Postfeminism #3.1 and Update

First, for the update. It is the middle of the semester--I just gave out the midterm exam for the Humanities class I am teaching, and I am starting to think about the end of the semester.

Matt and I are staying in Michigan for Thanksgiving, although we are thinking of going down south, eat out that day and stay over in a hotel somewhere. It looks like my mom, my sister, my brother-in-law, my nephew and my step-son are driving up from Texas for part of Christmas break. That should be lots of fun!

Today was Sweetest Day, which I am not sure is a real holiday--according to Wikipedia, it is primarily celebrated in the Northeast. Regardless, Matt and I were extra sweet to each other yesterday and today: yesterday (Friday) we went to the Midland mall--we realized we hadn't been to a real mall in over two years. We bought Matt a bunch of clothes and we both got some books to read...I got books by Maxine Hong Kingston, Orson Scott Card, and Gregory Maguire (the author of the hit Broadway play "Wicked").

I wanted to do some more thinking/writing about Postfeminism in this blog post. I added to the wikipedia entry on postfeminism because it said that it was a collection of theories, all of which were opposed to feminism. I said that SOME were opposed to feminism, but others claimed that feminism should be extended to reflect the changing expectations and experiences of women. I could see even that claim as being problematic for feminist theoriests in that feminism should be adaptable or relevant no matter the changes, but I do think that because feminism has political aims that can be reached, there has to be accounting for 1) what happens when the aims are met and 2) what happens when the aims change, and that postfeminism can be this accounting. Plus, if feminism reflects a modernist perspective and postfeminism reflects more of a postmodernist perspective, then a division between the two are important and must be explored.

Anyway, I wanted to explore more the relationship of postfeminism to feminism, especially in terms of composition studies, and also bring in more outside sources in this discussion. I ordered a whole bunch of books that should help me, but in the meantime I'll just concentrate on internet sources.

First of all, according to the Guerrila Girls on the "backlash" discussion at http://www.altx.com/EBR/EBR3/forum/pofem.htm, "I don't think much of postfeminism at all because I don't think that feminism has really gotten done enough to give way to postfeminism. The goals of feminism haven't been reached." Further, Deb Margolin says, " I don't buy postfeminism at all," and claims that it is a term that comes out of a feminist backlash. She also points out that many goals of feminism, such as abortion rights, have not only not been met, but that our society has gone backwards in terms of those goals. Both of these women seem to be saying that postfeminism means an end of feminism, although I don't think that has to be true. Hans Kellner pointed out once in a class I took with him that postmodernism occurs at the same time as modernism, or perhaps even beforehand, and I think the same can be true of post/feminism.

to be continued in #3.2