feminist critics argue that aàoption of poststructuralism has leà to replacing one set of àogma with another. such that the positions which criticize the universality of experience. cannot themselves be criticizeà. Many critics feel that the shift toward the valorizeà inclusion of non-canonized texts in the curriculum has led to a situation whereby these texts cannot be interrogated for fear of eliciting charges of racism, classism. sexism. ageism or homophobia. Both advocates and critics of this shift agree that in an effort to create a safe and comfortable atmosphere in women's studies classrooms. material that is deemed 'patriarchal' or otherwise oppressive is avoided. Thus the debate surrounding the women's studies curriculum has obvious significant ties to the larger discourse of political correctness taking place in North American universities. In this way. the discussion of feminism is inserted into a larger

discourse which con~ributes to the overall popularization of these debates.

Within feminism's identity crisis and curriculum debates, dissent in feminism is often regarded as eliciting its own backlash response. Importantly, this 'backlash' is not differentiated from the backlash against women which is the focus of Faludi's work. Any and all opposition to Feminism is • 83 labelled backlash regarèless of whether it originates from the • far Right, sexist men, educational reformers, or from self- identified feminists. Critics such as Camille Paglia and Katie Roiphe claim that the political correctness of women's studies censors debate which calls many of its central tenets into

question. Thus, a~ Roiphe argues, the sensitivity advocated by the women's studies curriculum discourages questions and critiques that students may raise with regard to the texts and language and used in the class. She writes, At Harvard, and later in graduate school in English literature at Princeton, l was surprised at how many things there were not to say. at the arguments and assertions that could not be made. lines that could not be crossed. taboos that could not be broken. The feminists around me had created their own rigid orthodoxy. You couldn' t question the existence of a rape crisis. you couldn't say that Alice Walker was just a bad writer. and the list of couldn'ts went on and on. (Roiphe 1993: 5) The emergence of these debates is indicative of a specific juncture of feminist politics. and must be regarded in terms of how productive they are for improving the situations which they criticize. Often the detractors of women' s studies education do little more than to draw out its weaknesses, and the resu1ting argument is polarized as simply • for' or

·again~t·. There is no al10wance made for grey areas or what Steinem calls 'both. and' theorizing. In order to make the debate useful it must be able to acynowledge that opposing sides can be bath be correct at the same time. What may appear to be excessive and rigid dogma to Roiphe at Harvard and Princeton may be in primary and necessary stages elsewhere. • 84 Wi th increasing awareness in areas of pay equity, sexual harassment and other gender issues, disparities • advancements result in more strict enforcement in sorne spheres than in others. Colleges and universities frequently have cOlT:paratively strict anti-harassment and anti-date rape legislation largely because this is where sorne the most vocal advocates of these issues are located. As Roiphe and Paglia suggest, however, the guidelines are often out of proportion with the actual incidence of these cases. As social movements progress and new modes of acceptable behavior become standardized, critiques such as those by Paglia and Roiphe are necessary indicators to gauge the suceesses and failures of these newly irnplemented guidelines. The debate must be âble to acknowledge these voices of dissent rather than disrnissing them a priori as 'backlash'. As hooks points out, 5trategically•..it advances ferninist rnovernent more for us to acknowledge that sorne of the examples of excess [Roiphe) calls attention to are familiar. And that many feminist thinkers have warned against these excesses and worked to deflect the interests of young feminists away from the sentimentalization of ferninist concerns. (hooks 1994: 43)

The rnost pronounced feature of aIl of these popular books on feminisrn is their common endeavour to extol the virtues of their accessible, non-acadernic style of feminism. Wolf, for example, recalls the early stages of the modern ferninist rnovernent, when the rnost popular ferninist books were written in ways that did not require a course in poststructuralisrn to understand••.Though many • 85 feminist authors were academicallv trained, thev also pitched their voices in the -mainstream. and • the books sold in the millions. (Wolf 1993: 123-4) This sentiment is representative of the 'back to basics' approach to feminism that Wolf advocates throughout Fire witb

