Postfeminism as a critical tool for gender and language study

Authors

  • Lia Litosseliti City, University of London
  • Rosalind Gill City, University of London
  • Laura Garcia Favaro City, University of London

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.34599

Keywords:

Postfeminism, gender and language studies, feminist cultural studies, popular feminism, gender equality, gender diversity

Abstract

This article introduces the concept of postfeminism and highlights its value for research in language and gender studies. After discussing theoretical, historical and backlash perspectives, we advance an understanding of postfeminism as a sensibility - a patterned-yet-contradictory phenomenon intimately connected to neoliberalism. We consider elements widely theorised as constituting the postfeminist sensibility, alongside concerns shared by those who take postfeminism as their object of critical inquiry, in addition to an analytic category for cultural critique. The article then illustrates how the postfeminist sensibility may operate empirically, in the context of the doing and undoing of gender equality policies in workplaces. The article responds to calls for the field of language and gender to reinvigorate its political impetus, and to engage with feminist scholarship on postfeminism, particularly as recently developed in media and cultural studies.

Author Biographies

  • Lia Litosseliti, City, University of London

    Lia Litosseliti is associate dean (international) at City, University of London. Her research interests are in the areas of gender and language, discourse analysis and research methodologies. She is the author of Using Focus Groups in Research (2003) and Gender and Language: Theory and Practice (2006); editor of Research Methods in Linguistics (2010, 2018); and co-editor of Gender Identity and Discourse Analysis (2002, with Jane Sunderland), Gender and Language Research Methodologies (2008, with Kate Harrington, Helen Sauntson and Jane Sunderland) and Gender and Language in African Contexts (2013, with Lilian Atanga, Sibonile Ellece and Jane Sunderland). Lia was president of the International Gender and Language Association (IGALA) and associate editor of Gender and Language, and acts as reviewer in her areas of interest for a range of funding bodies and journals.

  • Rosalind Gill, City, University of London

    Rosalind Gill is professor of social and cultural analysis at City, University of London. She is author or editor of ten books including, most recently, Aesthetic labour: Beauty Politics in Neoliberalism (Palgrave, 2017, with Ana Elias and Christina Scharff) and Mediated Intimacy: Sex Advice in Media Culture (Polity, in press, with Meg-John Barker and Laura Harvey).

  • Laura Garcia Favaro, City, University of London

    Laura Favaro holds a PhD in sociology from City, University of London. She is currently a research fellow at Rey Juan Carlos University, Spain, working on a government-funded I+D Project of Excellence entitled 'The resignification of the woman-victim on social network sites' (FEM 2015-65834-C2-1-P). Her interests include feminist theory and methodology, gender and sexuality, and media, communication and culture. Laura has published both in English and Spanish, and her work has appeared in journals including Feminist Media Studies, Australian Feminist Studies and the Journal of Gender Studies.

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Published

2019-04-08

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Litosseliti, L., Gill, R., & Garcia Favaro, L. (2019). Postfeminism as a critical tool for gender and language study. Gender and Language, 13(1), 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.34599