Pamukkale University Institute of Social Sciences
Master Thesis
English Language and Literature Department Master Programme
Ali GÜNALAN
Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mehmet Ali ÇELİKEL
January, 2018 DENİZLİ
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I should like to express my sincerest gratitude and thanks to my supervisor for Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mehmet Ali ÇELİKEL for his invaluable advises and guidance about my studies. I also want to thank Assoc. Prof. Dr. Meryem AYAN, Assist. Prof. Dr. Cumhur Yılmaz MADRAN and Assist. Prof. Dr. Şeyda SİVRİOĞLU for their invaluable advices and encouragement.
ÖZET
HELEN FIELDING’İN BRIDGET JONES ÜÇLEMESİNDE POSTMODERN FEMİNİZM
Günalan, Ali Yüksek Lisans Tezi İngiliz Dili ve Edebiyatı ABD Tezli Yüksek Lisans Programı
Tez Yöneticisi: Doç. Dr. Mehmet Ali ÇELİKEL
Bu tezin amacı Helen Fielding’in, Bridget Jones’un Günlüğü, Bridget Jones: Mantığın Sınırı ve Bridget Jones: Deliriyorum Bu Çocuğa, adlı kitaplarından oluşan Bridget Jones üçlemesindeki postmodern feminist öğelerin incelenmesidir. Serinin ilk kitabının çıkmasından sonra en çok satan kitaplar arasına giren ve kültürel bir olgu haline gelen Bridget Jones serisi, İngiltere özelinde çağdaş batılı kadınların günlük hayatlarını ve mücadelelerini ayrıntılı bir şekilde anlatmasından dolayı kadın edebiyatı içerisinde önemli bir yere sahiptir. Bazı eleştirmenler tarafından yığın edebiyatı ya da ucuz edebiyat olarak nitelendirilse de, Fielding Bridget Jones üçlemesinde ironi ve parodi tekniklerini kullanarak postfeminist kültürü, heteroseksizmi ve yeni-cinsiyetçi düzeni yapısöküme uğratmıştır.
Birinci bölümde, Anglo-Sakson feminizminin bir hareket ve düşünce olarak tarihsel evrimi ve artalanı özetlenmiştir ve postmodern feminizmin teorik yapısı açıklanmıştır. Ayrıca, Piliç Edebiyatı’nın ortaya çıkışı ve yeni bir tür olarak sahip olduğu yapısal ve içeriksel özellikler belirtilmiştir. Son olarak, Bridget Jones üçlemesi hakkında giriş mahiyetinde bilgi verilmiş ve üçlemedeki kitapların olay örgüsü özetlenmiştir. İkinci bölümde, kadın bedeni üzerindeki toplumsal yapıların postfeminist dönemde kadınları nasıl etkilediği ve bu yapıların ironi yoluyla nasıl altüst edildiği üzerinde durulmuştur. Üçüncü bölümde ise, toplum tarafından bekâr ya da yalnız kadınlara karşı yapılan evlilik yapma baskıları ve evlilik ve aşk gibi toplumsal kurumların nasıl yapısöküme uğratıldığına odaklanılmıştır.
Anahtar kelimeler: Postfeminizm, Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones, Beden, Heteroseksizm
ABSTRACT
POSTMODERN FEMINISM IN BRIDGET JONES TRILOGY BY HELEN FIELDING
Günalan, Ali Master Thesis
English Language and Literature Department Master Programme
Adviser of Thesis: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mehmet Ali ÇELİKEL
The purpose of this thesis is to analyse the elements of postmodern feminism in Bridget Jones Trilogy, that includes: Bridget Jones’s Diary, Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason and Bridget Jones: Mad about the Boy. After the first book of the series was published in 1996, it became a bestseller and a cultural phenomenon. Bridget Jones Trilogy handles the daily lives and struggles of contemporary western women, in the particular case of British femininity, so it has a significant place in women’s literature. Although it has been criticised by some critics as a mass-market or trashy fiction, Fielding uses irony and parody to subvert postfeminist culture, heterosexism and new kinds of sexism.
In the first chapter, the historical evolution and the background of Anglo-Saxon feminism, as a thought and activism, are summarised and the therotical tenets of postmodern feminism are clarified. Also, the emergence of chick lit as a new genre is explained and information on the genre’s form and content is given. Lastly, introductory information is given about Bridget Jones Trilogy and the plot line of the three novels are summarised. In the second chapter, the effect of social constructs on female body in postfeminist era is explained, and how Fielding uses irony to subvert these constructs is discussed. And in the third chapter, the constraints and pressures on single women and the deconstruction of social institutions such as: marriage and love, are studied.
TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...i PLAGIARISM………...ii ÖZET...iii ABSTRACT...iv TABLE OF CONTENTS...v INTRODUCTION...vii CHAPTER ONE HISTORY OF FEMINISM AND EMERGENCE OF CHICK-LIT AS A NEW WOMEN’S FICTION 1.1. First-Wave Feminism……….………1
1.2. Second-Wave Feminism and Women's Liberation………4
1.3. Backlash and Postfeminism………..….………6
1.4. Postmodern Feminism………..…….………..10
1.5. Chick Lit……….……...…..15
1.6. Bridget Jones Trilogy……….…….…….17
CHAPTER TWO DISCIPLINING FEMALE BODY: SUBVERSIVE BODILY ACTS IN THE POSTFEMINIST ERA 2.1. Beauty Myth………21
2.2. Thin Ideal………..………..….………26
2.3. Aging as a Gendered Experience: Intersection of Sexism and Ageism in a PostfeministContext………..……….….30
CHAPTER THREE
RESISTING SINGLISM AND COMPULSORY MARRIAGE: REWRITING ROMANCE IN BRIDGET JONES TRILOGY
3.1. Time Panic………...…………37
3.2. Deconstructing Marriage Mystique……….42
3.3 Singleton Identity……….47
CONCLUSION………...………53
REFERENCES……….………...……57
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this thesis is to analyse Bridget Jones Trilogy by Helen Fielding with references to postfeminist culture and to show that Bridget Jones represents a new feminist stance by using a Foucauldian and Butlerian post-structuralist feminist methodology. Whether Fielding’s work has an anti-feminist stance or it has a subversive edge will be questioned. In contemporary Britain and U.S., women have experienced a postfeminist period after the wake of second-wave feminism. British and American women have been emancipated in a relatively large scale, they have gained many rights, such as abortion and equal pay. Bridget Jones Trilogy offers us an insight into the daily lives of this demography of young women.