~. It has proven to be a successful strategy for both of her books, which are written in short. direct, journalistic sentences, and have both sold in the millions. Her approach is a significant one that represents a response and an antidote to the perception that academic feminism has become "turgid and inward-looking, and politically ineffectual" (Greene 1992: 170), The back to basics call is one familiar

to education in general, and is periodically invoked by critics who see the specialization and compartmentalization of scholarship as destructive to a general or classical education. The problem is that for social movements, a back to basics approach implies a regression to the tactics that were employed in the past, which, for feminism, is not a politically effective way of meeting the changing needs of women. There is a certain condescension in the assumption that feminist work must embody this 'back to basics' approach. The implication is that it is the only way to counter what is perceived as the meandering and abstract academic versions of feminism, and that 'basic' is the best we can hope women are able to comprehend. Basic need not be the only corrective to 'intellectual' or 'sophisticated', and might, like the separation between academic and popular, be a misleading • 86 distinction to make. As the example of the trajectory of the term postfeminism shows, what is considered sophisticated or • academic in one sphere can be appropriated and become common in popular spheres, and can continue to oscillate between the two. The publication of bestselling books on feminism demonstrates that many articulations of feminism resist categorization as either basic or intellectual, or exclusively popular or academic, and that one need not be only one or the other in order to prove useful for feminism.

Wolf' s statement also makes refe~'ence to one of the central issues within the popular debate on feminism which revolves around the question of whether or not to publish in the mainstream. It demonstrates the extent to which feminist issues and debates occupy a somewhat tenuous position in attempting to straddle these two spheres. Wolf and Faludi, journalists by profession, are predictably in favour of mainstreaming their messages. For Wolf, the separation of

these spheres at thj~ juncture of feminist politics is seen as unfortunate and unproductive for feminism: During the backlash years, as the mainstream became more hostile to feminist ideas, the academy became more attractive. The scholarly journal Signs began publishing in the 1980s, as did Feminist Studies. Sorne of the most interesting ideas about women began to be ex.'::lressed in impenetrably academic language, which locked up these ideas in the ivory tower. The more successfully academic theory developed into an advanced discipline, the less acceptable it became for thinkers to translate their work for a mainstream audience. (Wolf 1993: 124) '. 87 AC che same cime. chose working within the academic sphere. • such as Paglia and Roiphe. also endorse publishing in che popular mainstream media. In their view. advanced academic theor}' is not seen as incompatible with the popular media. and is in fact one way of differentiating themselves from those feminisc academics whom chey consider to be elitist and inaccessible. As Kaminer writes, Paglia is highly critical of feminist academics who don't publish in the mainstream; but people have a right to choose their venues. and besides, access to the mainstream press is not easily won. Still, their relative isolation is a problem for feminist scholars who want to influence public policy. To reach a general audience they have to depend on journalists to draw upon and sometimes appropriate their work. (Kaminer 1993: 68)

Paglia's views, however, are not motivated by the belief that women's studies is overly complex or intellectual. According to Paglia, women's studies professors would benefit from a wider range of ideas, primarily from such places as the mass media. In her view, A serious problem in America is the gap between academe and the mass media, which is our culture. Professo~s of humanities, with aIl their leftist fantasies, have little direct knowledge of American life and no impact whatever on public policy. (Paglia 1992: ix) The use of the media is seen as a way of countering the stifling debates in academia, and it exemplifies the accessibility that advocated in their books. Since the publication of their work, Wolf, Faludi and Paglia have written on gender issues in such magazines as Cgsmopoliran,

Harner's, Mother Jones, The New Bgpublic, Newsweek, and other • 88 mainsc~eam publicacions. In chis way, the authors and their • work maincain a consiscenc level of popularity in che media which succeeds in promoting che sale of past and fucure books. and che markecability of feminism in general.

