Postfeminism adopts a discourse of “Girl Power” that convinces girls and young women of their equality to their male counterparts and promises a world of fun, sassiness, and dressing up to please oneself (Griffin 33). Constituted as subjects with
“active wishes and desires”, postfeminist girls and women are encouraged to embrace girl culture that revolves around heterosexual desires, consumer choices and sexual freedom (Griffin 35). The term “girl” which older feminists considered demeaning is now a word that invokes a feeling of independence, irreverence and freedom from judgment (Baumgardner and Richards 61). The redefinitions of girlhood, femininity
and feminism distinguish young feminist from second-wavers. They reconsider the compatibility of feminist and feminine identities, rejecting “the hectoring, critical tone of second-wave feminism” and distancing themselves from older feminists’
“puritanical politics” (Ferriss and Young 88; Young 178). In second-wave critique of postfeminism, postfeminists are accused of having misunderstood the feminist legacy and waning the radical spirit of feminist politics (Adkins 428). This divide between second-wave feminism and postfeminism is usually understood as the battle between second-wave “mothers” and their student “daughters” who refuse to follow all the rules of their feminist predecessors (Hollows and Moseley 8).
Within the construction of opinions of young women (second-wavers’ daughters) as “naïve, disrespectful, and historically uninformed”, being young is closely linked with inexperience and immaturity (Eisenhauer 80). The mother (adult)/daughter (child) divide constitutes a child as one we should teach and the childhood as a moment we need to protect. Similar discursive practices are prevalent in romance criticism.
Despite acknowledgement of the entertaining and subversive dimensions of the romance genre, researchers are more cautious about including the romance works in the reading/viewing lists for middle school students. Commentators tend to urge adult intervention to prevent negative influences of romance texts on adolescents.
Publishers are expected to introduce more non-salacious books to young readers
(Su-hui Huang 301). The instructive aspect as Fan Tsui-ling suggests, is an important criteria for teachers to make a book recommendation. Young people, as Hsueh Wen-hsuan suggests, need parental instruction and media literacy education to cultivate right values of love when they have more access to popular media texts (107-109).
Clearly, local critical writings are infected with more anxiety over the representations of sexuality and romance in contrast to the celebration of sexual freedom and erotic pleasure along with confidence in young individuals as active consuming agents in popular culture. I am not trying to question the appropriateness of adults’ suggested readings/viewings and their intervention for teenagers. What I am trying to point out is the tension between entertainment and pedagogy in evaluating children’s literature. What adults think young adults should read may not always correspond to what they like to read. Amy S. Patte has defended the status of popular media texts in the lives of young adults. She writes:
While librarians’ booklists, class assigned reading and literary reviews may delineate a canon of young adult literary classics or touchstones, popular fiction for young adults—that adolescent literature written in the popular vein that is picked up and popularized further by readers—occupies a different, equally important, but often overlooked canon (1-2).
Popular romances belongs to this overlooked canon. They are popular media texts favored by young adults but seen by scholars as less “orthodox” young adult literature.
The romance texts describe the transition of the main characters into a more emotionally or sexually mature state just like those coming-of-age stories which focus on experiences of initiation and personal growth. Therefore, Hannah E. Sanders claims it is proper to situate the initiation-themed texts with more adult characterization in relation to teen audience although they do not posit adolescents as central characters (74).
This study tentatively makes a connection between postfeminist debates and romance criticism with an attempt of highlighting the relation of popular media texts to studies in adolescent literature and culture. Then, what happens when a postfeminist perspective is utilized in adolescent literature criticism? What is the role that postfeminism plays for our next generation? I will extend Beverly Lyon Clark’s argument to talk about the potentials and limitations of postfeminism.
Many feminists, as Clark claims, ignore children’s perspectives and devalue children’s literature because of an “anxiety of immaturity” (237). Using maternal metaphors to describe the uneasy relationship between feminism and children’s literature, Clark contends feminists critics are wicked stepmothers too often, having rarely recognized the position of the child owing to their eagerness to establish their
own maturity (244). She advocates applying feminist analysis to children’s literature:
[F]eminist theory can be a fairy godmother. It can offer genuine insights into approaches and politics. Let us use those insights. Let us learn about the images of women (children), about the possibilities of a women’s (children’s) tradition, about the possibilities for deconstructing binary thinking and giving play to the preoedipal semiotic, about the confluence of race and class and sexuality and imperialism and history (and age) with gender. Let us learn too about those insights—talk about marginalization and appropriation—against feminist theory itself. (244)
The relationship between postfeminism and adolescent literature is also an ambivalent one. Postfeminism criticism can be a fairy godmother. Since postfeminism draws more attention to the popular cultural domain, it creates a space for popular media texts in the field of adolescent literature. A postfeminist approach moves beyond the either/or debate about judging whether the text is progressive or regressive, exploring how the both/and structure produces complex, contradictory and unstable subject positions within the texts as well as identifying the changing feminist code of practice (Projansky “Mass Magazine” 69; Young 188).