Bridget Jones entered cultural consciousness, after Helen Fielding started writing columns in Telegraph on 28 February 1995. These weekly columns were about a thirty-something woman in London who is desperate for finding a marriageable man and is obsessive about her weight. These columns were novelised by Fielding in 1996 as
Bridget Jones’s Diary, and it became a bestseller. Bridget Jones was recognised as a
familiar character by a great mass of women readers who had same experiences. Fielding drew on ‘her own calorie-obsessed diaries, produced during her college years’ (Whelehan, 2002: 12), while writing these columns. Bridget Jones has been acclaimed as ‘a kind of ‘‘everywoman’’ of 1990s’ (Whelehan, 2002: 12) and posterchild of postfeminism. Bridget Jones’s Diary has sold more than eight million copies and has been translated into more than thirty-three languages. In 1999, a sequel, Bridget Jones:
The Edge of Reason was published, and after fourteen years, the much-expected third
novel of the series, Bridget Jones: Mad about the Boy, was published.
Along with Candace Bushnell’s Sex and the City, Bridget Jones’s Diary started a new genre on its own which is called ‘chick lit’ or ‘city girl fiction.’ Bridget Jones’s Diary has often been referred to as ‘the ur-text of chick-lit,’ (Genz, 2009: 88) as it has determined the basic charachteristics of later chick lit novels, such as: Heroines’ obsession with calories and desperate search for a long-term relationship, heroines’ employment in media sector, female friendships as an alternative to heterosexual
relationships, and use of humour and irony. Chick lit novels present vivid documents of working middle-class single women in Western cities by portraying their daily lives in detail, with a special focus on the heroines’ relationships with their bodies and men. Chick lit novels can be regarded as rewritings of classical and popular romances with a more realistic portrait of single life, dating, and dissolution of romantic ideals. (Harzewski, 2011: 18) Susan Faludi conceptualises the return to traditional femininity in socio-cultural life and pre-feminist representations of women in mass media as a ‘backlash’ against feminism. Mass media, from women’s magazines to TV shows and commercials, have idealised unreasonable beauty ideals and traditional female roles such as childbirth and housewifery. The rhetoric of ‘having-it-all’ constructs women as subjects that can combine professional life, that requires ‘masculine’ traits of self-control and empowerment with traditional female roles. Bridget Jones Trilogy, as a chick lit series, explores the struggles of Bridget through these contradictory demands of postfeminist femininity.
Bridget Jones series has been denied serious academic interest, albeit with some exceptions. Because Bridget Jones series has been regarded mostly as a middle-brow fiction. (Whelehan, 2002: 20) Many critics claimed that Bridget repudiates the legacy of feminism and dillutes the politics of gender, as it is claimed to possess both anti-feminist and pro-anti-feminist elements in it. Criticism of Bridget Jones has changed over time, and critics began to see a sly subversive irony as a deep stream in Bridget Jones. They discarded the reading of Bridget at face value. (Smith, 2008: 43) A critique of Bridget Jones according to second-wave ideal of ‘political correctness’ would give a conclusion that Bridget Jones is a postfeminist dillution of feminist ideas and depoliticisation of women’s issues, heterosexual relationships along with the revival of traditional gender roles. For example, Bridget Jones has been criticised of being an anti-feminist cultural representation as she seems to adopt cultural beauty ideals and compulsory marriage. She is always obsessed with calories and is on a constant diet to achieve cultural ideal of slender body so she is criticised for being an ‘epitome of body dysmorphia’ (Whelehan, 2000: 149)
romantic union because the ultimate goal of her is marriage. She constantly daydreams of family life and marriage, and she is always anxious about staying single for all her life: ‘...am always going to be alone and never have children.’ (Fielding, 2000: 215) A reading of Bridget’s anxieties at face value resulted in comments that Bridget is a neo-traditionalist and pre-feminist character as Rosalind Gill puts it in Gender and the
Media: ‘...heterosexuality is unmarked and naturalized in the novels.’ (2007: 233)
Although Fielding seems to make uncritical repetition of gender roles, she uses irony and humour to subvert backlash myths about ideal female body and matrimonial myths, along with criticising second-wave feminism. As the classical feminist viewpoint seems to have lost its relevance to the daily lives of contemporary women, so a new methodology was used to analyse Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones Trilogy. Michel Foucault’s poststructualist power theory and concepts of discipline and Judith Butler’s gender theory and concepts of ‘heterosexual matrix’ and ‘performativity’ constitute the theoretical background of this study.
This study consists of three chapters, first chapter covers a short history of Anglo-Saxon feminism and the theoretical background of main arguments, the second chapter explores the women’s relationships with their bodies in postfeminist period, and the third chapter questions the marital status as a new political category and constitution of alternative life-courses and kinship relationships. Three novels will not be studied in separate chapters respectively, but certain themes will be studied in two analytical chapters that include quotations from all three novels. Because especially Bridget
Jones’s Diary and Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason narrates the same period of Bridget's
life, as two parts of Bridget’s diary. The third novel, Bridget Jones: Mad about the Boy, narrates the life of Bridget while she is a fifty-one-years-old widow. Although it has more or less the same themes with the former novels of the series such as women’s relationship with their bodies and men, Fielding explores these issues by discussing aging as a gender-marked experience. Foucault refuses the classical power theories that assume centralised power centers that oppress people such as, state and patriarchy, and he argues that power is the real subject of history and it operates not top-down but through net-works that create advantaged and dis-advantaged groups. He further claims that subversion of these networks are possible through local resistances in particular
sites rather than collective action. Butler also supports Foucauldian power theory, and she puts forward ‘gender parody’ as an effective tool of subverting heterosexual norms. She argues that gender identities are created through repetition of gender norms through time, and she claims that subversion can only occur within this same power structure, so critical repetition of gender norms will have a subversive effect on ‘heterosexual matrix.’ (Butler, 2010: 42)
First chapter is of a theoretical and descriptive structure, and a theoretical and historical background is explained before the analytical chapters. First part of this chapter begins with the meaning of feminism and historical roots of women’s oppression. Then, the evolution of feminism is traced, particularly in British and American contexts. The historical development of feminist theory and activism are separated into four phases; early feminism, first-wave feminism, second-wave feminism and postfeminism/backlash. The transition between second-wave and third-wave feminisms are explained by referring to ‘Backlash’ concept of Susan Faludi. Postfeminism is used synonymously with Post-backlash femininities and contradictory mediatic representations. The role of neoliberalist ethics is emphasized in the postfeminist period, as a negative influence on women by explaining how consumerism and neoliberal self-governmentality influences women’s self-esteem and their attitudes to their bodies. The failure of second-wave feminism in staying relevant to contemporary women’s experiences necessitated a shift in the methodology of feminist theory and practice. In this study, a postmodern feminist methodology which is based on Michel Fouault’s power theory and Judith Butler's performativity theory is preferred to analyse new forms of sexism and new means of resistances.
