This essay sketches out the post-feminist narrative employed by the radical-right populist party Alternative für Deutschland in the German national parliament between October 2017 and July 2018. Striving to establish a hegemonic ontology, the Alternative für Deutschland conjures up a social imaginary of a German heartland, where equal rights between ‘naturally’ different women and men have long been achieved – a heartland that has to be protected from ‘Muslim culture’ as much as from the ‘leveling down’ imposed by a (...) ‘radical feminist elite’. Between these frames, the Alternative für Deutschland presents itself as the only true champion of women and, while never asserting to be feminist, implicitly lays claim to a particular and exclusivist post-feminist position. I argue that the Alternative für Deutschland’s capabilities to promote this populist narrative have become further enhanced by its election to the national parliament, presenting a serious challenge and also a chance for German feminism to self-critically engage with issues of intersectionality and representation in public discourse. (shrink)

The Nike Foundation’s flagship corporate social responsibility campaign, ‘The Girl Effect’, has generated support for targeted investments in adolescent girls as the ‘key’ economic development in the global south. As a representational regime, the campaign is an example of an increasingly hegemonic discourse of global girl power via formal education. In an era of ‘sexualisation moral panic’ regarding representations of contemporary young female sexual subjectivities in the global north, this article considers ideological figurings of adolescent female sexual embodiment in the (...) global south through a discursive analysis of the campaign’s three most popular viral videos. (shrink)

Against the background of the political swing from social liberalism to neo-liberalism in Australia, this paper considers the discomfiting relationship between feminism and the legal academy over the last three decades. It briefly traces the trajectory of the liaison, the course of the brief affair, the parting of the ways and the cold shoulder. In considering the reasons for the retreat from feminism, it is suggested that it has been engineered by neo-liberalism through the market's deployment of third-wave (...) feminism, particularly the popular manifestation of girlpower. The focus on promotion of the self, consumerism, free choice and sexuality has deflected attention away from collective harms. Girlpower has also facilitated a revival of gendered binarisms on the social script, which does not bode well for the future of women in the legal profession. The proposition is illustrated by reference to the representation of women's breasts on the cover of a law students’ magazine containing articles on sexed crime. (shrink)

In recent years, the concept ‘post‐feminism’ and its links to neoliberal economic structures and to the extreme reinforcement of individualization as raison d'etre of Western civilization have been discussed at length by numerous distinguished scholars in feminist cultural studies and feminist philosophy. This article takes its point of departure in this discussion. Drawing on Wendy Brown, Elizabeth Grosz, Angela McRobbie, Wendy Larner, and others, the text is examining the discourse of post‐feminism and neoliberalism, and its effects (...) on overarching political scenarios, as well as on everyday life: What happens to feminist politics when the collective, both as figuration and as virtual political platform, is deemed to be something situated in the discursive outskirts? By drawing on examples form the contemporary cultural imaginaries, from popular culture, economic structures, and public debate, and by pointing out the links between the micro‐perspective of our everyday living and overarching political structures, this article aims at bringing to the fore and critically discuss these issues, and the ways in which they intersect with contemporary Western feminism. The article ends with a discussion of possible points of exit or paths to follow in order to find alternatives. (shrink)

How are patriarchal regimes perpetuated and reproduced? Kate Manne’s recent work on misogyny aims to provide an answer to this central question. According to her, misogyny is a property of social environments where women perceived as violating patriarchal norms are ‘kept down’ through hostile reactions coming from men, other women and social structures. In this paper, I argue that Manne’s approach is problematically incomplete. I do so by examining a recent puzzling social phenomenon which I call (post-)feminist backlash: the (...) rise of women-led movements reinstating patriarchal practices in the name of feminism. I focus on the example of ‘raunch feminist’ CAKE parties and argue that their pro-patriarchal dimension cannot be adequately explained by misogyny. I propose instead a different story that emphasizes the continued centrality of gender distinctions in our social normative life, even as gendered social meanings become increasingly contested. This triggers meaning vertigo, a distinct form of social anxiety and the reactionary impulse at the heart of (post)-feminist backlash. Meaning vertigo both complicates the answer to Manne’s main question—“why is misogyny still a thing?”—and suggests the need and opportunity for a different kind of feminist political intervention. (shrink)

