pop feminism

English

Noun

pop feminism (uncountable)

1. (sometimes derogatory) A populist, non-academic approach to feminism, suggesting that women can attain equality with men through a positive, go-getting attitude, without much need to organize politically or to examine or change cultural institutions and biases.
   • 1996, Zillah R. Eisenstein, Hatreds: Racialized and Sexualized Conflicts in the 21st Century:

     So pop feminism distorts feminism by depoliticizing it and burying its complexities, and in so diminished a state it has no power to vanquish the male privilege that women experience in their everyday lives.

   • 2006, Barbara Klinger, Beyond the Multiplex: Cinema, New Technologies, and the Home:

     Cinematherapy combines a strategic mix of pop feminism (which presumes female independence and “girl power”) and stereotypes, then, as a primary method of appealing to female audiences.

   • 2011, Su Holmes, Diane Negra, In the Limelight and Under the Microscope:

     […] strongly associated with a 1990s/early 2000s cultural moment of “pop-feminism,” marked by a high-profile, culturally pervasive, quasi-feminist rhetoric. This rhetoric relied heavily on female celebrities who embraced the “bad girl” stereotype […]

See also

• girl power