Second part of the first chapter covers the emergence of chick-lit genre as a women’s fiction. The place of chick-lit in the history of women’s writing and its interactions with other genres are explained, especially its close interactions with romance genre. Chick lit is shown not as a trashy and mass-market fiction but as a vivid document which portrays minute details of contemporary women’s daily lives with detailed description of their bodily labors and relationships with men. Along with its importance as a document of contemporary women’s experience, chick lit is shown to
have a subversive edge against Backlash myths and classical romance narratives. Chick lit is taken as a rewriting of classical romances and Harlequin-type mass-market romances. Then, an introductory section on Bridget Jones series and Helen Fielding will be given. A brief discussion of how Bridget Jones has become a phenomenon in 1990s will ensue. The reception of the novel is explained with references to the social and cultural atmosphere of 1990s, and the special bond between Bridget Jones and the audience is explained with the intimate tone of the diary-writing.
In the second chapter, an analysis of the women’s experience of their bodies in a post-backlash culture and how ‘Beauty Myth’ as a Backlash rhetoric devastates women’s relationships with their self-image and social life. Backlash rhetorics are shown to operate as Foucauldian disciplinary structures, as the representations in mass media, especially women’s magazines, propagate anxieties among women about their physical appearances. So, Bridget obsessively watches over her weight and calorie intake to match up to these unrealistic ideals. She also does beauty labor on her body and follows fashion in order to be culturally intelligible in heterosexual matrix. Aging phenomenon is also shown as a gender-marked experience by referring to double standards between men and women in the aspects of aging of their bodies. The disciplinary techniques’ operation on the female body also constrains women’s sexuality and eating behaviours. By using Butlerian concept of performativity, the beauty rituals are shown to be a masquerade rather than as a natural tendency of women. Use of irony and parody as postmodern subversion by Fielding mocks the consumerist behaviours of contemporary women, and also subverts neoliberal ideals of control and self-development. It is also indicated how Fielding celebrates female eating and sexuality up against the constraining norms.
In the third chapter, issues of romantic coupledom and marriage in postfeminist era are covered. As one of the myths of Backlash is that professional life prevents women from pursuing their natural roles such as marriage and child-rearing. In backlash media, there is an obssesion with wedding culture and child-rearing, as wedding and having children are celebrated as the natural and glorious moments of women’s lives. At the same time, single women with careers are depicted throughout media as neurotic,
pathetic and lonely creatures. Bella DePaulo’s concept of ‘Singlism’ is used in this chapter to illuminate the stigmatization of single women. Although women have gained economic independence, it is shown that marriage and/or romantic coupledom are required to recognise women as a person. Foucauldian concept of ‘disciplinary techniques’ and Butlerian ‘heterosexual matrix’ concept are used to analyse society’s heteronormative attitudes, as Bridget Jones is always pestered by her acquaintances about her special life. It is shown how Fielding parodies heteronormative ideals by showing consumerist origins of them and also how she subverts marriage mystique by portraying reality of being a housewife. Butler’s method of proliferating of alternatives to heterosexual coupledom is used to analyse the constitution of singleton identity and celebration of female friendships as queer alternatives to heterosexual matrix.
CHAPTER ONE
HISTORY OF FEMINISM AND EMERGENCE OF CHICK LIT AS A NEW WOMEN’S FICTION
1. 1. First-Wave Feminism
The oppression of women in western societies has a long history and the shape of this oppression changes from time to time and from culture to culture, and the resistance of women has also changed according to changing ways of domination. Women have been deprived of social and economic independence, and they have been regarded as a ‘lacking man,’ and women have been considered to be incomplete without a heterosexual bond. The domination of women in Western societies has been maintained by cultural norms, religious beliefs and scientific knowledge, which are male-dominated institutions. While a resistance to the male domination can be seen in all historical periods, the definition of feminism has been a controversial issue. Rebecca West defines feminism with an inclusive definition that deems every resistant act against male hegemony as feminist: ‘I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is; I only know that people call me feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat...’ (Osborne, 2001: 9)
To summarise feminist movement throughout history on a global scale is beyond the scope of this study. Therefore, this part will trace the history of British and American feminisms, but references will also be given about the interconnections with other feminist movements and theories. The history of British feminism can be divided into three phases; first-wave feminism, second-wave feminism and lastly postfeminism. In the 18th century, the women in England had no rights over their lives, and their lives were always structured in relation to men, either fathers or husbands. There was no opportunity for employment for them, because they had no access to education, while male children did. While peasant women could work in farms with men, the women in gentry had only options of needlework and being a governess. (Osborne, 2001: 10)
Feminist thinking in western societies has religious roots. In Catholic belief, women are the originators of sin, as Eve seduced Adam to eat the forbidden fruit and caused the fall of humankind from the Garden of Eden. They believed that women are inferior race as God created Eve after Adam by referring to Judeo-Christian mythology. Until the beginning of modern feminist movement emerged, there were proto-feminist voices against gender inequality. In 1589, Jane Anger challenged beliefs about women as originators of sin and as inferior sex by arguing that Eve is not inferior to Adam. Eve was created from soil, but Eve was created from the rib of Adam, so Eve was not inferior, but she is purer and superior to Adam. And she asserted that Adam was also responsible for the original sin. (Walters, 2005: 9) The early phase of feminism consisted of individual voices against patriarchal and religious stereotypes against women. They used religious beliefs to argue against these stereotypes, as they emphasised the equality of souls. In 1694, Mary Astell wrote A Serious Proposal to
Ladies. She claimed that women’s inferior status is not natural but a cause of their
breeding. (Gamble, 2000: 13) Astell’s work was the first secular book in the history of British feminism.