This discussion contributes to the ongoing debates regarding the (re)sexualisation of female bodies in popular and visual culture. Visual texts display the upper middle-class white female as the carrier of mainstream neo-liberal values in Western societies, and the success of this approach is the twinning of the culture of individualism, self-interest and market values with feminist vocabularies; namely, choice, freedom and independence. Drawing on a broad feminist scholarship that includes discussions on the influence of the HBO series Sex and the (...) City, semiotic analysis is combined with intersectionality to gain an understanding of how gender, class and sexuality shape and reinforce whiteness as entitled to luxury in an advertising campaign for Michael Kors luxury goods. Contemporary representations have expanded to include representations of affluent women who appear to have it all. These new post-feminist subjectivities promote an aesthetic of wealth, to display privileged whiteness, heterosexuality, normative Western beauty ideals and individualism. An intersectional approach reveals the apparent neutrality of neo-liberal values as being an expression of whiteness, specifically in representations of white women as economically independent neo-liberal subjects who display their status through the conspicuous consumption of luxury brands. (shrink)

From the historical roots of second-wave feminism to current debates about feminist theory and politics. This introduction to Anglo-American feminist thought provides a critical and panoramic survey of dominant trends in feminism since 1968. Feminism is too often considered a monolithic movement, consisting of an enormous range of women and ideologies, with both similar and different perspectives and approaches. The book is divided into two parts, the first of which takes a close look at the most influential (...) strands of feminism: liberal feminism, Marxist/socialist feminism, radical feminism, lesbian feminism, and black feminism. In later chapters, Whelehan ties these complexities of, and conflicts within, feminism. The role and relationship of men to feminism, and feminism's often thorny relationship to postmodernism, are also the subject of chapter length treatment. Concluding with a provocative discussion of the much-heralded advent of post-feminism and the rise of the new feminist superstars such as Camille Paglia, Naomi Wolf, Susan Faludi, and Katie Roiphe, Modern Feminist thought is an ideal text for students and a book no feminist teacher or activist should be without. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that the Cultural Left and what we call cultural post-feminism has done little to alleviate conditions of subjugation and oppression of girlsand women outside of academia and has in fact been complacent with patriarchal social structures. Cultural post-feminism, with its focus on difference and identity and its fear of speaking on behalf of the down-trodden for fear of "colonizing" them with Western ideologies, has made few serious attempts to evoke a real (...) alternative to super-tolerant liberal pluralism. Further, we argue that academic feminism's traditional involvement with textual analysis rather than pragmatic social and political action has cooperated with the conservative academic climate in colleges and universities, giving students an overly abstract and elitist view of the feminist project. We call for a more active and progressive form of academic feminist thought, one that focuses less on difference, identity, and textuality, and more on social and political equality and justice. (shrink)

This collection of essays provides a reassessment of the question of sexual difference, taking into account important shifts in feminist thought, post-humanist theories, and queer studies. The contributors offer new and refreshing insights into the complex question of sexual difference from a post-feminist perspective, and how it is reformulated in various related areas of study, such as ontology, epistemology, metaphysics, biology, technology, and mass-media.

Women's equality claims have occupied the forefront of the European debate on face-veil bans; most claims have been denounced as mere manipulation for anti-Islamic and/or anti-immigrant political agendas, and the dilemma between anti-sexist and anti-racist struggles has been argued to be false. This article examines how opportunistic manipulation of gender equality claims and the ‘ethnicisation’ of sexism have been assessed and confronted in the scholarly debate opposing the bans, as well as the impact that this debate has had on women's (...) equality claims and the intersectionality issue. I argue that the women's oppression argument has not been fully considered, because it would have disrupted the anti-racist struggle due to unresolved problems with understanding intersectionality. (shrink)

This collection of essays provides a reassessment of the question of sexual difference, taking into account important shifts in feminist thought, post-humanist theories, and queer studies. The contributors offer new and refreshing insights into the complex question of sexual difference from a post-feminist perspective, and how it is reformulated in various related areas of study, such as ontology, epistemology, metaphysics, biology, technology, and mass-media.

