Neofeminism describes an emerging view of women as becoming empowered through the celebration of attributes perceived to be conventionally feminine, that is, it glorifies a womanly essence over claims to equality with men. It is a term that has come into use in the early 21st century to refer to a popular culture trend, what critics see as a type of "

lipstick feminism Lipstick feminism is a variety of feminism that seeks to embrace traditional concepts of femininity, including the sexual power of women, alongside traditional feminist ideas. The concept emerged within the third-wave as a response to ideals c ...

" that confines women to stereotypical roles, while it erodes cultural freedoms women gained through the second-wave feminism of the 1960s and 1970s in particular.

Origins

The term has been used since the beginning of second-wave feminism to refer broadly to any recent manifestation of feminist activism, mainly to distinguish it from the first-wave feminism of the

suffragettes A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in particular to members ...

. It was used in the title of a best-selling 1982 book by Jacques J. Zephire about French feminist

Simone de Beauvoir Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir (, ; ; 9 January 1908 – 14 April 1986) was a French existentialist philosopher, writer, social theorist, and feminist activist. Though she did not consider herself a philosopher, and even th ...

, ''Le Neo-Feminisme de Simone de Beauvoir'' (Paris: Denoel/Gonthier 9782282202945). Zephir used the term to differentiate de Beauvoir's views from writers described as "Neofeminist", such as literary theorist

Luce Irigaray Luce Irigaray (born 3 May 1930) is a Belgian-born French feminist, philosopher, linguist, psycholinguist, psychoanalyst, and cultural theorist who examined the uses and misuses of language in relation to women. Irigaray's first and most well know ...

, who indicated in her own writing that women had an

essentialist Essentialism is the view that objects have a set of attributes that are necessary to their identity. In early Western thought, Plato's idealism held that all things have such an "essence"—an "idea" or "form". In ''Categories'', Aristotle sim ...

femininity that could express itself in ''

écriture féminine ''Écriture féminine,'' or "women's writing", is a term coined by French feminist and literary theorist Hélène Cixous in her 1975 essay "The Laugh of the Medusa". Cixous aimed to establish a genre of literary writing that deviates from tradi ...

'' (feminine writing/language), among other ways. Céline T. Léon has written, "one can only identify the existentialist's e Beauvoir'sglorification of transcendence with the type of feminism that Luce Irigaray denounces in ''Ce sexe qui n'en est pas un'': "Woman simply equal to men would be like them and therefore not women"." De Beauvoir's views were quite the opposite: Later writers and popular culture commentators appear to have continued this use of the term to describe essentialist feminism. It has been used by sociologists to describe a new popular culture movement that "celebrates both the feminine body and women's political achievements": Some have accused this thought current as being

female chauvinism Chauvinism is the unreasonable belief in the superiority or dominance of one's own group or people, who are seen as strong and virtuous, while others are considered weak, unworthy, or inferior. It can be described as a form of extreme patriotism ...

, trying to manipulate people's behaviours and attitudes towards life

Other uses

The term has also been equated with the

new feminism New feminism is a form of feminism that emphasizes the integral complementarity of women and men, rather than the superiority of men over women or women over men, and advocates for respecting persons from conception to natural death. New femini ...

described by Pope John Paul II. The feminist film scholar Hilary Radner has used the term ''neofeminism'' to characterize the iteration of feminism advocated by Hollywood's spate of romantic comedies inaugurated by ''Pretty Woman'' (Gary Marshall, 1990) often described as

postfeminist The term postfeminism (alternatively rendered as post-feminism) is used to describe reactions against contradictions and absences in feminism, especially second-wave feminism and third-wave feminism. The term ''postfeminism'' is sometimes confuse ...

. Radner argues that the origins of neofeminism can be traced back to figures such as Helen Gurley Brown writing in the 1960s, meaning that the term ''postfeminism'' (suggesting that these ideas emerged after second-wave feminism) is potentially misleading .

References

{{reflist Feminist theory Sexuality and society Stereotypes of women

Origins

Other uses

See also

References