First-wave feminism which was influenced by the individualist and emancipatory tenets of French revolution emerged in the middle of the 19th century. Mary Wollstonecraft wrote Vindications of Women’s Rights in 1794 in which she extended the concept of human rights and equality to discuss women’s problems. Wollstonecraft criticised the socialisation of girls, which led women to acquire traditional female assets and roles. She argued that women also need to be educated like men to achieve their mental potential. She defined femininity as an obstacle before women to become full persons, as she says: ‘Taught from their infancy that beauty is woman’s sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.’ (Wollstonecraft, 2014: 70) In the 19th century, growing industrialisation and urbanisation creates separate spheres for men and women. House became a womanly sphere, and ‘genteel passivity’ was the most important virtue for women in Victorian society. At that time, women lost their property and freedom on marriage, and they became a property of their husbands together with their children. The divorce was much easier for men. Proven adultery was enough for divorce, but it was almost impossible for women. In 1854, Barbara Leigh Smith and a group of her friends founded Langham Place Circle, and they organised campaigns for ‘better
education and for increased possibilities of employment, as well as the improvement of the legal position of married women.’ (Walters, 2005: 56) They achieved some betterment on the legal rights of women. With the divorce act of 1857, women also could sue for divorce on the grounds of adultery and cruelty. And, finally, the matrimonial causes act in 1923 secured the equal rights in divorce for women. In 1870s, women began to be admitted to universities, but they weren’t given the same degrees as men. But it wasn't until 1948 that women at Cambridge were awarded degrees fully equal to men’s. (Gamble, 2000: 25)
Although the first-wave is generally associated with the vote campaign, it wasn’t until the late 19th century that the fight for suffrage began. Actually, for most of the 19th century, there was also no universal suffrage for men. (Walters, 2005: 69) And, other issues such as education and employment opportunities and legal rights of married women were more urgent than enfranchisement. John Stuart Mill wrote The Subjection
of Women in 1869. He argued that enfranchisement was crucial for the freedom of
women. Langham Place Circle, founded by Barbara Leigh Smith, also campaigned for enfranchisement. After the wake of 19th century, women were divided into moderate and militant poles. At that time, Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) was founded by Pankhurst family. They organised mass meetings and protests. Militant suffragists under the lead of Emmeline Pankhurst, took up some militant acts to voice the injustice. For example, they organised mass protests hunger strikes, and they set fire to letter-boxes and broke the windows of some shops as an effective way of voicing their anger. (Walters, 2005: 80) In the 1890s, most of the men were enfranchised. And, women’s discontent rose in that period. They emphasized the injustice that while women, as tax-paying and legally liable citizens couldn’t vote, men ‘who were poor and barely literate had been given the vote.’ (Walter, 2005: 74) In 1920, women in America were granted the vote. British women over thirty gained suffrage in 1917, and later in 1928 all women in England were given the vote as equal to men.
1. 2. Second-Wave Feminism
Woman question was on a relatively quiet period until 1960s, ‘temporarily halted by a fifty-year counter offensive’ (Gamble, 2000: 29) During the second-world war, most of the men were mobilised so that women were employed in factories and other employment areas. After the war came to an end, men returned to their homelands both in US and England. And accordingly, they replaced women in employment. In that period, media created a myth of ‘happy housewife’ which led women to traditional female roles and housewifery. Traditional feminine traits, like beauty, were emphasized and house was coded as a serene haven from the harsh conditions of professional life. (Friedan, 1974: 14) Betty Friedan wrote Feminine Mystique in 1963. She questioned the reality of housewife myth, and exposes the dehumanising effects of stay-at-home housewifery on women, which she names ‘the problem that has no name.’ Friedan’s text heralded the beginning of second-wave feminist activism. She based her ideas on Simone De Beauvoir’s The Second Sex. Beauvoir studied how the female and male identities have been created by society, she rejects the biologist explanations of differences between feminine and masculine traits. She claimed that ‘one is not born a woman, but becomes a woman,’ and she articulated the distinction between sex and gender. While the former refers to biological aspects of men and women, the latter refers to the constructions of society upon this natural basis. There was much feminist theoretical writing in 1970s, and The Second Sex was the foundation of these texts. Although 19th century feminism was united around issues of suffrage, women’s
liberation movement had diverse branches and approaches. (Osborne, 2005: 29)
Although suffragist movement was united around the issues of vote, second-wave feminism had a much larger diversity about the causes of women’s oppression and solutions to women’s problems. Second-wave feminist theory can be divided into three branches: liberal feminism, socialist feminism and radical feminism. Liberal feminism was based on the universal quality of human nature and a reformist stance. Liberal feminists emphasised the equality between sexes, and equal access to education, employment. By drawing on individualist liberal philosophy, they claimed that individual women should pursue their potential in a meritocratic society, as ‘the rights of individual are sacrosanct in liberal philosophy, it is up to individual to pursue success
through ‘‘merit’’ ’ (Whelehan, 1995: 37) Socialist feminists handled women’s problems by referring to Marxist theory by explaining gender inequality in terms of economical base. They argued that male domination will dissolve once the class inequality is solved. They focused on the unpaid labor of women in houses and criticised the sexual division of labor in which ‘all women are proletarianized within marriage – where male power is regarded as analogous to that of the bourgeoisie.’ (Whelehan, 1995: 47) Second-wave tried to handle not only material restrains but also cultural restraints on women as Gamble states: ‘[…] what is required is a revolution within language and culture as well as material structure.’ (Gamble, 2000: 39) Radical feminism separated from socialist feminism by defining women’s oppression as strictly sexual, but they had a less-organised and decentralised structure. They emphasised a need for a cutural revolution against male-dominated culture. They regarded universal patriarchy as a structure that oppresses women regardless of social and cultural variations. Shulamith Firestone showed the failing of socialist feminism to handle woman question, and she criticised the explanation of women’s oppression in strictly economic terms in her Dialectic of
Sex.(1970) As she explains: ‘It would be a mistake to attempt to explain the oppression
of women according to this strictly economical interpretation [...] There is a whole sexual substratum of historical dialectic...’ (Firestone, 1970: 4) And she envisaged a transformation in social institutions like, marriage and child-rearing to free women.
Revival of patriarchal myths in post-war period showed the resilience of male hegemony so radical feminists noticed that women’s oppression lies deep in psychology and social institutions like, marriage and traditional female roles. Kate Millett theorised the oppression of women by men systematically. She broadened the concept of patriarchy. She claimed that sex is also a category of human oppression just as race and class, and moreover she claimed that patriarchy is deep-rooted in our psychology. Then she argued that patriarchy is the primary kind of oppression, and without eliminating it, racial and class emancipation is impossible. So Radical feminists also aimed for a decolonisation of their minds and deconstruction of oppressive institutions, such as marriage, heteronormativity and beauty ideology. Consciousnes-raising activity was one of the distinct characteristics of radical feminism. Women talked about their personal problems at work and in their relationships with men in discussion groups, so they could understand that their problems are not individual but related to social and historical
structures. These consciousness-raising groups were the core of the second-wave activism and ‘the personal is political’ was the motto of second-wavers.
