Beauvoir and Irigaray: Philosophizing Postfeminism in Popular Culture
Date
2015-09-21
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Abstract
This thesis contributes to contemporary feminist philosophy by establishing a definition of
postfeminism and analyzing two of its central tenets: equality and sexuality. The work’s central
claim is that postfeminism is anti-feminist and functions as a façade that conceals the continuation
of the structural subordination of women in our capitalist patriarchal society. This is evident in the
latest instantiation of postfeminism, in which women sexually objectify men in the name of
equality. The argument is that because women are objectified sexually in popular culture it is only
fair men be as well. In refuting postfeminist claims, I draw from and expand upon Simone de
Beauvoir’s and Luce Irigaray’s feminist philosophical theories of equality and sexual difference,
and I focus on specific examples from popular culture (sports, movies, music videos, magazines,
commercials/advertising, online writing, social media, and so on).
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Philosophy
Citation
Zimmerman, T. (2015). Beauvoir and Irigaray: Philosophizing Postfeminism in Popular Culture (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/25100