This essay examines the connections between the Miss America pageant and reality makeover television shows. We argue that televised performances of gender have shifted focus from the intensely scripted, out-of-touch Miss America to reality makeover shows that normalize cosmetic surgery as a means to become the ‘ideal’ woman. While both spectacles offer their viewers performances of femininity, these performances need to be understood as emerging from the cultural and political conditions in which they are produced. This difference in presentation of (...) the subjects of beauty pageants and makeover programmes speaks respectively to the changing role of media in the normalization of performances of femininity, as well as to the affiliation of many young women with post-feminist politics in the United States. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to elucidate whether and how the theory of erotic capital may function as a feminist tool to subvert the hierarchies and relations in current economy in favour of the empowerment and liberation of women. Thus, by analyzing the ways in which white, liberal feminism directly constructs its claims and petitions through the absorption of liberal epistemological dogmas, we intend to search the direct relation between the ideology developed by white, cisgender feminists and liberal (...) economics and politics. This article demonstrates how a theory of erotic capital does not lead to a feminist subversion of economy, but reinforces the liberal economic and political system that relies on a masculine and androcentric epistemology. The subjectivity that women can achieve through the exploitation of erotic capital is only as consumers and not as productive agents.El objetivo de este artículo es arrojar luz sobre si el capital erótico puede ser considerado una herramienta feminista para la subversión de las jerarquías y relaciones económicas y favorecer una liberación de las mujeres. Para ello, observaremos cómo el feminismo blanco y liberal, ha construido sus peticiones sin cuestionar los principios fundamentales de la economía liberal con el objetivo de demostrar la relación que existe entre el feminismo blanco liberal cisgénero y el sistema político-económico liberal. Este artículo demuestra que la implementación del capital erótico no conduce a una subversión feminista de la economía, sino que fortalece el sistema económico y político liberal que se fundamenta en una epistemología masculina y androcéntrica. La subjetividad a la que acceden las mujeres por medio del capital erótico es en clave de consumidoras. (shrink)

Drawing on feminist and queer epistemologies, this article is concerned with the post-feminist media’s construction of girls’ sexual subjecthood. Broadly defined as a biopolitical ideal, post-feminism is here related to a set of principles of the neoliberal art of government. It will be argued that these principles ethically sustain the exponential mainstreaming of a post-feminist hermeneutics of adolescence and its programme of governmentality. The article also links post-feminism to a particular methodology of subjectification, ultimately (...) locating its hermeneutics of adolescence within the pornographic and pharmacological imperatives of contemporary capitalism. On the empirical level, the analysis explores how techno-scientific discourses and bodily figurations (namely brains and hormones) enter the discursive apparatus of a Portuguese girls’ magazine, giving ideological ground to a distinctive production of adolescent body-subjects. Post-feminist media markets are finally discussed as a significant segment of the capitalist industrialisation of sexual difference that frames the general problematic of this study. (shrink)

Just as becoming-woman is a divided concept, looking back to a seemingly redemptive figure of the feminine beyond rigid being, but also forward to a positive annihilation of fixed genders, so modernism was also a doubled movement. But modernism was a pulverisation of ‘the’ subject for the sake of a plural and multiplying point of view, and like ‘becoming-woman’, should be read as a defiant and affirmative refusal.