The mass media is seen as a more democratic means through which to reach a greater number of people, in contrast to the work which proliferates in women' s studies courses. These authors' bestselling books are an attempt to bridge these popular and academic spheres as comprehensive studies of the media and feminist discourses which are readily available and accessible to a mainstrearr, audience. Howeve., as Kaminer has noted, media space for debating these works and ideas is limited, and depends on journalistic convention for their translation to the mainstream. For this reason, the debates tend to be limited in their scope, and the proliferation of feminist debates in the popular sphere does not necessarily result in the improved quality of debates. The sale of books as commodities tends to result in their evaluation in terms of commercial success rather than their utility for feminist politics, and indeed the development of such a method of evaluation is a particularly anemic area of the debate. Reviews of these works reveal that, with the exception of commercial indicators. we l."ck the tools to judge their usefulness for feminism. Evidence of sales must no~ be used as evidence of their utility for feminist politics. but • 89 rather, we must look at their usefulness èespice their • success. The call for mai~stream accessibility which wolf, Paglia and Roiphe espouse may be warranted in a period of increasingly specialized theory, but it should not substitute for politically astute or useful work. Several reviews of these works suggested, for example, that the widespread availabi1ity of work qy wolf and Faludi is their most valuable asset. As Greene writes, what is enormously important is that both books move the discussion outside the academic f~~inist discourse, which has tended to becorne turgid, inward-looking, and politica1ly ineffectual, into a more public arena... l 'm delighted that these books were written by young women, that they are being marketed enthusiastically for large audiences, that they are available even in Southern Californi~ bookstore chains, that the authors are appearing wide1y on talk shows. (Greene 1992: 170) The strugg1e for favourable media coverage of feminism that was a feature of the second wave and which resonates in Greene's review, however, is a somewhat outdated standard against which to judge more contemporary authors. The visibility of ferninist books and their authors through extensive media exposure is increasingly common, and is an inadequate rationale for evaluating their significance. After thirty years of the modern women' s rnoven,ent, there is an impressive body of literature which documents with varying degrees of theoretical sophistication the issues central to the struggle. Renewed interest in ferninisrn has also resulted in the reprinting of rnany second wave texts which provide a solid foundation of on which these new books can build. At • 90 ~his s~age, feminis~ poli~ics èemands more of new work than

mere availabili~y and accessibility. As ~he movement develops

• ~he and expectations are heightenad, so teo must standards of

i~s supporting texts.

Nostalgia for second wave feminism, a defining characteristic of postfeminist discourse in the late 1980s and early 1990s popular media, is repeatedly invoked within debates on the status of academic feminism and women's studies education. It reveals a standard of assessmer.t which is

somewhat inattentive to the state of cont~~orary feminist education. To judge feminist scholarship according to the criteria of the early stages of the women's movement does not recognize the enormous shifts that have taken place in the

Elaboration and establishment of feminism. As the movement

progresses, so too do the standards for measuring success. As goals are reached, movement strategies are modified to reflect new priorities. Whereas it was once considered ill-advised for feminists to disagree or openly critique each other's work for

fear of presentin~ an non-unified front, thi~ is no longer seen as a productive approach. The specialization and institutionalization of feminist politics have not only allowed for, but have made necessary the Evaluation of the status and progress of feminism inside and outside the university. "Feminism's identity crisis" can only occur once the tenets of the movement have been somewhat accepted by • 91 mainsc=earn soc:-ecy. The:-efore, the critiq'..le 0: the p:::-eser:t • status of femi~ism shoulè cake into account the ground chat has been covered and che scruggles chac have already caken place. As hooks argues, chese books do noc acknowledge che excenc co which chey are reminiscenc of pasc scruggles, presencing cheir versions of feminism as new and innovacive, ",nd "cleverly mak[ing) ic seem as Chough chese discussions

never cook place wichin feminisc movemenc· (hooks 1994: 27). One measure of cheir policica1 efficacy, chen, is che excenc co which they augment rather than disregard work thac has been produced in che pasco

