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Journal Article•DOI•

"Andrea Dworkin Was Probably Turning in Her Grave": Pornography, (Post)feminist Backlash and Contemporary Women's Memoirs

Joel Gwynne1•
Nanyang Technological University1
07 Mar 2013-Journal of Literary Studies (Taylor & Francis Group)-Vol. 29, Iss: 1, pp 20-32
TL;DR: In the 21st century, the representation of dominant female sexuality, across all mediums of visual and textual expression, predominantly avoids the usual cultural trap of promiscuity; the image of the uncontrolled nymphomaniac, and it is this climate of active female sexual expression and a more inclusive discourse that has seen recent erotic non-fiction memoirs thrive as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Summary In a comment that is perhaps representative of new voices in contemporary feminist criticism, Natasha Walter states that in the 1970s “[a]ll treatments of sexuality in culture were forced to reveal the imprint of sexism”. She concludes that a minority of feminists perceived “any hint of sexuality in culture” as “proof of sexism” (Walter 1999: 112). Now, in the 21st century, the representation of dominant female sexuality, across all mediums of visual and textual expression, predominantly avoids the usual cultural trap of promiscuity; the image of the uncontrolled nymphomaniac, and it is this climate of active female sexual expression and a more inclusive (post)feminist discourse that has seen recent erotic non-fiction memoirs thrive. In this article, I will discuss three recent erotic memoirs: Melissa P.'s One Hundred Strokes of the Brush before Bed (2004), Toni Bentley's The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2006) and Catherine Townsend's Breaking the Rules: Confessions of a Bad Girl (2008). In the co...
Citations
More filters
Intimacy: Personal Relationships in Modern Societies

[...]

Hedvig Ekerwald
01 Jan 2000

270 citations

Journal Article•DOI•
Saint Ashley: Gendered discourses in the commodification of New Zealand’s Director General of Health during Covid-19

[...]

Julia De Bres1, Shelley Dawson2•
Massey University1, Victoria University of Wellington2
13 Jul 2021-Gender and Language
TL;DR: In this article, an analytical framework combining Foucauldian discourse analysis with critical multimodality is used to explore how Ashley is shaped into existence through discourses portraying him as a superhero, love interest/sex symbol, national treasure, saviour, saint and authority figure.
Abstract: During Covid-19 lockdown in New Zealand from March to June 2020, gendered discourses appeared in artistic and commercial products featuring Ashley Bloomfield, New Zealand’s Director General of Health and ‘hero of quarantine’. Using an analytical framework combining Foucauldian discourse analysis with critical multimodality, we explore how Ashley is shaped into existence through discourses portraying him as a superhero, love interest/sex symbol, national treasure, saviour, saint and authority figure. These emergent discourses ride on the wave of longstanding dominant discourses relating to gender and sexuality, alongside nation, class and ethnicity. While dominant discourses may provide reassurance when established realities are under threat, they simultaneously cause harm by reproducing unequal power relations between social groups. We contend that, even in periods of crisis, we should consider what broader messages we are sending when we latch onto the latest discursive trend.

2 citations

Journal Article•DOI•
Sources of Visual Culture Formation

[...]

Elizaveta V. Selivanova
28 Apr 2014

1 citations

Journal Article•DOI•
Lads’ mags and the postfeminist masquerade: the aftermath of an era of inequality

[...]

