The Rise of Neoliberal Feminism

Catherine Rottenberg

doi:10.1080/09502386.2013.857361

Abstract

In this paper, I argue that we are currently witnessing the emergence of neoliberal feminism in the USA, which is most clearly articulated in two highly publicized and widely read ‘feminist manifestos’: Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In (a New York Times best-seller) and Anne-Marie Slaughter's ‘Why Women Still Can't Have It All’ (the most widely read piece in the history of the Atlantic). Concentrating on the shifting discursive registers in Lean In, I propose that the book can give us insight into the ways in which the husk of liberalism is being mobilized to spawn a neoliberal feminism as well as a new feminist subject. This feminist subject accepts full responsibility for her own well-being and self-care, which is increasingly predicated on crafting a felicitous work–family balance based on a cost-benefit calculus. I further pose the question of why neoliberalism has spawned a feminist rather than a female subject. Why, in other words, is there any need for the production of a neoliberal feminism, which draws attention to a specific kind of inequality and engenders a particularly feminist subject? While this new form of feminism can certainly be understood as yet another domain neoliberalism has colonized by producing its own variant, I suggest that it simultaneously serves a particular cultural purpose: it hollows out the potential of mainstream liberal feminism to underscore the constitutive contradictions of liberal democracy, and in this way further entrenches neoliberal rationality and an imperialist logic. Indeed, neoliberal feminism may be the latest discursive modality to (re)produce the USA as the bastion of progressive liberal democracy. Rather than deflecting internal criticism by shining the spotlight of oppressive practices onto other countries while overtly showcasing its enlightened superiority, this discursive formation actually generates its own internal critique of the USA. Yet, it simultaneously inscribes and circumscribes the permissible parameters of that very same critique.

Highlights

The so-called seventh art has arrived to its first century of history
In this sense, when Bollaín admits the current gender inequality of the cinema industry, framing it as the lack of “female presence among people who decide what is done and who does it” [translated from Spanish] (Bollaín, 2017), she does not acknowledge the vertical discrimination accounted for before. She understands gender inequality as “a matter of diversity” that can be solved by convincing women to lean in the ruling positions; something that should be done not for social justice but because “we need more thematic variety” [translated from Spanish] (Bollaín, 2017) in films. This claim for diversity in Bollaín’s and other female directors’ statements has been analysed as fitting in the cultural pattern of postmodernism, which is shaped by the ideas of “plurality and tolerance” [translated from Spanish] (Martínez-Carazo, 2002: 79), as opposed to fixed monolithic ideologies —including feminism
At the same time, feminist critics analyze the content of their films as feminists inasmuch as they fit into the counter-cinema mentioned above

Summary

Introduction

The so-called seventh art has arrived to its first century of history. The reality of the filmed image has radically changed since the first Cinematograph Lumière appeared. She understands gender inequality as “a matter of diversity” that can be solved by convincing women to lean in the ruling positions; something that should be done not for social justice but because “we need more thematic variety” [translated from Spanish] (Bollaín, 2017) in films This claim for diversity in Bollaín’s and other female directors’ statements has been analysed as fitting in the cultural pattern of postmodernism, which is shaped by the ideas of “plurality (racial, cultural, aesthetic, ideological) and tolerance (vital stances marked by its inclusive character that blur the lines of transgression)” [translated from Spanish] (Martínez-Carazo, 2002: 79), as opposed to fixed monolithic ideologies —including feminism. At the same time, feminist critics analyze the content of their films as feminists inasmuch as they fit into the counter-cinema mentioned above.

Analysis of gender representation in Bollaín’s films

Findings

Conclusions