The popu1aricy and success of these bestselling books may well be a resu1t of profit oriented criteria for what is deemed commercial1y viable, but this does not preempt their potential utility for feminist politics. As Kaminer notes, In the end feminism. like other social movements, is dependent on the vagaries of the marketplace... Today the concept of a feminist movement is considered to have commercial viability once again. The challenge now is to make public debates about feminist issues as informed as they are intense. (Kaminer 1993: 68) The popularization of these books and the ideas contained within them may well be beneficial to feminism, but as Kaminer suggests, popularity alone is not sufficient. Part of the difficulty in irnproving the quality of the debates, according to Kaminer. is that they are taking place second hand, in the media, and as a result they tend ta he reactionary rather that • 92 substaneive. The ee:-:-i:o:-ial aneagonisms bet;,,'een feminist • camps are supe:-ficially dichotomi=ed and avoid comprehensive discussion of ehe qualieaeive differences beeween them. Hence, what passes fo:- feminise debate is often lietle mo:-e than media embellished opposition, and the rhetoric of 'the need

for more debate' appears a~pty and somewhat meaningless when it is the rallying cry of both sides.

The role of bestsellers in the prolife:-ation 'of postfeminist discourse is a highly significant one. As each publication takes as its focus the perceived crises of feminism, they both diagnose and contribute to the existence and popularity of postfeminism. The existence and success of these books is testament to the widespread concern within the popular media regarding the status of feminism in the late

19805 and early 19905, As each builds on the popularity of the last, and book reviews and talk show appearances serve to promote both the perceived crises and their analyses, the subject of postfeminism becomes more firmly embedded in the public sphere. Through the publication of these bestselling books. feminism. whether through its own appeal or by association with other topical media-propagated discourses, enjoyed a commercial success unprecedented in its history. It is through this success that the more demanding task of ensuring the benefit and usefulness to feminism is made necessary. • 93 • Conclusion: Post-Postfeminism In an article titled. "Killing ?atriarchy: Charlotte ?erkins Gilman. the Murder Mystery, and ?ost-Feminist Propaganda." Lillian Robinson writes that, there is no denying that. in the thirteen or fourteen years since the term 'postfeminism' arrived like an uninvited guest in our common lexicon, there has been an overall shift in the debate, a rightward movement of the entire frame of reference, that has influenced and in many ways distorted the further developments of feminism. (Robinson 1991: 273-4) Robinson' s claim attests to the fact that among those who write on the topic, there is little disagreement that postfeminism has arrived, and it is with a remarkable consistency that the precise date of this arrival is identified. With the publication of Susan Bolotin's ·Voices From the I?ostfeminist Generation" in the New York Times Magazine in 1982, the discourse of postfeminism was effectively reintroduced into popular vernacular after a brief and uncelebrated circulation at the beginning of the twentieth century. The structure and tone of the New York Times Magazine article quickly and firmly established many sustaining associations within the discourse, including the allusion to the 1920s as a previous era of postfeminism, a generational discontent within feminism, a crisis of representation within the movement, and the semantic conflation of postfeminism with antifeminism and the 'death of feminism.'

• 94 The a~ticle by Susan 3010tin and the subsequent ~esponse • in MA. magd=i~e's joke issue did mo~e, it seems, to popula~i=e che notion of poscfa~inisrn with thei~ inveccive than any other

source. Certainly the veh~~ence with which chey argue against the notion has not been rivallpd by any faction claiming co

be in favou~ of postfeminism. The 'poscfeminists' chat they

beleague~ are in no way as organi=ed, identifiable or purposive as their denunciations would suggest. And yet, the power which Robinson ascribes to the term to hinder the progress and successful continuation of feminism is an overwhelmingly common feature of the discourse.