Anna Tippett
19 Aug 2022-Womens History Review
TL;DR: The authors consider the rise of lads' magazines and wider lad culture between 1996-2006 as a historically illuminating period that marked a shift in societal perceptions of gender equality and contributed towards a hostile perception of feminism.
Abstract: ABSTRACT This Viewpoint considers the rise of lads’ mags and wider lad culture between 1996–2006 as a historically illuminating period that marked a shift in societal perceptions of gender equality and contributed towards a hostile perception of feminism. Themes of pornification, hypersexualisation and postfeminsim are explored within the context of recent debates on the representation of gender and sexuality in British popular culture. The key issue emerging from this analysis is that there has been a rebranding of sexism through a postfeminist discourse, referred to in this paper as the ‘postfeminist masquerade’, which has resulted in a wider politicisation of feminism concerned with representations of the female body. This politicisation has eroded debates on gender representation into a reductive binary, the ‘exploitative-liberating dichotomy’, and has consequently delimited contemporary engagements with feminism. Lads’ mags and wider lad culture are thus analysed as having perpetuated this binary and serve as a historical symbol of how the state of gender relations have been subjected to contestation amongst feminist activists, media commentators and academics since the turn of the twenty-first century.
References
More filters
Journal Article•DOI•
Three Essays on The Theory of Sexuality

[...]

George J. Train
01 May 1966-Psychosomatics

1,714 citations

Book•
Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture

[...]

Ariel Levy
01 Aug 2005
TL;DR: Levy's "Female Chauvinist Pigs" as discussed by the authors is the first book of its kind to emerge in more than a dozen years - and it's not a moment too soon.
Abstract: If male chauvinist pigs of years past thought of women as pieces of meat, female chauvinist pigs of today are doing them one better, making sex objects of other women -and of themselves. With a wink and a nudge, they are welcoming back strippers, porn stars and Playboy Bunnies as the heroes of post-feminist culture. Taking off your bra used to mean liberation - now it's just the sign of another girl gone wild in her attempt to win favour from the boys. In "Female Chauvinist Pigs" journalist Ariel Levy asks the question: What's in it for us women? In her quest for the answer, Levy interviews the college women who flash for the cameras on MTV and teenage girls raised on Paris Hilton and thongs. She talks to the high-powered women who create 'raunch culture', the new oinking women warriors of the corporate and entertainment worlds. And she sits down with Second Wave feminists, such as Susan Brownmiller and Erica Jong, to find out where they think women are headed today. As she explores the phenomenon of the Female Chauvinist Pig, Levy explains that these new women believe they are expressing sexual liberation and female empowerment, when really they are only conforming to stereotypes cooked long ago. Terrifically witty and wickedly intelligent, "Female Chauvinist Pigs" stands firmly in the tradition of Susan Faludi's "Backlash" and Naomi Wolf's "The Beauty Myth". It is the first book of its kind to emerge in more than a dozen years - and it's not a moment too soon.

701 citations

""Andrea Dworkin Was Probably Turnin..." refers background in this paper

  • ...In a comment that is perhaps representative of new voices in contemporary feminist criticism, Natasha Walter states that in the 1970s “[a]ll treatments of sexuality in culture were forced to reveal the imprint of sexism”. She concludes that a minority of feminists perceived “any hint of sexuality in culture” as “proof of sexism” (Walter 1999: 112). Now, in the 21st century, the representation of dominant female sexuality, across all mediums of visual and textual expression, predominantly avoids the usual cultural trap of promiscuity; the image of the uncontrolled nymphomaniac, and it is this climate of active female sexual expression and a more inclusive (post)feminist discourse that has seen recent erotic non-fiction memoirs thrive. In this article, I will discuss three recent erotic memoirs: Melissa P.’s One Hundred Strokes of the Brush before Bed (2004), Toni Bentley’s The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2006) and Catherine Townsend’s Breaking the Rules: Confessions of a Bad Girl (2008)....

    [...]

  • ...In opmerking wat dalk nuwe stemme in kontemporêre feministiese kritiek verteenwoordig, sê Natasha Walter “[a]ll treatments of sexuality in culture were forced to reveal the imprint of sexism” in die 1970s....

    [...]

  • ...In The New Feminism (1999), Natasha Walter condemns the occasional hysteria of second-wave feminist thought, commenting that in the 1970s, “[a]ll treatments of sexuality in culture were forced to reveal the imprint of sexism”, and concludes that a minority of feminists perceived “any hint of sexuality in culture” as “proof of sexism” (Walter 1999: 112)....