This volume argues that feminist theory can provide distinctive and potent resources to confront and take on post-truth. By ‘post-truth’, we refer to a variety of discourses and practices that subvert the sense that we share a common world. Because post-truth undermines the norms and conditions that make possible shared political practices and institutions, post-truth politics is fundamentally anti-democratic. The most common response to post-truth has, however, come from those who call for reinstating truth and (...) rationality, with special emphasis on returning to the facts and fact-checking. From a feminist perspective, this approach is worrisome as it risks idealizing the connection between democracy and truth, disowning the tensions within and between them, and suppressing contestation tout court. Diagnosing the post-truth moment we face two challenges: on the one hand, there is too much contestation (of the post-truth variety); on the other hand, there is too much depoliticization (of the technocratic or rationalist variety). This binary effectively limits the space within which critiques of post-truth can meaningfully intervene. Feminist takes on post-truth must take seriously this dual challenge at the crossroads of depoliticization and hyper-politicization, acknowledging the anti-democratic dangers of post-truth while keeping open the possibility and necessity of contestation. Our gambit is that effective rejoinders to post-truth can be found in practices that affirm rather than repudiate a plural world. Rather than simply condemning or dismissing post-truth as mad or irrational, the feminist theorists in this volume move closer to what we’re up against in order to see how encounters with reality provide opportunities to radicalize and politicize our relation to it in ways that do not undermine the conditions for others to do the same. This volume is an attempt to open new, and emphasize existing, feminist modes of response that might break the deadlock in the post-truth discourse. (shrink)

In this chapter, I sketch some recent developments in feminist thought and present these alongside John Dewey’s work to assess what place pragmatism might assume in debates on contemporary, post-linguistic turn feminism. My task for this chapter is threefold: I redress the elision of pragmatism in the conversation around affect theory, new materialisms, and contemporary feminist theorising; I trace some of the confluences between Dewey’s work on nature and materiality, and the new materialist work of Stacy Alaimo and (...) Karen Barad; and finally, I argue that pragmatism can form a useful resource for those interested in addressing new materialist concerns about concrete embodiment and materiality in post-linguistic turn feminist theory. (shrink)

L’article reconsidère le mouvement des femmes en Albanie dans l’entre-deux-guerres en partant de ses racines ottomanes et en l’examinant à travers la presse féministe de l’époque. En prenant en compte l’ensemble des activités des militantes protestantes formées par les Américains, les bureaucrates post-ottomans et les féministes de la région, j’interprète le mouvement des femmes comme un aspect de la modernité ottomane tardive et comme une initiative marquée par des circulations globales qui ont eu un impact dans la construction de (...) la nation dans l’entre-deux-guerres. En commençant par une synthèse des activités des protestants dans la période tardive ottomane, l’article interroge ensuite la relation entre la bureaucratie post-ottomane et le mouvement des femmes de l’entre-deux-guerres. Enfin, il se termine par l’étude du magazine familial Shqiptarja (La femme albanaise). Soutenu par l’État, le magazine montre l’émergence d’un féminisme local conscient des enjeux globaux. Le féminisme en Albanie dans ces années se révèle ainsi bien plus riche et complexe que dans les travaux nationalistes existant. L’Albanie apparaît comme un espace post-ottoman qui se modernise selon ses propres enjeux avec des féministes capables de s’approprier de manière sélective les messages venant de l’extérieur. (shrink)

This article analyses feminist discourses on the criminalisation of violence against women in Ecuador, after the enactment of a “post-neoliberal” constitution. It responds to arguments in feminist legal theory, which affirm that penal expansion thrives through neoliberal globalisation, and that certain feminists have sponsored this carceral-neoliberal alliance, over and above redistributive concerns. However, in Ecuador, many feminists who participated in a recent criminalisation process also endorsed the post-neoliberal government’s social redistribution programme. Ecuadorian feminism therefore complicates current discussions (...) on carceral and governance feminism, which link penal expansion with neoliberalism and an absence of redistributive concerns. Ecuadorian left-leaning feminists use rights-based frameworks to reconcile penal interventions with potential abuses of coercive power. This allows them to regard criminal justice as minimally problematic within the redistributive agenda they endorse. At the same time, the penal approach of Ecuadorian feminists runs the danger of marginalising legally pluralistic approaches to justice. (shrink)