The manner in which postfeminism is used in recent feminist debates tends toward scapegoating rather than politically astute strategizing. In the prccess of 'post'-ing a feminisrr. that is more aptly termed feminisms, there is a levelling of a vibrant and contradictory set of ideas. Once useful distinctions such as 'liberal feminism,' 'socialist feminism' and 'radical feminism' are noticeably absent from these recent debates. Further, postfeminism as it is used implies easily identified distinctions among prefeminism, feminism and postfeminism. which oversimplify and underestimate the magnitude and importance of gains made in the development of feminist politics. These categories do nothing to clarify new issues and emerging debates outside of renaming them. • 95 The discou=se of postfeminism :Ln the 1980s and ea=ly • 1990s is also significant as a site where the distinction between academic and popu1ar spheres is not easi 1y made. Neithe= sphe=e is wholly reducible to the other, however, nor are thei= differences entirely unproductive. Academie and popular discourses serve different functions and engage in

divergent tasks and their vocabularies often ne~essarily

reflect this. As the literature of postfeminism demonstrates, however, building bridges between them may be informative for

~he purpose of clarifying a particular task or goal. Crucially, using the vast resources of popular culture does not mean laying claim to a more informed knowledge of its content; academics writing on the subject of postfeminism do not position themselves as above or invulnerable to the content of the popular media. Similarly, the material of popular culture may contain concepts and vocabulary found in academia, such as the discourses of postmodernism, without necessarily claiming a comprehensive knowledge of it. In examining the uses of the ter.n postfeminism, it becomes clear that both spheres contribute to the construction of its meaning by drawing on the work of the other. The terrns and

their meanings generated by the article in the New York Times Maga;ine, for instance, are used and reworked in both the popular mainstream media and in academic j ournals . The vocabulary used in one sphere can be appropriated for different tasks in the other. • 96 Throughouc chis invescigacion of che use of poscfeminism. che funccions of che cerro' s currenc definicions have been • discussed and evaluaced. In che case of chose who concinuously argue againsc poscfeminism. ic is inscruccive co consider whecher chey creace new publics and policicize new and useful issues. For example, Che characcerizacion of poscfeminiscs as "che wrecched ingrates"" by feminiscs serves Co alienace younger pocencial feminiscs from feminisc issues. While chis does noC in iCself preclude che same women from engaging in feminisc relaced scruggles wichouc che official feminisc scamp, it does serve co exclude chem from concribucing strength through a more dialogical process of inceraccion. If these feminists are to argue for feminism's concinued viabilicy chey musc respond co changing social configuracions just as chose social configuracions have responded co ic. In che discourse of poscfeminism. chis would involve reconcepcualizing generational disparities and antagonisms rather than working within their confines.

The proliferation of material which circulates around the notion of postfeminism underscores the importance of how we frame certain debates and how this impacts on how we understand what the goals and successes of the movements are. When potentially divisive issues are defined as, and

24 Barbara Ehrenreich, "The Next Act," Hs,. December 1988: 32 . • 97 attrihuted to 'postfeminism', the strategies which emerge to • contend with these diffic~lties necessarily reflect this choice of enemy. When we conceive of ruptures or crises within the movement as faceless or intangible threats, we are much less able to deal effectively with the internal and external problems of feminism that are at the root. The circulation of concepts like postfeminism runs the risk of substituting for these internal and external problems, and is less likely to promote the development of new vocabulary for articulating and addressing specifie concerns. We can gauge the utility of new terms and how we use them by how well they can address new problems rather than simply naming them.

Thus, the usefulness of postfeminism may be evaluated in terms of its appropriateness to designating new projects, creating new publics, and helping to identify problematic areas within feminism. The relationship between feminism and postfeminism, as with any 'post'-ed phenomenon, is more than merely temporal. Clearly it represents an implied judgement on the preceeding state, however this may be defined. It is not simply 'after feminism' but rather, after a particular version of feminism. For the most part it seems that the feminism that is being post-ed is an idealized and romanticized one. Thus, the use of postfeminism is grounded in a nostalgia for an imaginary time when problems within feminism were few:er, and the directions for struggle were • 98 clear. Accoràingly, che use of che cerro creaces a space for • che recreading of olà àebaces racher chan opening up or expanding on new ones. In place of adàing Co or complexifying facets of feminism, postfeminism insceaà seems Co level che debate by making it more mainstream, accessible anà generic. It àoes feminism a àisservice by posting a mythical feminism Chat is less complex or vibrant chan any of ics manifescacions have actually been. Defining the terro otherwise coulà serve a more critical function by responding to the demands of multiple feminisms. Elaborated differently, this debace could aid in reconsidering priorities and facilitating the realization of important goals. In addition to valuable resources (media space, time and energy) being inefficiently used in attacking postfeminism, the use of the terro has not effectively served to open possible sites of converging interests, resources and alliances, but rather forcloses them.