Second-wave feminism in US emerged within the anti-vietnam war and civil rights movements. Friedan helped the foundation of National Organisation for Women in 1966. In 1968, a feminist group as Redstockings raided Miss America Contest in Atlanta. They crowned a sheep and protested the objectification of women and oppression of women through beauty standards. They set a ‘freedom trash can’, into which women threw make-up stuff and bras. This event would be denigrated by media, which would create a negative image of man-hating, militant feminist or ‘bra-burners.’ British feminists, too, put up a demonstration against 1970 Miss World. In common, these three feminist movements had two main issues; one was reproductive rights or abortion and the other was equal pay. Abortion was legalised in 1968 in Britain while the law was passed in 1973 with great outrage. In 1963, equal pay act was passed in US while British women had to wait until 1975 for the outlawing of discrimination in employment opportunities and payment. (Osborne,2001: 31) As second-wave couldn’t achieve its revolutionary telos, women were not completely emancipated on legal terms in western democracies by 1980s.
1. 3. Backlash and Postfeminism
By the 1980s, women had access to high education and growing opportunities of employment, sexual revolution of sixties, advent of contraception pills, and legalisation of abortion made women economically and socially freer after the wake of women’s liberation. With coming of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan to power in Britain and US, the wave of neoconservatism reached to its peak, and a nostalgia for the old gender order became prevalent. It has become a common-sensical idea that there remained no need for feminism as Margaret Thatcher put it: ‘The battle for women’s rights has been largely won.’ (Faludi, 1992: 1) Mass media began to propagate traditional gender norms, mixed with a seemingly feminist twist. There was also an attack on the feminist movement and the feminist activism. Feminism was represented as harming to women by making them leave their femininity for independent lives.
Feminism has become ‘an f-word, perceieved to be an empty dogma...’ (Whelehan, 2000: 16)
American Journalist, Susan Faludi, theorised this tendency in media as a ‘backlash’ against feminism, with her seminal book; Backlash: The Undeclared War
against Women. (1991) She claims that whenever women make progress in pursuit of
their rights, a counter-offensive is set up against them. For example, she argues that after the second-world-war, men returned home from the war campaign. Women were fired in masses, and media created a ‘happy housewife’ myth to counterbalance the certain freedoms women gained during the war. (Faludi, 1992: 74) She decodes the backlash rhetorics as pseudo-feminist and pseudo-scientific. She uses ‘postfeminism’ synonymously with ‘backlash,’ and she argues that these pseudo-feminist messages of media representations and politicians in New Right is an insidious rejuvenation of sexism. She identifies the significant backlash myths and how they work. She explains the rhetorics of ‘man’s shortage’, ‘barren wombs’ and ‘beauty backlash.’ The main message of backlash rhetorics is that feminist empowerment harms women by granting them too much independence and choices. These myths target single women who pursue their careers. They have created fears that if they don’t follow their natural course of life, they will stay unfulfilled as a single, childless and single women. Feminism was blamed for ‘creating a generation of unhappy single and childless women...’ (Faludi, 1992: 17) Barren womb rhetoric has been used by scientific researches which suggest that women lose their fertility, as they postpone pregnancy. Faludi gives the result of a research about fertility of women in early thirties as she states: ‘it made the alarming claim that Women between thirty-one and thirty-five stand a 39 per cent chance of not being able to conceive...’ (Faludi, 1992: 21) The rhetoric of man shortage refers to the popular scientific knowledge that there is a limited number of eligible man to marry. The target of this rhetoric is single women. Faludi gives an example that how press published an unfinished sociological study without questioning the integrity of the research. The result of that unfinished study is as follows: ‘college-educated women who put schooling and careers before their wedding date were going to have a harder time getting married.’ (Faludi, 1992: 27) Beauty Backlash is the tendency in mass media to propagate the idea of return to femininity. It is about doing away with the ‘political correctness’ principle of second-wave feminism and the rise in women’s
anxiety over their appearance. Mass media has created fears that the stress of professional life risks the femininity of women. (Faludi, 1992: 239)
Although Faludi associates postfeminist culture with backlash, the meaning of the term ‘postfeminism’ has been a major issue. Some critics understand it as a period in which there is no need for feminism, as second-wave achieved the equal rights for women. Especially, the meaning of the prefix ‘post’ has been a heated issue of debate. In mass media, the term post-feminism with hyphens generally denotes a period in which there is no need for further feminist activism, as feminism is old-fashioned. Some critics think that postfeminism means another phase in the development of feminism, as feminist movement changes with the social and historical context. (Genz, 2009: 5) This debate about whether ‘post’ prefix means ‘anti’ or ‘after’ has shaped the general discussion of postfeminism, but it can be seen as a cultural site in which there are regressive trends as well as subversive potentialities. In 1990s, new kinds of feminisms emerged, these feminisms rejected the feminist/feminine dichotomy and the concept of victimisation of women in classical feminism. The famous names of postfeminism such as, Katie Roiphe, Natasha Walter, Rene Denfeld, Naomi Wolf and Camille Paglia, emphasized that classical feminism constituted women as helpless victims of male power, and this victimisation of women disempowered women. They argue that women should embrace power, as there are less legal restrictions. Natasha Walter argued in The
New Feminism (1998), that women are ‘combining traditionally feminine and
traditionally masculine work and clothes and attitudes. They are wearing a mini-dress one day and jeans and boots the next.’ (Genz, 2009: 66) Naomi Wolf argues in Fire
with Fire: New Female Power and How it Will Change The Twenty-first Century(1993),
that women should capitalise on the gains of feminism and use their legal and economic freedom for empowerment and the only important ‘obstacle to overcome, which is their belief in their own victimisation.’ (Genz, 2009: 68) Rene Denfeld’s New Victorians: A
Young Woman’s challenge to the old Feminist Order(1995) criticised classical
feminism’s sexual morality and its image of victimised women, as Denfeld states:
This is the danger of New Victorianism. This feminist promotion of repressive sexual morality and spiritual passivity promulgates the vision of an ideal woman, sexually pure and helpless, but somehow morally superior to men and all male-influenced institutions. (1995: 16)
Beginning with the latter half of 1980s, women have had new opportunities and freedoms, they could pursue high education on completely equal terms, and they can devote themselves to their professional careers by postponing marriage and child-birth.