Following Namita Goswami’s call for a “non-antagonistic understanding of difference” in Subjects That Matter: Philosophy, Feminism, and Postcolonial Theory (2019), I want to challenge the canon of white feminism that still lingers in the emerging discourses on trauma care and trauma recovery, specifically utilizing concepts from Critical Disability Theory and, to some degree, Critical Trauma Studies. As Joy DeGruy asks in Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome [PTSS]: “debilitating beliefs and assumptions are... part of the legacy of trauma.... How (...) are such effects of trauma transmitted through generations?” and in the spirit of Spivak’s aesthetic education as Goswami cites her, I make an effort here to “bring to crisis” the meaning of trauma, beyond its psychotherapeutic connotations, especially as it may be rooted in the collective, as well as to demonstrate the connections between the inherited trauma of anti-black oppression to the legacy of slavery. This challenge begs the following questions: whose trauma matters? And to what end? (shrink)

The increased visibility of feminism in mainstream culture has recently been noted, with the presence of both online and offline campaigns embedding feminist claims in a variety of everyday spaces. By granting recognition to women’s experiences, these campaigns continue the feminist practice of generating critical knowledge on the basis of gendered experience. In the post-truth era, however, the norms governing claims-making are being significantly reconstructed, with significant consequences for critiques of gender inequality. It is argued here that these (...) norms are linked directly to a wider context of anti-feminism in which dismissing women’s claims is consistent with the goal that opponents of gender equality have of seeking and consolidating epistemic power in the face of what is perceived as systemic male disadvantage and victimhood. Returning to earlier debates within feminism, it is argued that the kinds of post-truth rhetoric used to dismiss women’s experience provide a challenge that feminism must confront. This rhetoric is often grounded in the authenticity of individual experience; however, experience cannot provide unmediated access to truth and, therefore, cannot provide the foundation for feminist claims. On the other hand, experience cannot merely offer one of many contested versions of ‘reality’. The excesses of both foundationalist and anti-foundationalist epistemology are countered with the argument that cognition is a human practice mediated by theoretical propositions which illuminate the question of what can be known. This is the role played by feminist theory in defending the role of experience. (shrink)

Most feminist theorists over the last forty years have held that a basic tenet of feminism is that women as a group are oppressed. The concept of oppression has never had a very broad meaning in liberal discourse, however, and with the rise of neo-liberalism since 1980 it has even less currency in public debate. This article argues that, while we may still believe women are oppressed, for pragmatic purposes Michel Foucault’s concept of practices of freedom is a more (...) effective way to characterize feminist theory and politics. (shrink)

Following tropes of light and dark in Amanda Gorman’s poem ‘The Hill We Climb’, the article explores, from a feminist perspective, who counts as a truth-teller. Against the backdrop of Hannah Arendt’s and Michel Foucault’s works on truth-telling, the article theorizes feminist modes of truth-telling. It scrutinizes truth-making in politics while unearthing the andro-centrism in truth-telling. Under the impression of post-truth rhetoric in recent populist landscapes, the article argues for a feminist and intersectional articulation of truth-telling to disclose the (...) gendered and racialized power relations in contemporary masculinist populism. (shrink)

Finishing this essay exactly one year after the official arrival of the SARS-COV-2 virus in Belgium and the Netherlands—where the cartographers of this essay are currently located—it is safe to say that the COVID-19 pandemic has immensely impacted our day-to-day lives. The pandemic has not only forced us to question various taken-for-granted existential certainties and luxuries provided by a capitalist system out to destroy the earth but has also re-spotlighted post-Enlightenment critiques of the human subject. If these pandemic times (...) are indeed more-than-human, then the clock is ticking for the discipline of philosophical anthropology to face these post-anthropological facts and receive what feminist science studies scholar Donna J. Haraway has aptly called a thorough dose of “epistemological electroshock therapy” (1988, p. 578). Taking Haraway’s foregoing call and the idea of thinking-with the (end of the) Anthropocene seriously, we construct a critical cartography of Emmanuel Levinas’ take on philosophical anthropology in dialogue with other major philosophical anthropologists and feminist new materialists while arguing for a post-anthropology for the Chthulucene. (shrink)

