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Feminisms have gained increasing visibility in the last decade, becoming part of public and media discourse in Western societies. The popularisation of gender discourses has been accompanied by the growing production of feminist guides, handbooks and manifestoes produced by journalists, influencers and celebrities to spread feminism among young women. Nevertheless, the actual articulations of feminist narratives are often intertwined with neoliberal postfeminist discourses on individualism that reinforce existing hierarchies of power. These narratives are opposed by others that question individualism and deconstruct existing power hierarchies. This paper explores the problematic outcomes of the feminist entanglement with neoliberalism, which result in the flattening of gender, race and class differences. Then, the neoliberal postfeminist dominant narrative is contrasted by and confronted with a critical analysis of two contemporary feminist manifestoes that, in different ways, oppose individualism and deconstruct existing power structures through intersectional inclusive practices.

The paper draws attention to the fact that the introduction of gender perspectives into the studies of the Bildungsroman, or novel of development, has opened up the possibility of delineating specific female versions of the genre, ranging from the classic female Bildungsroman, through the feminist Bildungsroman to the postfeminist coming-of-age novel. The following discussion of heroines in British novels of development focuses on the changing socio-cultural factors that have influenced the representations of women’s emancipatory struggles in works by female authors over recent centuries. The selected examples reveal that the transformations of the classic female Bildungsroman which emerged in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have brought about a series of significant innovations that include not only new types of heroines whose self-realization can be achieved in ways unthinkable for their eighteenth- and nineteenth-century predecessors but also more significant thematic and formal variations on the genre.

Chick-lit has been subjected to accusations that it is too “realistic“, that the women who write autobiographical works about homely matters such as motherhood, relationship issues and family problems forget the fundamental imperative of writing fiction, “making stuff up“. It is to be found on the great divide between two “literatures“, “good“one which teaches and the “popular“one which “sells real life“. Instead of innocence and naiveté of traditional heroines, chick-lit describes the tales of singles: young, emancipated women who live and work in big Western centres. The protagonists are openly questioning traditional forms of feminine behaviour promoted by romance novels, such as affection for cooking, laundry and cleaning, and, more importantly, reject the passivity of women in relationships, which can be visible in active search of protagonists for a man. Traditional border between the private and public sphere is particularly blurred, while the protagonists enjoy and participate in all the aspects of modern city life. The usage of first-person narration and deliberately naive form of realism encourages the readers and critics to substitute these fictional characters for real-life personas, to consider novels as autobiographical works, which lead to the phenomenon of Bridget Jones as the everywoman. The penultimate Bridget Jones novel, Mad about the Boy (2013), placed in the literary context of fictional women’s diaries, attempts to convince readers of its authenticity using various devices, such as self-depreciation, allowing the reader to feel superior to the protagonist and offering the reader a direct feed of Bridget’s consciousness.

Addressing the interdisciplinary area of language & gender as applied to television and media stu­dies, this article summarises the detailed analysis of some extremely popular contemporary TV series and media. With all their specificities, these significant cultural products share a reinvention of the codes of romance, by representing an up-to-date, somehow fashionable version of the traditional, and traditionally female, genre of romance geared to postfeminist consumer culture. The femininities and sexualities enacted in these cultural narratives may appear to be unsparingly and humorously critical of conventionally female linguistic and cultural stereotypes, and could therefore be regarded as radical feminist embodiments. Nevertheless, by means of an ironic and hyperbolic approach, they are in fact not only romantic and mainstream, but also ideologically biased, preserving a normative heterosexual white middle-class status quo, and restoring a patriarchal value system. A close critical scrutiny thus shows the stylistic and discursive strategies by which feminism has switched to postfemi­nist romance, and has thereby yielded to postfeminist backlash.

Penelope Skinner's drama The Village Bike deals with issues ranging from pregnancy to sexuality, pornography and sexual exploration. In this article I focus on the way these issues are presented and explain why pornography and sexual exploration belong to the postfeminist ideology. Namely, the author uncritically deals with these issues, objectifies a woman's body and favours gender constructs. Contemporary British drama by women playwrights is not marked by its engagement with feminism even though it might declare itself as pro-feminist or feminist. Penelope Skinner is one of the contemporary playwrights. I try to present that even though her drama seems to appear provocative at first sight this is not really the case. The provocation does not offer a critical insight and distance. I argue that this drama is postfeminist because it mainstreams pornography and presents a peculiar view on the part of sexual liberation, which is very limited.

The political commitment against male violence seems to flourish in postfeminist times in order to legitimize racist immigration politics. In the article, we analyze current discourses on »cultural violence« in the context of a neoliberal migration regime and transformations in the realm of reproduction. We critically engage with Liz Fekete's analysis of »enlightenment values« in racist discourses and Sara Farris' (2011) work on the political economy of »femonationalism« in order to specify the role feminism plays in the current political constellation. In this context, we discuss actual possibilities of transnational feminist solidarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]