Feminism, Postfeminism and Legal Theory

Book excerpt: There is much debate about postfeminism, what it is, and its role in feminist politics. Whilst postfeminism has become increasingly influential in the study of literature, popular culture, and philosophy, it has so far received comparatively little attention in law. This book aims to remedy this situation. The book brings together feminist legal scholars working in different contexts to examine the idea of postfeminism and assess its contemporary relevance. It explores a range of questions including the following: Does postfeminism describe an age that follows modernism, an age where identity politics has realised its goals and feminism is no longer needed? Or does postfeminism describe the feminism of a postmodernist age where identity can mean anything at all? Or, differently again, does the term capture a ‘new feminism’ that discredits feminism and attempts to reshape its political consciousness? And what might the answers to these questions mean for law and legal theory, and a feminist politics of law reform?