The emergence of a new terro such as postfeminism has the potential to provide a vocabulary with which to arrive at new points in feminist debates. Judith Stacey offers us one possibility for extending the use of the terro beyond reductive and myopic applications. In her elaboration of a 'postfeminist consciousness' , she writes: l view the terro postfeminist as analogous to •postrevolutionary, and use it not to indicate the death of the women' s movement. but to describe the simultaneous incorporation, revision. and depoliticization of many of the central goals of second wave feminism. l • 99 believe postfeminism is distinct from antifeminism and sexism, for it aptly describes the consciousness and strategies • increasing numbers of women have developed in response to the new difficulties and opportunities of postindustrial society. In this sense the diffusion of postfeminist consciousness signifies both the achievements of, and challenges for, modern feminist politics. (Stacey 1987: 8)

By allowing the term to describe women who combine and adapt explicitly feminist principles to their daily life, Stacey

acknowledges the successes of feminism by exposing its varying manifestations. Importantly, postfeminism is a combination of principles which accepts rather than rejects new alliances. Discarding a notion of purity, a right feminism and a wrong feminism, this postfeminism sites similarities and differences among diverse groups of women. This avoids unnecessary rejection and privileges complimentary relations rather than oppositional ones. As Buechler writes of the subjects of Stacey's work. While rejecting formal movement identification or involvement. these women have adopted both feminist and non-feminist principles to their life situation. and they use this blend of ideas to make sense out of the twists and turns their work and family lives have taken. Once again. while a minority of women may be explicit adherents of a well-defined feminist ideology. the maj ority of women are more likely to subscribe to the kind of post-feminist or proto-feminist stance explored by Stacey. (Buechler 1990: 125) Both Buechler and Stacey use postfeminism to indicate a period following the women's liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s without negating the existence or importance of that era. They invest postfeminism with the properties of goals • 100 having been attained and struggles having taken place, without • beir.g restricted by the confir.es of nostalgia.

using popular terminology in order to enhance her own conception of postfeminism, Stacey succinctly and thoughtfully demonstrates a useful amalgamation of academic and popular contexts. She identifies the origin of the terro with reference to both Bolotin's article, and Geneva Overholser's article in the New York Times, "What Post-Feminism Really Means, " from

which her title "Sexism By A Subtler Name?" is taken. In doing so, she provides a more practical and functional use of the terro which may be more relevant for the diverse nature of the popular than the restrictive definitions which have appeared in the media.

Another crucial difference in Stacey's reconceptualization of the terro postfeminism can be seen in her choice of subjects. The women whose lives Stacey describes as postfeminist are distinctly working class. They are the first wave of female workers in the semiconductor industry in the Silicon Valley, and are primarily employed in unskilled. low wage positions. This group contrasts sharply with the construction of postfeminists forwarded in the popular media. As Rapp notes, their struggles are not reducible to the 'postfeminism' expressed by young, predominantly white, highly privileged female doctors. lawyers and business executives whose efforts to build integrated home • 101 and work lives are gleefully covereè by the ~ York Timps M8g8zinp . (Rapp 1988: 3601 • Rapp reminès us tO be cognizant of t~e 'social fault lines' along which concepts such as postf~~inism are constructed. In

doing 50, her reference to the New York Times Magazine is not incidental. It is repeatedly identified as the point of origin for the resurgence of postfeminism in 1982, and was also where Katie Roiphe first pub1ished an essay that would later be

printed in The Mornipg ':jfter; ~ex, Fear and Ferninism OP

Campus. That postfeminism is regularly associated with the ~ York Times Magazine reveals the extent to which the discourse itself has a particular socioeconomic affiliation. Like the

women's movement itself, which is often critic~~ed for its middle class bias, postfeminism is a concern for a select segment of the society. The actual or symbolic 'death of feminism' is a theoretical hypothesis accessible to the positions of privilege of journalists and academics, and the readers of upscale periodicals and epic length bestselling books. Stacey's essay, while published in an academic journal, begins to retheorize postfeminism in order to describe the lifestyles of working class, post-second wave women, whose lives would hardly qualify as 'lifestyles' at aH by the mainstream media's standard of postfeminism.