Yet, postfeminism may continue to be a wicked stepmother if the elevation of the girl as a strong and distinct feminist identity is only applied to grown women who
embrace “a sense of eternal girlhood” (Baumgardner and Richards 60). In this case, the word “girl” is appropriated in the postfeminist discourse without considering the right of the girl (defined in terms of age in the real life) to voice her own subjectivity.
However, postfeminism can be a “good” stepmother in the sense that it displaces the second-wave foremother and builds a new sisterhood—as Clark expects, to reject the assumption of a sisterhood limited to and governed by adult females (244). This coalition is on the basis of the emphasis on difference as well as the awareness of the contradictory selves and multiple agency positions. New resistance strategies as E.
Ann Kaplan suggests, can be developed under a collaborative project (26).
On the other hand, the positive side of postfeminism, as Jessica K. Taft claims, is its emphasis on individualism and personal responsibility that encourages young people to try new things and believe in themselves (74). It provides them with opportunities to be active desiring agents. However, the connection between active consumption and empowerment may limit their power to the commercial realm (Taft 75). The role of postfeminism for our next generation shifts from a benevolent godmother to a “wicked” one when young people are constructed as active consumers that end up being caught “in a permanent state of dissatisfaction or desire” (Griffin 42).
Hopefully, postfeminism is likely to combine the positive aspects of a fairy
godmother and a stepmother to be a “big sister” who will work with little sisters to recognize the contradictions and the challenges they face, live with them to seek for empowerment and pleasure and strive together to make a “post-patriarchal” world—a world disenchanted with male domination and male supremacy, in Stacey’s definition (70). This is another happily-ever-after end in my version of postfeminist Cinderella.
Works Cited Primary Works
Fated to Love You(命中注定我愛你). SET (三立電視台). 22 Mar.-30 Aug. 2008.
Hsi, Chuan(席絹). Non-princess in the Castle(城堡裡沒有公主). Hsintien(新店):
Wansheng(萬盛), 2001.
╴╴. Strayed(迷路). Hsintien(新店): Wansheng(萬盛), 2004.
╴╴. Wealthy Gourmet(富貴饕家). Taipei: Feitien(飛田), 2008.
Next Stop, Happiness(下一站幸福). SET(三立電視台). 10 Oct. 2009-6 Mar. 2010.
The Prince Who Turns into a Frog(王子變青蛙). SET(三立電視台). 11 June-22 Oct.
2005.
Secondary Works
Adkins, Lisa. “Passing on Feminism: From Consciousness to Reflexivity?” European Journal of Women’s Studies 11.4 (2004): 427-444.
Ang, Ien Watching Dallas: Soap Opera and the Melodramatic Imagination. London:
Routledge, 1985.
Banet-Weiser, Sarah. “What’s Your Flava? Race and Postfeminism in Media Culture.”
Introduction. Interrogating Postfeminism: Gender and the Politics of Popular Culture. Ed. Yvonne Tasker and Diane Negra. Durham: Duke UP, 2007.
201-226.
Baumgardner, Jennifer and Amy Richards. “Feminism and Femininity: Or How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Thong.” All about the Girl: Culture, Power and Identity. Ed. Anita Harris. New York: Routledge, 2004. 59-67.
Beauvoir, Simone de. The Second Sex. Trans. and ed. H. M. Parshley. New York:
Vintage Books, 1989.
Berger, Arthur Asa. Popular Culture Genres: Theories and Texts. Newbury Park: Sage, 1992.
Beynon, John. Masculinities and Culture. Buckingham: Open UP, 2002.
Bidoshi, Kristin. “Beauty and the Beast à la Russe.” Marvel & Tales 22.2 (2008):
277-295.
Black, Paula. “Discipline and Pleasure: The Uneasy Relationship Between Feminism and the Beauty Industry.” Feminism in Popular Culture. Ed. Joanne Hollows and Rachel Moseley. Oxford: Berg, 2006. 143-159.
Braithwaite, Ann. “Politics of/and Backlash.” Journal of International Women’s Studies 5.5 (2004): 18-33.
Brooks, Ann. Postfeminisms: Feminism, Cultural Theory and Cultural Forms.
