Neoliberal postfeminism, or some other, sexier thing: Gender and populism in the Spanish context

Abstract

The project of developing a contemporary critical populism requires us to discriminate between uncritical populisms that ultimately reinforce unequal social relations and popular discourses capable of generating counter-hegemonic projects. In the field of popular feminisms, this means discriminating between the pseudo-feminist discourses that saturate popular culture and the feminisms that are radically committed to social justice. From this point of view, what has been called neoliberal feminism or postfeminism are clear examples of how culturally populist feminisms can be developed in decidedly uncritical ways. As a new populist narrative, neoliberal postfeminism has gobbled up feminism to regurgitate it as merely some other thing, which is sexier and more profitable in political, commercial and symbolic terms and which adapts the rhetoric of neoliberal entrepreneurial subjectivities – free, empowered, sovereign of themselves and their choices – to these new post-recessionary times. Against this, and with a particular focus on the Spanish context, this article makes the case for a truly critical popular/populist feminism, capable of normalising the values of equality, justice, diversity, wellbeing and freedom, as well as of developing an intersectional and progressive social project for everyone.