These changes were related to the insurgence of neoliberalist politics made by the New Right politicians in Britain and U.S. as well as women’s liberation. Neoliberalism envisions an economy free of state intervention, as neoliberalism ‘proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets and free trade.’ (Harvey, 2007: 2) There is an enormous emphasis on individuals in neoliberal societies, as the social institutions like family and marriage lose their significance, which leaves individual on his own as Shelley Budgeon notes: ‘...there is a presumption of autonomy, of the sort associated with the individualised reflexive do-it-yourself biographies of late modernity.’ (Budgeon, 2011: 153) Individuals have to embrace the tenets of neoliberal governance and have to develop themselves in every imaginable way to match up to the social ideals to survive a competitive professional life. But with the dissolution of traditional biographies, individuals have been induced to create their own life trajectories depending on their own choice rather than external pressures. Independence, autonomy, and self-development are neoliberal virtues that every individual tries to live up to, by doing bodily labor and by attaining academic proficiency. The lack of traditional communal ties also brought about the individualisation of failure, and individuals are the only one, who is responsible for the choices they made in life. (Budgeon, 2011: 72)
As it is seen that postfeminist femininity has been prone to contradictions; on the one hand, feminist ideals of independence and empowerment, but on the other hand traditional institutions and neoliberal ideals have influenced women. Angela McRobbie defines this ‘co-existence of neo-conservative value in relation to gender, sexuality and family life [...] with processes of liberalisation in regard to choice and diversity in domestic, sexual and kinship relations.’ (McRobbie, 2009: 12) as ‘double entanglement.’ Related with these new feminist stances, a couple of subcultures arose among young women such as, Girl Power and Do-me Feminism. Girl Power is a popular feminist stance that combines contradictory demands of neoliberalist society by claiming feminine beauty ideals with masculine features of autonomy and independence. Girl Power culture emphasised consumerist behaviour, purchase of commodities and female friendships as a lifestyle. The pop music band Spice Girls and Helen Fielding’s fictional character, Bridget Jones, were the most popular embodiments of Girl Power. Do-me feminism emerged in the context of highly-sexualised mainstream
culture. It can be counted among sex-positive feminist stances. Do-me feminists claim an ultra-feminine appearance to reach their goals, whether to succeed in their jobs or to attract men. They defied male gaze and women’s sexual objectification by embodying a sexually assertive attitude. Samantha character in Sex and the City (1996) by Candace Bushnell is an example of do-me feminism.
The ethics of neoliberalism is conforming with that of postfeminism as women embraced their independent way of life. They can earn their money, own their flat and have fun with their friends. As the old-guard feminism is denigrated as oppressive and inhibiting, women have created a lifestyle independent of traditional family ties and feminine roles. This life-style is based on choice of proper consumer objects. This new kind of feminism is called ‘choice feminism.’ However, some feminists critiqued this life-style culture as the ‘selling-out’ of feminist legacy and commodification of feminism. (Genz, 2009: 5) Angela McRobbie expresses disappointment of her at postfeminism, and she claims that feminism has been incorporated into media and popular culture but it has lost its political content because of consumerist and individualist ideals of neoliberalism: ‘In actuality the idea of feminist content disappeared and was replaced by aggressive individualism, by a hedonistic female phallicism in the field of sexuality, and by obsession with consumer culture...’ (2009: 7)
1. 4. Postmodern Feminism
Postmodern feminism took shape within the intersection of classical feminism, poststructuralist theories, postmodernity, post-colonialism, gender studies and neoliberalism. (Brooks, 1997: 4) Classical feminism reached at least its material and legal objectives to an extent. Women have been granted their legal rights on their body, education and economic independence. However, second-wave feminism has lost its relevance to the realities of everyday lives of young women by 1990s. This has signalled a dramatic change in the meaning of feminism. Every movement rises in a particular historical context, feminism of 1960s and 1970s emerged within the New Left, they aimed for a revolution to completely change the gender hierarchy. But the historical and social context of the 1990s was different from that of 1970s. So, a new
kind of feminism, with a different subjectivity, methodology and activism has to be moulded to analyse and change the new gender order. Postmodern feminism criticizes both classical feminism as an exclusive, historical and outdated movement and postfeminist culture, as lacking a political side.
Classical feminism was based on the subject of women, as an oppressed class. This emphasis is based on the modernist view that subject is stable, autonomous and a free agent. Foucault replaces power instead of subjectivity as the subject of history and he claimed that power precedes the subject and power doesn’t oppress subjects but it is the force that creates subject. (Rabinow, 1984: 59) Foucault’s thesis deconstructs the universality and autonomy claims of modernist subject meta-narrative and exposes it as historical. Judith Butler also criticises the category of women as the subject of feminist movement, and she questions whether the woman as an identity reinforces the dualistic gender system and heterosexual matrix. She states in her Gender Trouble: ‘And the feminist subject turns out to be discursively constituted by the very political system that is supposed to facilitate its emancipation.’ (Butler, 2010: 3) Her theory of performativity also disrupts the idea of unitary subject, as she argues that gender is ‘the hallucinatory effect of naturalised gestures’ (2010: xvi), these gestures that are repeated over time creates gender itself. Her theory disrupts the supposed unity of biological sex, desire, sexual practice and gender. The category of ‘women’ and feminist ‘we’ have also been questioned by postcolonialist theory and lesbian feminists. Second-wavers assumed that a unity is necessary for the subversion of patriarchy, so they universalized the category ‘women’ as a stable class oppressed by universal patriarchy. However, they disregarded race, sexual orientation and class differences among women so feminists have been accused with racism, heterosexism and elitism. Black feminists like Angela Davis and bell hooks criticised the universality claims of white feminists and exclusion of colored women from feminist circles.