London: Routledge, 1997.
Brunsdon, Charlotte. Screen Tastes: Soap Opera to Satellite Dishes. London:
Routledge, 1997.
Budgeon, Shelly. “Emergent Feminist (?) Identities: Young Women and the Practice of Micropolitics.” European Journal of Women’s Studies 8.1 (2001): 7-28.
Burns, Amy. “Tell Me about Your New Man: (Re)construction Masculinity in Contemporary Chick Texts.” Networking Knowledge: Journal of the MeCCSA Postgraduate Network. 4.1 (2011): 1-34. 19 August 2012
<http://ojs.meccsa.org.uk/index.php/netknow/article/view/65/65>
Cawelti, John G. Adventure, Mystery and Romance: Formula Stories as Art and Popular Culture. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1976.
Chang, Hung-yuan(張宏源). “Cultural Export Catching the Eye of the World: The Production Mode of Taiwanese Idol Dramas in the cases of SET and GET (「文 化出口」臺灣偶像劇揚名國際 臺灣影視內容產製模式—以三立、八大為例).”
Industry Management Review(產業管理評論) 2.1 (2007): 49-58.
Chapman, Rowena. “The Greatest Pretender: Variations on the New Man Theme.”
Male Order: Unwrapping Masculinity. Ed. Rowena Chapman and Jonathan
Rutherford. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1988. 225-248.
Cheng, Ya-pei(鄭雅佩). “A Study of the Relationship between Romance Novels and Female Readers(言情小說女性讀者與文本關連性研究).” Master Thesis.
Chinese Culture U(文化大學新聞研究所碩士論文), 1998.
Cheng, Yi-wen(鄭伊雯). “Rhetorical Criticism from a Feminist Perspective: A
Fantasy-Theme Approach to the HsiTai Romance Series(女性主義觀點的語藝 批評—以幻想主題分析希代「言情小說」系列).” Master thesis. Fu Jen Catholic
U(輔仁大學大眾傳播研究所碩士論文), 1996.
Chiu, Tzu-hsiu(邱子修). “The Three Waves of Feminist Criticism in Taiwan(台灣女 性主義批評三波論).” Journal of Women’s and Gender Studies(女學學誌：婦女 與性別研究) 27 (2010): 251-273.
Christian-Smith, Linda K. Becoming a Woman through Romance. New York:
Routledge, 1990.
Chua, Beng Huat. “East Asian Pop Culture: Consumer Communities and Politics of the National.” Paper at the International Conference on Cultural Space and Public Sphere in Asia, March 15-16, 2006, Seoul, Korea. 27-43.
Clark, Beverly Lyon. “Fairy Godmothers or Wicked Stepmothers? The Uneasy
Relationship of Feminist Theory and Children’s Criticism.” Children’s Literature:
Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies. Ed. Peter Hunt. Vol. III. New
York: Routledge, 2006. 236-247.
Crosby, Sara. “The Cruelest Season: Female Heroes Snapped into Sacrificial
Heroines.” Action Chicks: New Images of Tough Women in Popular Culture. Ed.
Sherrie A. Inness. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 200. 153-178.
Deleyto, Celestino. “The Comic, the Serious and the Middle: Desire and Space in
Contemporary Film Romantic Comedy.” Journal of Popular Romance Studies 2.1 (2011). 27 July 2013 <http://ctpanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/
jprs2.1_deleyto_romcom.pdf>.
Donald, Roby. “Mean, Moody, and Magnificent: The Hero in Romance Literature.”
Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women: Romance Writers on the Appeal of the
romance. Ed. Jayne Ann Krentz. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1992,
81-84.
Dow, Bonnie J. “The Traffic in Men and the Fatal Attraction of Postfeminist Masculinity.” Women’s Studies in Communications. 29.1 (2006): 113-131.
╴╴. Prime-Time Feminism: Television, Media Culture, and the Women’s Movement
Since 1970. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1996.
Dundes, Alan. “Introduction to The Second Edition.” Introduction. Morphology of the Folktale. By Vladimis Propp. Trans. Laurence Scott. Rev. ed. Austin: U of Texas
P, 1968. xi-xvii.
Eco, Umberto. “Innovation and Repetition: Between Modern and Post-Modern Aesthetics.” Daedalus. 114.4 (1985): 161-184.
Edwards, Tim. Men in the Mirror: Men’s Fashion, Masculinity and Consumer Society.
London: Cassell, 1997.
