Postfeminism, Inc.

Susan Douglas takes "postfeminism" to task in the recent edition of In These Times:

What the hell is postfeminism, anyway? I would think it would refer to a time when complete gender equality has been achieved. That hasn’t happened, of course, but we (especially young women) are supposed to think it has. Postfeminism, as a term, suggests that women have made plenty of progress because of feminism, but that feminism is now irrelevant and even undesirable because it has made millions of women unhappy, unfeminine, childless, lonely, and bitter, prompting them to fill their closets with combat boots and really bad India print skirts.

But to perpetuate this “common sense” about feminism and postfeminism requires the weekly and monthly manufacturing of consent. Postfeminism is, in fact, an ongoing engineering process promoted most vigorously by the right, but aided and abetted all along the way by the corporate media. Postfeminism is crucial to the corporate media because they rely on advertising.

Bingo. The point about advertising is particularly astute because I don't think the ridiculous levels of consumption in this country could be maintained if feminism hadn't been gutted of any relevant meaning. Amanda Fazzone's article in TNR a while back seemed to point out the obvious: the only avowed feminists in this country seem to be the women who are hotties. At least that's the impression TV and the media give ya.

Recently, as Douglas notes, the media has been pounding home the message that "feminism is bad for you" and making feminists out to be an unhappy lot that will grow old, lonely, and repentant before they know it (at least, it seems, all feminists aren't 'lezbos' anymore). The rise of "marriage friendly" dialogue, as well as the marriage incentives imposed by the right (of course, only if you're not gay), seem to be framing the ultimate message: settling down, punchin' out kids and consuming yourself into oblivion is really the only way to be happy. The implication that patriarchy is, in some perverted sense, intrinsic to happiness and (as a major bonus) the panacea to major social problems like poverty could not be a more welcome development for those people who wish it were still the 1950s.