The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture, and Social Change

Published in 2014
204 pages

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Rupi Kaur is a writer and artist based in Toronto, Canada. With a focus in poetry, she released her first book of prose and poems in November 2014. Throughout her poetry, photography, illustrations, and creative direction she engages with themes of femininity, love, loss, trauma, and healing. When she is not writing or creating art, she is travelling internationally to perform her spoken word poetry, as well as hosting writing workshops.

What is this book about?
These essays show Angela McRobbie reflecting on a range of issues which have political consequence for women, particularly young women, in a context where it is frequently assumed that progress has been made in the last 30 years, and that with gender issues now ‘mainstreamed’ in cultural and social life, the moment of feminism per se is now passed.

McRobbie trenchantly argues that it is precisely on these grounds that invidious forms of gender -re-stabilisation are able to be re-established. Consumer culture, she argues, encroaches on the terrain of so called female freedom, appears supportive of female success only to tie women into new post-feminist neurotic dependencies.

These nine essays span a wide range of topics, including:
– the UK government’s ‘new sexual contract’ to young women
– popular TV makeover programmes
– feminist theories of backlash and the ‘undoing’ of sexual politics
– feminism in a global frame
– the ‘illegible rage’ underlying contemporary femininities