Eisenhauer, Jennifer. “Mythic Figures and Lived Identities: Locating the ‘Girl’ in
Feminist Discourse.” All about the Girl: Culture, Power and Identity. Ed. Anita Harris. New York: Routledge, 2004. 79-89
Faludi, Susan. Backlash: The Undeclared War against American Women. New York:
Crown, 1991.
Fan, Tsui-ling(范翠玲). “A Study of Hsi Chua’s Novels and Her Popularity(席絹小說 及其流行現象之研究).” Master thesis. Tung Hai U(東海大學中國文學系碩士 論文), 2006.
Ferriss, Suzanne and Mallory Young. “Chicks, Girls and Choices: Redefining Feminism.” Juncture: The Journal for Thematic Dialogue 6 (2006): 87-97.
Fiske, John. “Television: Polysemy and Popularity.” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 3.4 (1986): 391-408.
Franz, Marie-Louise von. “The Beautiful Wassilissa” Cinderella: A Casebook. Ed.
Alan Dundes. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1988. 200-218.
Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. New York: Norton, 1997.
Gamman, Lorraine and Margaret Marshment. Introduction. The Female Gaze: Women as Viewers of Popular Culture. Ed. Lorraine Gamman and Margaret Marshment.
Seattle: Real Comet P, 1989. 1-7.
Genz, Stéphanie and Benjamin A. Brabon. Postfeminism: Cultural Texts and Theories.
Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2009.
Genz, Stéphanie. “(Re)Making the Body Beautiful: Postfeminist Cinderellas and Gothic Tales of Transformation.” Postfeminist Gothic: Critical Interventions in Contemporary Culture. Ed. Benjamin A. Brabon and Stéphanie Genz. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. 68-84.
╴╴. “I Am Not a Housewife, but…: Postfeminism and the Revival of Domesticity.”
Feminism, Domesticity and Popular Culture. Ed. Stacy Gillis and Joanne
Hollows. New York: Routledge, 2009. 49-62.
╴╴. Postfemininities in Popular Culture. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
╴╴. “Singled Out: Postfeminism’s ‘New Women’ and the Dilemma of Having it
all.” The Journal of Popular Culture 43.1 (2010): 97-119.
Gill, Rosalind and Elena Herdieckerhoff. “Rewriting the Romance: New Femininities in Chick Lit?” Feminist Media Studies 6.4 (2006): 487-504.
Gill, Rosalind. “Postfeminist Media culture: Elements of a sensibility.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 10.2 (2007):147-166.
Griffin, Christine. “Good Girls, Bad Girls: Constitution of Contemporary Girlhood.”
All about the Girl: Culture, Power and Identity. Ed. Anita Harris. New York:
Routledge, 2004. 29-43.
Grindon, Leger. The Hollywood Romantic Comedy: Conventions, History, Controversies. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.
Heinecken, Dawn. “Changing Ideologies in Romance Fiction.” Romantic Convention.
Ed. Anne K. Kaler and Rosemary E. Johnson-Kurek. Bowling Green: Bowling Green State U. Popular P, 1999. 149-172.
Hollows, Joanne, and Rachel Moseley. “Popularity Contests: The Meanings of Popular Feminism.” Feminism in Popular Culture. Ed. Joanne Hollows and Rachel Moseley. Oxford: Berg, 2006. 1-22.
Hollows, Joanne. “Can I Go Home Yet? Feminism, Post-feminism and Domesticity.”
Feminism in Popular Culture. Ed. Joanne Hollows and Rachel Moseley. New
York: Berg, 2006. 97-118.
╴╴. Feminism, Femininity, and Popular Culture. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2000.
Hsu, Hsiu-pei(許秀珮). “Romance Novels: Women’s Writings for Women(羅曼史小 說：女人寫給女人的書).” Master thesis. National Tsing Hua U(國立清華大學 社社會學研究所碩士論文), 2002.
Hsueh, Wen-hsuan(薛文軒). “A study on the Sixth-graders’ Interpretations of the Concept of Romantic Love in Taiwanese Trendy Dramas(國小六年級學童解讀 臺灣偶像劇愛情概念之研究).” Master thesis. National Taipei U of
Education(國立臺北教育大學教育傳播與科技研究所碩士論文), 2007.
Huang, Mei. Transforming the Cinderella Dream: from Frances Burney to Charlotte Brontë. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1990.
Huang, Nuan-yun(黃暖雲). “An Analysis of Advantageous Resources and Production Strategies of Taiwanese Idol Dramas(台灣偶像劇之優勢資源與產製策略分 析).” Master Thesis. National Chung Cheng U(國立中正大學電訊傳播研究所 碩士論文), 2006
Huang, Shuling. “ National-branding and Transnational Consumption: Japan-mania and the Korean Wave in Taiwan.” Media, Culture & Society. 33.1 (2011): 3-18.