Nursing has historically relied heavily on scientific knowledge. It is not surprising that the cardiovascular health literature has been highly influenced by the post‐positivist philosophy. The nursing discipline, as well as the cardiovascular nursing speciality, continues to benefit from research grounded within this philosophical tradition. At the same time, there are limitations associated with post‐positivism. Therefore, it is beneficial for researchers and clinicians to examine the potential contributions various philosophical traditions can have for their research and practice. This (...) paper is an exploration of the compatibilities of feminist and post‐positivist philosophies in the study of cardiovascular nursing research. The ensuing discussion entails an examination of my clinical and research interests, the grounding of my research within the post‐positivist perspective and the significant contribution feminist philosophy can make to my research. (shrink)

European political theorists have argued that contemporary imaginaries of climate change are symptomatic of a post-political condition. My aim in this essay is to consider what this analysis might mean for a feminist green politics and how those who believe in such a project might respond. Whereas much of the gender-focused scholarship on climate change is concerned with questions of differentiated vulnerabilities and gendered divisions of responsibility and risk, I want to interrogate the strategic, epistemological, and normative implications for (...) ecological feminism of a dominant, neoliberal climate change narrative that arguably has no political subject, casts Nature as a threat to be endured, and that replaces democratic public debate with expert administration and individual behavior change. What hope is there for counter-hegemonic political theories and social movements in times like these? I suggest that rather than give in and get on the crowded climate change bandwagon, an alternative response is to pursue a project of feminist ecological citizenship that blends resistance to hegemonic neoliberal discourses with a specifically feminist commitment to reclaiming democratic debate about social-environmental futures. (shrink)

In the context of mainstream feminism, Eastern-European women, coming from a post-Communist context are overwhelmed. As they have been unable to access the newest developments of feminist thought, feminist theology, they cannot find their own place and voice. In order to overcome this state of mind, this article puts forward an approach and a strategy. Drawing from the main ideas of contemporary Romanian and Transylvanian feminists – Mihaela Mudure, Mihaela Miroiu, Réka Geambasu, Enikő Magyari-Vincze and others – the (...) article aims to start the quest for a fitting Eastern European-type of feminism. Post-Communist countries are the so-called ‘second world’. They need to find their own way, their own voice, similar to the ‘third world’, which has already started to do so. The knowledge and reception of the international feminist movement and its main oeuvre can help Central and Eastern European women theologians find those aspects that have supported others. Stating the specific situation of ‘second world’ women and seeking the theological aspects that describe their position and problems adequately, they can contribute to finding their one and only special voice. (shrink)

이 연구는 포스트휴먼 시대의 예술과 윤리를 고찰하되, 포스트휴먼 페미니즘 윤리의 맥락을 확장해간 포스트휴머니즘의 관점에서 포스트휴머니즘 기술성의 예술과 이타성을 윤리를 해명하고자 한다. 사이보그 담론을 비롯한 대부분의 포스트휴먼 담론들은 비인간적 요소를 통해 다시 인간을 사유하는 방식을 취하며, 인간 이외의 존재들과 공존하는 윤리적 지평에 대한 설명으로 작용한다. 이러한 윤리적 지평에서 비판적 포스트휴먼 페미니즘은 인간중심적 사고인 휴머니즘을 비판하며, 기존 서사인간의 서사를 해체하면서 기술성을 미학을 추구한다. 이런 비판적 포스트휴먼 페미니즘의 주창자들은 먼저 우리가 ‘포스트휴먼 시대’에 살고 있음을 인정하고, 휴머니즘의 지속적인 해체를 통해서 다중접속 이타성의 윤리를 구현한다. (...) 결국 이 연구는 이런 포스트휴먼 페미니즘과 이를 확대계승한 포스트휴머니즘이 어떻게 다중접속 ‘기술성’의 미학을 구현하면서도 인간이 아닌 다른 타자를 인정하며, 공존을 추구하는 다중접속 이타성의 윤리로 미래적 가치를 열어가는지, 그 한계는 무엇인지를 살펴보고자 한다. (shrink)

