Postfeminism #2
Thank you Sarah, for your interest in this topic. I like the idea that you would be interested in hearing about the development of my ideas about postfeminism. Your feedback (and other people's as well) is greatly appreciated.
I agree that postfeminism can be defined as the end of feminism, although this is not a definition I am partial to. Obviously, feminism still is a political and ideological force in our culture, so it is patently false to say that feminism has ended (or "died"). Plus, I don't think that postfeminism has to mean that feminism should or has ended anyway, just as postmodernism doesn't mean that modernism has ended.
I like comparing postfeminism to postmodernism in the way that they may function. POMO is a debated term with many definitions, contexts, and usuages. I think that the depiction of POMO that seems parallel to POFEM is that POMO can be seen as an extension rather than a replacement of modernism. Also, modernism makes POMO possible, and is dependent on its existence. Also, POMO and modernism aren't chronological distinct periods, they overlap and perhaps don't fully occur successively. I think if you think of postfeminism in terms of being varied as a definition, an extension of feminism, dependent on feminism, and not chronologically distinct from each other, then the analogy between POMO and POFEM is really useful.
However, I do think there are people who categorize postfeminism as replacing feminism, and that there is a cultural backlash against postfeminism. I think that composition studies has wholeheartedly embraced feminism and built many composition theories on feminist thought, so this backlash will/has had an effect on composition studies and its reliance on feminism. I am more optimistic about feminism and its role in composition studies and believe it has a more positive relationship to postfeminism. Therefore, I don't think it has to undermine the advances made in composition studies based on feminist ideas, but perhaps supplement it. I think that postfeminism perhaps both problematizes and brings a richer perspective on feminism in composition studies.
Anyway, this has been helpful in terms of brainstorming! Hopefully it makes some sense...
1 comment:
Yes, thanks for writing it! I see your point, too, about modernism and postmodernism. On some very literal, hard-to-escape level, the term "post" anything seems to suggest that the thing is over, because that's what the prefix "post" means most literally. But I definitely see your point. Perhaps "postfeminism" seems more controversial than the modernism/POMO distinction because it seems more overtly political, like in saying that we are inhabiting "postfeminism," there's at least something outmoded, dated, not useful, whatever, about the term "feminism" that makes us have to find *another* term...perhaps that's why it puts some people off, who feel that feminism is still a good and valid term and that we don't need another one? I don't really know and should probably not expound at such length. I guess that from my relatively ignorant standpoint, I always thought that in using the term "postfeminism," the speaker was making a comment on the datedness or outmodedness of the expression "feminism." I have heard the term used in ways I thought were irritating and overtly anti-feminist (they seemed in line with a sort of anti-PC sentiment, too--sort of like, "Let's forget all this feminism BS and get back to telling it like we know it is about the sexes, as our common sense dictates," a la something like the Man Show)-- but I am sure those are not the only ways to use those terms. A worthwhile question, though, is why do we need the term "postfeminism" if feminism is still going on? What can it do for us that the term plain old feminism can't?
I should read your other posts and catch up!
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