Stacey's contribution to the discourse of postfeminism

adds to the myriad of interpretations which hav~ defined the term since 1982. She highlights the importance of the • 102 vocabulary cnac we use co ~~~e and f~ame feminisc debaces a~d • how chey mighc be mo~e usefully sc~uctured. At the same cime, Stacey's wo~k ~ep~esents viable b~idges between human interesc

stories p~inted in weekend magazines, academic culcural criticisrn, and bescselling books of social and policical ferninist analysis. Irnportancly, Stacey' s work dernonstraces that terms do not concain within them the design for how they are to be used, and that we have agency to refashion our vocabulary and concepts to serve specifie political goals according to our needs. In this way, Stacey' s work is a necessary antidoce to the vulnerability that many feminisc critics have described in response to the emergence of a powerful and dangerous postfeminism. As the material of postfeminism continues to oscillate between academia and popular culture, models such as Stacey's may help to inform more comprehensive articulations of postfeminism in boch spheres .

• 103 Works Cited and Bibliography Barker, Francis, Peter Hulme and Margaret Iverson, eds. • Postmodernism and the Re-readinc of Modernitv. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992. Bolotin, Susan. "Voices from the Postfeminist Generation." New York Times Magazine 17 Oct 1982: 28-31, 103-17. --- Bromley, Dorothy Dunbar. "Feminist - New Style." Harper' s Monthlv Magazine 155 (1927): 552-60. Brubach, Holly. "In Fashion: The Religion of Woman." New Yorker 6 July 1992: 62-66. Buechler, Steven M. Women's Movements in the United States. New Jersey: Rutgers UP, 1990. Buhle, Mari Jo. Women and American Socialism 1870-1920. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1981. Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identitv. New York: Routledge, 1990. Cameron, Dan. "Post-Feminism." Flash Art Feb.-Mar. 1987: 80­ 83. Chislett, Anne. "Venus Sucked In: A Postfeminist Comedy. " Airborne: The Morningside Dramas. Winnipeg: Blizzard ?ublishing, 1991. Clarke, Ida Clyde. "Feminism and the New Technique. "The Century 117 (1929): 753-60. Coniff, Ruth. "Politics in a postfeminist Age." The progressive July 1991: 17-18. Cott, Nancy. The Grounding of Modern Feminism. New Haven: Yale UP, 1987. "Across the Great Divide: Women in Politics Before and After 1920." Tilly and Gurin, Women. Politics and Change, 1990. Crean, Susan. "The Making of Weasel Words: of Postfeminism and PC." This Magazine Dec. 1991-Feb. 1992: 49-51. "Postfeminism and power Dressing: Who Says the Women's Movement has Run Out of Steam?" This Magazine Oct.-Nov. 1986: 37-40. Crichton, Sarah. "Sexual Correctness: Has it Gone Too Far?" • 104 Newsweek 25 October 1993: 52-6 . Doane Janice and Devon Hodges. "Undoing Feminism: From the • Preoedioa1 to Postfeminism in Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicies." .~erican Literarv Historv 2.3 (1990): 422­ 442. Dorscht, Susan Rudy. "How 'The Studhorse Man' Makes Love: A Post-feminist .;nalysis." Canadian Literature 119 (1988): 25-30. Drainie, Bronwyn. "Meet the Postfeminist Wcman." Chatelaine September 1986: 58-9+. Duffy, Martha. "The Bête Noire of Feminism." Time 13 January 1992: 38-9. Eb1ing, Kay. "The Failure of Feminism." Newsweek 19 Nov 1990: 9 . Ehrenreich, Barbara. "The Next Act." Ms. 17 (1988): 32-3. ---. "The Next Wave" Ms. 16 (1987): 116-68, 216-18. Ewen, Stuart. All Consuming Images: The Politics of Stvle in Contemporary Culture. New York: Basic Books, 1988. Faludi, Susan. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women. New York: Doubleday, 1991.