    [...]

  • ...In opmerking wat dalk nuwe stemme in kontemporêre feministiese kritiek verteenwoordig, sê Natasha Walter “[a]ll treatments of sexuality in culture were forced to reveal the imprint of sexism” in die 1970s. Sy kom tot die gevolgtrekking dat min feministe “any hint of sexuality in culture” as “proof of sexism” beskou het (Walter 1999: 112). Nou, in die 21ste eeu, word die gewone kulturele vangstrik van promiskuïteit – die beeld van die onbeheersde nimfomaan – in die uitbeelding van dominante vroulike seksualiteit oor alle visuele en tekstuele mediums heen hoofsaaklik vermy, en is dit juis hierdie klimaat van aktiewe vroulike seksuele uitdrukking en meer inklusiewe (post)feministiese diskoers wat gelei het tot die onlangse opbloeiing van erotiese niefiksie memoires. In hierdie artikel bespreek ek drie onlangse erotiese memoires: Melissa P. se One Hundred Strokes of the Brush before Bed (2004), Toni Bentley se The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2006) en Catherine Townsend se Breaking the Rules: Confessions of a Bad Girl (2008)....

    [...]

  • ...In a comment that is perhaps representative of new voices in contemporary feminist criticism, Natasha Walter states that in the 1970s “[a]ll treatments of sexuality in culture were forced to reveal the imprint of sexism”....

    [...]

Book•
Manifestoes of Surrealism

[...]

André Breton
01 Jan 1924

355 citations

Intimacy: Personal Relationships in Modern Societies

[...]

Hedvig Ekerwald
01 Jan 2000

270 citations

""Andrea Dworkin Was Probably Turnin..." refers background in this paper

  • ...…subvert or subtly reconfigure mainstream public narratives of sex which, according to Lynne Jamieson, “offer a variety of contradictory messages which sustain both a strong narrative of predatory male sexuality separated from intimacy and a romantic fusion of sex and intimacy” (Jamieson 1998: 133)....

    [...]

  • ...23 Townsend’s Breaking the Rules: Confessions of a Bad Girl (2008). In the context of these memoirs, I will discuss the manner in which the texts celebrate, rather than contest, the eroticisation of male power and sexual values ascribed by the mainstreaming of the sex industry....

    [...]

Reference Book•DOI•
The Routledge Companion to Feminism and Postfeminism

[...]

Sarah Gamble
01 Jan 2001
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a guide to women's studies related courses at all levels, which follows the unique Companion format in combining over a dozen in-depth background chapters with more than 400 A-Z dictionary entries, covering the major individuals and issues essential to an understanding both of feminism's roots and of the trends that are shaping its future.
Abstract: Approachable for general readers as well as for students in women's studies related courses at all levels, this invaluable guide follows the unique Companion format in combining over a dozen in-depth background chapters with more than 400 A-Z dictionary entries. The background chapters are written by major figures in the field of feminist studies, and include thorough coverage of the history of feminism, as well as extensive discussions of topics such as Postfeminism, Men in Feminism, Feminism and New Technologies and Feminism and Philosophy. The dictionary entries cover the major individuals and issues essential to an understanding both of feminism's roots and of the trends that are shaping its future. Readers will find entries on people such as Aphra Behn, Simone de Beauvoir, Princess Diana, Courtney Love and Robert Bly, and on subjects such as Afro-American feminism, cosmetic surgery, the 'new man', prostitution, reproductive technologies and 'slasher' films.

235 citations

""Andrea Dworkin Was Probably Turnin..." refers background in this paper

  • ...…of postfeminism is a rhetoric of liberal humanism; it embraces a “flexible ideology which can be adapted to suit individual needs and desires” (Gamble 1998: 44), and as such, refuses to be critical of women’s choices, even in the context of sexual choices that ostensibly rebuke more…...

    [...]