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" that confines women to stereotypical

role A role (also rôle or social role) is a set of connected behaviors, rights, obligations, beliefs, and norms as conceptualized by people in a social situation. It is an expected or free or continuously changing behavior and may have a given indi ...

s, while it erodes cultural freedoms women gained through the

second-wave feminism Second-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity that began in the early 1960s and lasted roughly two decades, ending with the feminist sex wars in the early 1980s and being replaced by third-wave feminism in the early 1990s. It occurred ...

of the 1960s and 1970s in particular.

Origins

The term has been used since the beginning of

to refer broadly to any recent manifestation of feminist activism, mainly to distinguish it from the

first-wave feminism First-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity and thought that occurred during the 19th and early 20th century throughout the Western world. It focused on De jure, legal issues, primarily on securing women's right to vote. The term is oft ...

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 women's suffrage, the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in part ...

. 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, nor was she ...

, ''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 examines the uses and misuses of language in relation to women. Irigaray's first and most ...

, who indicated in her own writing that women had an essentialist

femininity Femininity (also called womanliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and Gender roles, roles generally associated with women and girls. Femininity can be understood as Social construction of gender, socially constructed, and there is also s ...

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 tradit ...

'' (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, 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 Pope John Paul II (born Karol Józef Wojtyła; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 16 October 1978 until Death and funeral of Pope John Paul II, his death in 2005. In his you ...

. 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. 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