Finlayson, Judith. "An Intelligent Post-Feminist Docudrama." Globe and Mail 2 April 1994: C9. Freedman, Estelle B. "The New Woman: Changing views of Women in the 1920s." Journal of American History September 1974: 372-393. Friend, Tad. "Yes." Esquire February 1994: 47-56. Gagnon, Monika. "Beyond Post-Feminism." Canadian Women's Studies 11.2 (1990): 81-83. Ga.mman, Lorraine and Margaret Marchment, eds. The Fema1e Gaze: Women as viewers of Popular Culture. Seattle: The Real Comet Press, 1989. Gibbs, Nancy. "The War Against Feminism." Time 9 March 1992: 38-44.

Goo~~n, Ellen. "Life Goes on With a Celebration of the Bra at 100 years." Philadelphia Inquirer 7 June 1989: A11 . • 105 Gordon, Suzanne. "The New Corporate Feminism." The Nation 5 • February 1983: Cover+. Greene, Gayle. "The Empire Strikes Back." The Nation la February 1992: 166-170. Greer, Germaine. "The Eacklash My th. " The New Reoublic 5 October 1992: 47. Hansen, Karen V. and I1ene J. ?hi1pson, eds. Women, Class, and the Feminist Imagination. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1990. Higginbotham, Evelyn Brooks. "In Politics to Stay: Black Women Leaders and Party Po1itics in the 1920s." Tilly and Gurin, Women. Po1itics and Change, 1990. Hoff Sommers, Christina. Who Sto1e Feminism: How Women Have Betraved Women. New York: Simon and Shuster, 1994.

"Sister Soldiers." The New Republic. 5 October 1992: 29~ 32. hooks, bell. "Feminist Opportunism or Commitment to Struggle?" Z Magazine. January 1994: 42-4. "Dissident Heat: Assessing Naomi Wolf' s Fire with Fire." Z Magazine March 1994: 2G-9.

Hornaday, Ann. "Why Are We Feminists Laughing?" Ms. April 1983: 45. Hurst, Lynda. "Hear Her Roar Again: Reports of Feminism's Death Turned Out ta be Exaggerated." Toronto Star 15 October 1989: B1. Iannone, Carol. "Sex and the Feminists ." Commentary September 1993: 51-4. Jay, Karla and Joanne Glasgow, eds. Lesbian Texts and Contexts: Radical Revisions. New York and London: New York UP, 1990. Johnson, Brian D. "The Male Myth. " Mac1ean's 31 January 1994: 38-47.

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Seacey, Judieh. "Sexism By A Subeler Narne? Poseinduserial Condieions and Posefeminise Consciousness in ehe Silicon Valley." Socialise Review Nov.-Dec. 1987: 7-28. seimpson, Caeharine. "The 'F' Word." Ms. Jul.-Aug. 1987: 80+. Symes, Lillian. "Still a Man's Garne; Reflections of a Slightly Tired Feminist." Haroer' s Monthly Magazine May 1929: 678­ 686. Taylor, Verta. "The Continuity of the American Women's Movemene: An Elite Sustained Stage." West and Blumberg, Women and Social Protese. Tilly, Louise A. and Patricia Gurin, eds. Women, polieics and Change. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1990. Udovitch, Mim. 'Done to Death.' Village Voice 1 March 1994: 18. Vande Berg, Leah R. 'China Beach, Prime Time War in the Postfeminist Age: An Exarnple of Patriarchy in a Different Voice.' Western Journal of Communication Summer 1993: 349-366.

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