The idea of universal sisterhood has also been questioned by working-class women and lesbian women; these groups have different experiences. Because sisterhood was not constituted by a common epistemology, these criticisms on unitary subject of feminism made way for the acceptance of various epistemologies of women all around the world. As bell hooks says: ‘There is much evidence substantiating the reality that race and class identity creates differences in quality of life, social status and lifestyle that take precedence over the common experience women share – differences which are
rarely transcended.’ (1984: 4) Butler claims that unifying category of women is normative and exclusionary and it is ‘invoked with unmarked dimensions of class and racial privilege.’ (2010: 19) Butler questions whether unity and representation are mandatory for effective political activism. But she prefers rather contextual coalitions that are based on ‘concrete actions that have purposes other than the articulation of identity.’ (2010: 21)
Drawing on Marxist theory of power and ideology, radical and socialist feminists saw women as an oppressed class and men totally as an oppressor class. They critcised the patriarchy as a structure, operating consciously and systematically to supress women. With the advent of neoliberalism and postmodernity, these theories of power lost their meaning, and Foucauldian concept of ‘disciplinary power’ have been used to explain the operations of power in late modernity. Foucault rejects the classical power theories as opposed to the concept of ideology. He posits networks of power as the real agents of history and society. It is the structuring of power networks that privileges men and oppresses women, and these power networks are not fully in control of men as there are also hierarchies among men. Men aren’t oppressors as a distinct class, as colored men and homosexual men are also oppressed by the same power structures. (Brooks, 1997: 17)
In Marxist theory of power, ideology is a false view of world, imposed on oppressed people by the structure, and it creates a false consciousness and so obscures the reality. However, Foucault theorises power as something not obscuring reality, but as the very force that creates the reality. (Rabinow, 1984: 61) Foucault argues that the enligtenmentalism has changed the operation of power. Before enlightenment, sovereign power was dominant. The power was possessed by the king, and the control of people was carried out by showing off the material power of the authority but Foucault conceptualises the new form of power as ‘disciplinary power.’ Disciplinary power doesn’t operate by showing off power, but rather it is ‘exercised through its invisibility; at the same time it imposes on those whom it subjects a principle of compulsory visibility.’ (Foucault, 1995: 187) Foucault explains the operation of disciplinary power as based on three techniques: confession, panoptic gaze and propagation of normalising discourses. Foucault rejects the classical idea that power and knowledge are two opposing things. He concludes that power in modern societies operates with the help of knowledge. For Foucault, modern power doesn’t operate by censoring information
about a fact but by proliferating knowledge about these facts to create normative discourses. As he states: ‘There is no power relation without correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute at the same time power relations.’ (Foucault, 1995: 27) Protestant tradition of confession makes individuals wary of every little detail of their acts so they control every thought and act of themselves, as Foucault states: ‘This turning of real lives into writing is no longer a procedure of heroization, it functions as a a process of objectification and subjection’ (1995: 192) Inspired by Enlightenmentalist Jeremy Bentham’s idea of Panopticon, Foucault argues that modern power exerts the control of people by constantly observing them without being seen, as he states: ‘The perfect disciplinary apparatus would make it possible for a single gaze to see everything constantly.’ (1995: 173) Panopticism manages society by creating hierarchies and interactions of gaze so that individuals internalise this normative gaze, and they both control themselves and others in society.
Dissolution of ‘woman’ as a unitary subject, and dissolution of ‘women’ together with universal sisterhood created a crisis of activism in feminism like in all other ideologies as an effect of poststructuralist theories. Feminists asked themselves whether any resistance and change is possible without a unitary identity and a common goal. Backlash rhetorics, growing individualisation and disappointment at the achievement of a revolution necessitated that a new kind of activism has to be formulated to resist the renewed forms of oppression. Foucault claims that power operates insidiously within everyday social life and normative discourses we see on the mass media. He argues that power operates not only on a macro-structural level but also in the daily minutiae of our lives as he puts it:
the study of this microphysics presupposes that power exercised on the body is conceived not as a property, but as a strategy; that its effects of domination are attributed not to ‘appropriation,’ but to dispositions, maneuvers, tactics, techniques, functionings. (Foucault, 1995: 26)
He calls this as the ‘microphysics of power.’ His power theory is criticised for attributing everything, even the formation of subject, to power, and so leaving no space for resistance. For Foucault, resistance doesn’t have to be collective, but individuals can subvert the working of power by critically resignifying, appropriating and subverting the discourses in local resistances. Patricia Mann theorises micropolitical agency as a necessity after the collapse of identity politics. She claims that political agency in
postmodern era is enacted by individuals in changing contexts and multiple subject positions:
Individuals become agents of social change as they engage in social relationships in ways that leave a particular mark on these institutions and discourses. While my account does not deny the possibility and even the likelihood of some degree of individual political consciousness such consciousness is no longer dominant feature of political agency. (Mann, 1994: 157)
Foucault refers to the productive side of the power as well as inhibitive side, and he claims that power also generates the means to subvert the formulation of power networks. Second-wave feminists stood a counter-cultural ground, and they harshly criticised representations in media and popular culture but Foucault sees popular culture and mass media as generative sites of resistance. In this way, the normative discourses about femininity can be appropriated and subverted by feminists. Butler emphasizes necessity for a reformulation of feminist activism, and she creates a theory of resistance that supposes that there is no escape from power, so the resistance must take place within the same power structures. (Butler, 2010: 42) She formulates gender parody as an effective tool to counteract the normative discourses. Gender parody is based on Butler’s theory of performativity, she claims that gender acts don’t originate from an inner core, but these gender acts, repeated through time, constitute the gender illusion. (Butler, 2011: xii) She asserts that there is no escape from social discourses preceding the individual so resistance should rise within the same structures. She claims that gender acts that repeat gender norms in unusual ways disrupt the supposed connection among biological sex, gender and sexual practice. She gives the example of the gender acts of drag queens as a subversive parody of gender norms, as it disrupts the seeming coherence of gender identity, that presumes the unity of biological sex, gender and sexual orientation. (2010: 187) She argues: ‘This perpetual displacement constitutes a fluidity of identities that suggest an openness to resignification and recontextualisation; parodic proliferation deprives hegemonic culture and its critics of the claim to naturalised or essentialist gender identities.’ (2010: 188) She also claims that creation and proliferation of alternative relationships is a subversive technique to change the universality claim of heterosexual institutions. As alternative relationships for heterosexual coupledom can ‘expose the limits and regulatory aims of that domain of intelligibility and, hence, to open up within the very terms of that matrix of intelligibility rival and subversive matrices of gender disorder.’ (Butler, 2010: 24)
1. 5. Chick Lit
By the 1990s, women had most of their economic and legal rights secured by women’s liberation movement in Western world. They could work in most areas of the professional life, formerly closed to them, and they can live a life of their own choice, as institutions, such as marriage, childbirth, that formerly structured their lives, have been destabilised. In mid-1990s, a new type of women's fiction emerged, this new genre narrates how this new demography of young women handle the contradictory demands of feminism and femininity, as a syndrome of postfeminist culture. Novelist Chris Mazza defined this new genre ironically as ‘chick lit,’ but later this pejorative label was appropriated by chick lit authors. (Young and Ferris, 2006: 3) As opposed to former women’s genres, especially popular romances, Chick lit is a heroine-centered, and it illuminates the daily struggles and heterosexual relationships of ‘twenty-or-thirty-something, white, middle-or-upper-middle-class, never-married, childless, Anglo or American, urban, college-educated, heterosexual career women’ (Harzewski, 2011: 29) Chick lit has been denied academic attention, as it has been seen as trivial and commercialised fiction. (Young and Ferris, 2006: 1) Denigration of chick lit is connected to historical trivialisation of women’s fiction and binary opposition between popular fiction and literary canon, as Caroline Smith puts it: ‘Chick lit, then, becomes an easy target for the critics’ derision relegated to both subordinated spaces, - the popular and the female.’ (2008: 4)
Chick-lit has been influenced by other types of women’s fiction, such as: classical romances like Jane Austen novels, Harlequin and Mills&Boon Romances, feminist novels of 1960s and 1970s and the bonkbusters of 1980s. As postfeminism emphasizes the individuality of women, chick lit uses first-person narrative to voice the experiences of young women with vividness. Third-wave feminism criticises the abstract theorising and emphasizes the importance of autobiographical writing. (Budgeon, 2011: 19) Heroines of chick lit generally work in publishing and media sector, as empowered career women. Parallels among the author, heroines and the audience are establised, as chick-lit novels are regarded as essentially autobiographical, and so the lifestyles of authors have also drawn significant attention from their fans. Authors, heroines and readers are thought as a part of community that have similar experiences.