Huang, Su-hui(黃淑慧). “A Study on the Relationship between Taiwanese Popular
Romance Novels and Traditional Female Education: A Case Study of High School Students(台灣通俗言情小說與傳統女子教育的關係研究—以高中職 學生為例).” Master thesis. National Kaohsiung Normal U (國立高雄師範大學 國文學系碩士論文), 2010.
Hung, Chun-hsiang(洪群翔). “A Study of Trust, Cooperation and Collaboration
between the Two Leading Characters in Fantasy Literature Based on the Theory of Morphology of the Folk Tale: A Case Study of His Dark Materials Trilogy(從
《故事形態學》談幻想小說中雙主人公的信任與合作—以《黑暗元素三部 曲》為例.” Master thesis. National Taitung U(國立臺東大學兒童文學研究所碩 士論文), 2012.
Illouz, Eva. Consuming the Romantic Utopia: Love and the Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism. Berkeley: U of California P, 1997.
Isbister, Georgina. “Sex and the City: A Postfeminist Fairy Tale.” Online Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the Cultural Studies Association of Australia,
December 6-8, 2007. Ed. Susan Luckman, Jackie Cook, and Dino Murtic.
Adelaide: CSAA, 2008, 1-14. Sustaining Culture. 18 August 2012
<http://w3.unisa.edu.au/cil/csaa/onlineproceedings.htm>.
Kalbfleisch, Jane. “When Feminism Met Postfeminism: The Rhetoric of a Relationship.” Generations: Academic Feminist in Dialogue. Ed. Devoney Looser and E. Ann Kaplan. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1997. 250-266.
Kaler, Anne K. “Conventions of the Romance Genre.” Introduction. Romantic Conventions. Ed. Anne K. Kaler and Rosemary E. Johnson-Kurek. Bowling
Green, OH: Bowling Green State U Popular P, 1999. 1-9.
Kaplan, E. Ann. “Feminism, Aging, and Changing Paradigms.” Generations:
Academic Feminist in Dialogue. Ed. Devoney Looser and E. Ann Kaplan.
Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1997. 13-29.
Ke, Yin-chiao(柯尹喬). “An Exploratory Study of Brand Building Elements for Trendy Drama in Taiwan: A Case Study of SET’s Trendy Drama(台灣偶像劇品 牌建構要素之初探性研究—以三立偶像劇為例).” Master Thesis. Shih Hsin
U(世新大學公共關係暨廣告學系碩士論文), 2010.
Kinsale, Laura. “The Androgynous Reader: Point of View in the Romance.”
Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women: Romance Writers on the Appeal of the
romance. Ed. Jayne Ann Krentz. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1992,
31-52.
Lai, Yu-chin(賴育琴). “A Study on Romance Fiction in 90s in Taiwan(台灣九○年代 言情小說研究).” Master thesis. Tamkang U(淡江大學中國文學系碩士論文),
2001.
Lazar, Michelle M. “Discover the Power of Femininity: Analyzing Global Power Femininity in Local Advertising.” Feminist Media Studies 6.4 (2006): 505-517.
Lee, Janet. “Care to Join me in an Upwardly Mobile Tango? Postmodernism and the
‘New Woman’.” The Female Gaze: Women as Viewers of Popular Culture. Ed.
Lorraine Gamman and Margaret Marshment. Seattle: Real Comet P, 1989.
166-172.
Lee, Linda J. “ Guilty Pleasures: Reading Romance Novels as Reworked Fairy Tales.”
Marvel & Tales 22.1 (2008): 52-66.
Leonard, Suzanne. “Ready-Maid Postfeminism? The American ‘Domestic’ in Popular Culture.” Feminism, Domesticity, and Popular Culture. Ed. Stacy Gillis and Joanne Hollows. New York: Routledge, 2009.
Li, Chih-chiang(李志薔). TV-Film．Trendy Drama⁄Drag Queen: From Dream to Film(電視電影．偶像劇∕豔光四射歌舞團：一部電影的完成). Hsintien(新店):
Yuan Tsu Wen Hua(遠足文化), 2004.
Li, Shao-ling(李韶翎). “Romance Readers, Reviewers and Fans: A Study on
Contemporary Commercial Romance Novels and Online Community(我們讀，我 們寫，我們迷：當代商業羅曼史與線上社群研究).” Master thesis. National
Chung Cheng U(國立中正大學電訊傳播研究所碩士論文), 2007.
Chung Cheng U(國立中正大學電訊傳播研究所碩士論文), 2007.