Women Talking: Postfeminism, Neoliberalism, and the Requirements of Womanhood
Social Sciences
PSYC195
The 2000s have been termed a postfeminist and neoliberal era (Gill, 2007; McRobbie, 2004). Media culture, social discourses, and personal beliefs continue to be heavily influenced by values of independence and personal responsibility. Within this culture, women are expected to exert total agency within their relationships and sex lives in order to be perceived as ideal neoliberal subjects. Using thematic analysis, we examined 15 interviews about sex and relationships conducted with college women in 2006. In these interviews, we found four main themes which included (1) women’s place in society has changed, (2) women must be strong and independent, (3) women are responsible for having the right type of sex and relationships, and (4) women must monitor their own treatment. In this paper, we contextualize these themes within neoliberalism and postfeminism and provide an illustrative account of how women in the early 2000s enacted judgment on other women. These interviews help us to understand what discourses young women were engaging in at the time and how they conceptualized women’s roles and responsibilities within society.
