What a Girl Wants? Fantasizing the Reclamation of Self in Postfeminism

by Diane Negra

From domestic goddess to desperate housewife, What a Girl Wants? explores the importance and centrality of postfeminism in contemporary popular culture. Focusing on a diverse range of media forms, including film, TV, advertising and journalism, Diane Negra holds up a mirror to the contemporary female subject who finds herself centralized in commodity culture to a largely unprecedented degree at a time when Hollywood romantic comedies, chick-lit, and female-centred primetime TV dramas all compete for her attention and spending power. The models and anti-role models analyzed in the book include the chick flick heroines of princess films, makeover movies and time travel dramas, celebrity brides and bravura mothers, ‘Runaway Bride’ sensation Jennifer Wilbanks, the sex workers, flight attendants and nannies who maintain such a high profile in postfeminist popular culture, the authors of postfeminist panic literature on dating, marriage and motherhood and the domestic gurus who propound luxury lifestyling as a showcase for the ‘achieved’ female self.

Genres: Nonfiction, Feminism, Gender Studies

200 pages, Paperback

First published August 7, 2008

Reviews

[Ruby]

postfeminism is an interesting although disturbing development, but i am more interested - and think it's more productive - as a social phenomenon than as a concept through which cultural objects can be understood and interpreted. of course one can do the latter in order to study the former, but i would have enjoyed it if negra made these connections more explicitly: what does it mean for women that x is presented as y or z? now it's up to the reader to decide what all of this signifies. moreover, the very study of postfeminism sometimes seems to create a backlash against femininity - e.g. negra argues that "this object reiterates the return to feminine occupations which is problematic" yeah, sure, but not because this is feminine. negra does not argue that explicitly, but i really missed some engagement with and some nuance of the concept of femininity because it's so essential to postfeminism. if we want to understand postfeminism it is essential that we look at feminism's often complicated relationship with femininity, i think.

anyway, midnight rant over, but i feel this might not be the best introduction to the topic, even if negra makes some good points throughout the book.

[Laura Rejón]

In spite of being highly illuminating and exposing all the contradictory statements within the postfeminist theory, I have noticed that the approach in this book is more aggressive than in previous articles and books. I consider postfeminism as an ideal that is difficult to reach and full of paradoxes, but I wouldn't be so rash to "attack" this 'feminist' position, because even if it sounds dreamy, or a fantasy as the very title suggests, or incoherent, it's a possibility still on course.

[Sahanya]

Extremely valuable in understanding our postfeminist world.

[Tara Brabazon]

This is a solid investigation of the popular cultural consequences of postfeminism. With attention to television in particular, the book investigates the return to conservative narratives of femininity, provide a pathway to the future, through the past.