Postfemininities in Popular Culture

Book excerpt: "Exploring the contradictions surrounding modern-day femininity and its complicated relationship with feminism and postfeminism, this book provides a history of femininity in popular culture since the 1960s, analysing its shifting relationship with (post)feminism and concepts of female victimization. Through an examination of a range of popular female and feminist icons and paradigms, the text offers an innovative and forward-looking perspective on femininity and the modern female self. The book marks an important cross-generational moment in feminist thinking that challenges us to re-think previous conceptions of femininity and debate critical issues that remain unresolved in contemporary culture: does femininity necessarily imply powerlessness and victimization? Can femininsm and femininity co-exist? What emerges between these previously opposed extremes?" -- Book cover.