Friday, 26 December 2008

Feminism as popular culture


Full Frontal Feminism
A Young Woman's Guide to Why Feminism Matters.
Jessica Valenti

This is a thorough examination of third wave feminism defined for the young woman today. It is a lively non-academic treatment of the matters that affect everyone today from fashion to reproductive issues. The context is clearly the USA but the reader is given a powerful sense of popular culture today and where the action is.
“ When I think third wave, I think of academic stuff like different feminist theories (queer,post colonial). She discusses the place of feminist pop culture in terms of magazines and the reclamation of previously 'sexist' words such as 'slut' and 'bitch' but adds.........”Third wave feminists are as 'serious' as those who came before us,really. What I love about the third wave is that we've learned how to find feminism in everything-and make it our own.”
Her position on academic feminism is that it , might exclude the ordinary person-”I think feminism should be accessible to everybody, no matter what your education level. And while high theory is pretty fucking cool, it's not something everyone is going to relate to.

CAB
Valenti J (2007)Full Frontal Feminism. Seal Press. California

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