Special Issues
The Analysis about the Discourse Patterns of the Postfeminist
2022 Volume 29 Pages 23-37
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2022 Volume 29 Pages 23-37
This paper aims to explore the discourse patterns of the postfeminists and clarify their features. The term “postfeminist” was spread in the Anglo-Saxon world, especially in the USA and UK in the 1990s (Genz & Brabon, [2009]2018). It is a new type of anti-feminism in neoliberal culture. To resist this, we need to understand how they think about “femininity” in a neoliberal cultural-social environment.
By reviewing postfeminist/postfeminist studies in the Anglo-Saxon world, we could find three types of reasons why postfeminists declare they are not feminists. 1) “Feminist” always sees women as “victims” in a male-dominated society, but I don’t think I am. 2) “Feminists” have a negative attitude toward hetero-romantic love, but I like to have a romantic relationship with a boy/man. 3) Because our society has achieved gender equality, we don’t need feminism anymore.
At the same time, when the term “postfeminist” came to be used frequently in media culture in the 1990s, the rate of a positive attitude toward gender division of labor was increased in the USA, demonstrated by GSS (General Social Survey) date (Cotter, et, al., 2011). There was the stagnation of the decrease of gender roles throughout USA society from the mid-1990s to 2006.
In Japan, a positive attitude toward gender division of labor increased from the mid-2000s to the early 2010s. Especially women in their 20s had an explicit change in trend on gender roles. So, we need to understand how they (women in their 20s in mid-2000) think about the gender role and “femininity” in Japan.
I analyzed Can Cam’s Japanese fashion magazines to investigate what made the widespread fashion phenomenon known as “mecha-mote” in the 2000s. “Mote” means “being loved by many people mainly by the opposite sex,” and “mecha” means “very much” in Japanese. By analysis, we can find that women have positive feelings toward “femininity” and accept existing gender roles because they desire to enjoy romantic relations with others. We can conclude that these romantic/sexual desires and self-images reproduce biased attitudes toward gender roles even in the postfeminist era.