Although it is a relatively new phenomenon, the most popular descriptions of post-truth operate within the boundaries of the classical dichotomy between emotion and reason that dates back to Plato’s Phaedrus: both, to some extent, view emotions as impediments to knowledge and our ability to live morally upstanding lives (248a-b). Post-truth, which is seen as a threat to reason, social cohesion, and fact-based knowledge claims, is either viewed as the outcome of the failure of our cognitive apparatus, or (...) a consequence of our unchecked thirst for stories that provoke dramatic feelings. From a feminist point of view, this should give us pause, since the arguments used to dismiss post-truth resemble those that dismissed women’s experiences and emotions as idiosyncratic or irrational. Have post-truth scholars been too hasty in their judgment of emotion-based knowledge claims? In this essay, I explore the transcendental role of emotion in its relationship to epistemic knowledge claims and argue that emotion should be given a more primordial status in the analysis of post-factuality. I do this by exploring the psychoanalytic and phenomenological analysis of affect, especially Sara Ahmed’s feminist phenomenology of embodiment. (shrink)

Under the shifting epistemic and political norms of post-truth politics, the conditions of feminist solidarity and agency are increasingly threatened. This article argues that feminist humour provides models for affective orientations that sustain feminist work and survival during such periods of political crisis. First, I explore a potential issue post-truth politics poses for feminists: That information overload can lead to truth burn-out that threatens intersectional feminist thinking and action. Next, I explain why comedy is well-suited to help maintain (...) feminist work in the context of post-truth politics. I then present a reading of Sarah Cooper’s skit, ‘How to medical’ to explore Cooper’s work and demonstrate how it operates as parodic political critique. I conclude that the affective stance of a feminist comedian models how feminists can keep surviving in the midst of post-truth crises. Such work shows how oppressive power can be engaged closely enough that deep critiques can be developed but with sufficient affective distance that feminist engagement can be sustained over time, through a multiplicity of crises. Cooper’s engagement can thus be read to generate strategies for how to (effectively) feminist affect under post-truth conditions. (shrink)

Over the past decade, feminists born during and after the rise of women's liberation have become increasingly preoccupied with the movement's past – its documents and artefacts. This is evident in publications such as Elizabeth Freeman's Time Binds and Victoria Hesford's Feeling Women's Liberation, as well as artistic interventions by artists such as Sharon Hayes and Allyson Mitchell. In different ways, these theorists' and artists' projects each enact a longing for and reassessment of 1970s feminisms. At the same time, a (...) younger generation of feminists comprising women born since 1980 has begun to look back to 1990s feminism as a site of longing and an object of critique. While both generations continue to distance themselves and their projects from nostalgia, this article suggests that rather than reject nostalgia entirely, these projects in fact bring feminist nostalgia into relief, pointing to both its dangers and possibilities. (shrink)

Are we in a post-feminist era? Has the term, feminist, grown out of its resisted stance? What from today's standpoint is an appropriate concept of feminist philosophy? And is it not the case that all people thinking democratically must share its central concern? In Feminist Philosophy , internationally acclaimed philosopher Herta Nagl-Docekal discusses and critiques the theories of today. Her study ranges across philosophical anthropology, aesthetics, philosophy of science, the critique of reason, political theory, and philosophy of law. Feminist (...) Philosophy confronts the entire field with the problem of the hierarchical relations of the sexes. Throughout her work, Nagl-Docekal affirms the importance of feminist thought as she presses for new approaches to common problems. (shrink)

This article investigates the critical potential of a contemporary dystopia, The Handmaid’s Tale (Miller 2017-), a U.S. television series adapted from a popular novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood (1985). The text is widely understood as a feminist intervention that speaks to ongoing struggles against gender oppression, but in this article I consider the invitations that the show offers its viewers in treating race the way that it does, and consider what it means to refuse these invitations in pursuit of (...) a critical feminist understanding of authority, legal subjectivity, and violence. Drawing on the recent turn to genre, my reading focuses on how whiteness is reproduced through this cinematic text and its inculcation of particular ways of seeing, modes of identification and attachment. The Handmaid’s Tale’s post-racial aesthetic means that its thematic engagement with gender, sexuality and resistance actively disavows national and international histories of racist state violence and white supremacy. Its problematic feminism is thus uniquely instructive for understanding how whiteness is reproduced in contemporary (neo)liberal configurations of legal subjectivity and state authority. (shrink)

Introduction to the special cluster of articles by feminists from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Tony Lawson, Sandra Harding, Drucilla K. Barker, Fabienne Peter and Julie A. Nelson have recently debated the merits and demerits of critical realism as the basis of feminist social research. Yet the dialogue is left unfinished, with no clear agreement attained. Some key features of that failure are analysed in this article. It is suggested that, despite shared support for explicitly post-positivistic stances, critical realists and post-structuralist feminists cannot gain much from a dialogue that proceeds like this one. (...) Other modes of discussion should be looked for. One more promising basis for such discussion - a question-driven approach to social scientific explanation - is introduced at the end of the article. (shrink)

Tony Lawson, Sandra Harding, Drucilla K. Barker, Fabienne Peter and Julie A. Nelson have recently debated the merits and demerits of critical realism as the basis of feminist social research. Yet the dialogue is left unfinished, with no clear agreement attained. Some key features of that failure are analysed in this article. It is suggested that, despite shared support for explicitly post-positivistic stances, critical realists and post-structuralist feminists cannot gain much from a dialogue that proceeds like this one. (...) Other modes of discussion should be looked for. One more promising basis for such discussion - a question-driven approach to social scientific explanation - is introduced at the end of the article. (shrink)

A feminist stock-taking on ‘post-conflict’, this paper revisits a study made by the author in 1996–1997, when the women's community sector was a lively actor in the processes leading to the Good Friday Peace Agreement of 1998. Refusing to observe sectarian conflict lines, women's centres were re-writing official ‘community development’ policy as community empowerment and political challenge. The author draws on new interviews conducted in 2012 with feminist community activists of that earlier period of ‘frontline feminism’, associated with (...) the Belfast Women's Support Network. The women reveal how continuing poverty, discrimination, violence and unhealed trauma still characterise working-class life in the post-conflict period, and impede the integration of Protestant and Catholic communities. Official provisions for gender equality have been interpreted in gender-neutral ways, and in some cases turned against women. The demilitarisation of masculinity has been painfully slow. The women's community sector has experienced a loss of political drive as women's centres have become service providers, dependent on state funding. Feminism is renewing itself, but in fresh forms with different priorities. Will it recover a voice that ‘speaks truth to power’? (shrink)

The article explores the location of Central and Eastern Europe in transnational feminist studies. Despite the acknowledgement of the situatedness of knowledge, feminist theorising nevertheless seems to continue to be organised around a limited number of central axes and internalised progress narratives. The authors argue that there is a pressing need for theories which can approach the near absence of Central and Eastern European perspectives from transnational feminist theorising, and challenge the limited number of discursive tropes associated with post-socialist (...) Central and Eastern Europe – especially that of a ‘lag’, where difference is translated into a temporal distance. Instead, the authors suggest that a more inclusive vision of transnational feminist studies can be achieved by applying the decolonial framework to the post-socialist context, as explicated in the work of Madina Tlostanova. (shrink)

Starting with the premise that feminist approaches to the study and practice of religion need to be transgressive, this article explores the implications of challenging the boundaries which determine difference. It understands and respects the view that anti-foundational theories might rob feminist projects of their political agency. At the same time, however, it maintains that postmodern and poststructural theories, if appropriated on our own terms, have something to offer feminists in our struggle to enable praxis which dismantles the patterns and (...) structures of domination. The argument is presented from a post-realist thealogical perspective. This entails claiming that the vital contribution of feminist reflection upon the sacred lies not in formulating credal statements but in refiguring the social and cultural imaginary. This article contends that the conscious use of female images for the divine and 'Goddess-talk' has an important part to play in constructing narratives of the sacred which enable relationality and socio/political transformation. It is suggested that a valuable aspect of this process might be to understand spirituality as process and sacrality as performative. (shrink)