In Mills&Boon romances, the emphasis is always on the heterosexual union, and heroines’ daily lives are part of a larger romance script. Hero and heroine don’t like each other in their first meeting, and they have to surmount some obstacles, such as pride, prejudice and class difference, to achieve romantic union. (Gill, 2007: 219) Although they have been mostly written by women and for women, classical romances focus on hero and heroine equally, as they are written in third-person narrative. Chick lit departs from this tradition in several dramatic ways. Chick lit novels have been written in the first-person narrative as a legacy of classical feminist novels. (Whelehan, 2002: 15) First-person narrative emphasises the experience of women by directly relating to the female audience. This narrative technique was inherited from the consciousness-raising novels of 1960s and 1970s. Chick lit carries the charactheristics of consciousness raising novel tradition as it exposes novel forms of sexism prevalent in postfeminist era like, compulsory heterosexuality and homogenising beauty ideals. By making the protagonist speak for herself, chick lit creates a feeling of community among women who suffer from the same sexist structures in their daily lives so it politicises the personal and special lives of women in a renewed way. Although chick lit has been usually criticised for leaving power relations within heterosexual relationships uncriticised, actually chick lit produces and legitimises new female subjectivities that emerged in postfeminist era. Heterosexual relationships aren’t in the focus of these novels, and female bonding among friends is identified as a defining characteristic of chick lit. The glamorous and independent lives of single women are juxtaposed with boring and demanding daily lives of married women. Men are present only in the background.
Chick lit doesn’t assume a ‘happily ever after’ finale as mandatory but a romantic union in some kind happens at the end of the novels. (Taylor, 2012: 75-76) One of the most important differences between classical romances and chick lit is the greater realism of the latter. While romances idealise the romantic union, chick lit pits these unrealistic ideals against the realities of contemporary ethics of relationships. More sex scenes can be seen in chick lit than love scenes while sexual intercourse is euphemised and overshadowed by the concept of true love in romances. (Harzewski, 2011: 37) While women appear as objects, and even victims, of male lust in romances, chick-lit, as a postfeminist fiction, goes beyond this victimisation and code women as active sexual subjects who appreciate free sexuality.
Consumerism and Cosmopolitan culture are also significant components of chick lit, and women's magazines, along with other kinds of backlash media propagate homogenising beauty ideals and glamorise marriage and traditional female roles. Most of the chick lit protagonists are heavily obsessed with their weight and intake of calories. Bodily assets and beauty are seen as a commodity and not just as a way to be wealthy and attractive but as a symbol of a lifestyle. Chick lit heroines are always in a shopping spree and ridiculous consumer behaviour, as Harzewski states: ‘chick lit protagonists can experience romance, desire or self-esteem only through commodities’ (2011: 12) Chick lit generally refers to popular brands as a part of heroines’ life-styles, but, at the same time exaggerates consumer behavior to satirise passive consumerist behaviour ‘by exaggerating their consumer behaviours as a means of critiquing the problematic consumption behaviours endorsed by the publications that their heroines so devotedly read.’ (Smith, 2008: 22) Chick lit handles these contradictory imperatives of postfeminist media with irony and humor, consumer behaviours of the heroines are exagerated to a humorous extent. Their obsessions about their weight is also satirised by the irony of diet culture.
1. 6. Bridget Jones Trilogy
Bridget Jones entered cultural consciousness, when Helen Fielding started writing columns, titled as ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’ in Independent in 1995. Bridget Jones became a pheomenon instantly as columns represent a group of women who have not been represented before. The confessional and intimate tone of diary format of the novel created a ‘that’s me response’ as Imelda Whelehan puts it. (2002: 53) Critics draw paralels between Bridget and her creator, Helen Fielding who also worked in media sector and made freelance journalism just like Bridget. Actually, she began writing columns to prepare another novel. Yet then Bridget Jones brought a surprise success to her and became a bestseller. The sequel to the first novel came in 1999, Bridget Jones:
The Edge of Reason. And, later in 2013, the much-expected third novel was published: Bridget Jones: Mad about the Boy. In 2001, Bridget Jones Diary was made into a
Hollywood film and later in 2004, the second novel was filmed. They were box office successes, but they lack the political side that the novels have.
One of the important factors of Fielding’s success was her use of diary format in her novels. The confessional tone and intimate narration of Bridget created emotional links with readers. Pleasures of reading someone else’s diary and feeling of superiority to Bridget while she waddles through problems of modern life contributed to the success of the novels. (Whelehan, 2002: 22) Autobiographical writing and first-person narrative are distinguishing characteristics of consciosness-raising novels of 1970s. (Whelehan, 2005: 186) Diary writing has also a different meaning in neoliberal culture as Bridget keeps a diary to take control of her life. Therefore, diary operates as a Foucauldian disciplinary technique as a means of neoliberal self-governmentality. (Gill, 2006: 87) Ideal neoliberal subject has to develop herself both physically and mentally to attain perfectionistic ideals, and individuals have to shape their life by buying into consumer objects and lifestyles. However, Fielding deploys ironic humor to subvert the tenets of neoliberal govermentality, as she is ‘an unmeditated, unprocessing ‘‘witness’’ to the events of her life.’ (Case, 2001: 180) Bridget writes in her diary in most unlikely situations, and even when she is drunk, and the diary entries that have interior monologue and stream-of-cosciousness, provide a vision to the contradictory demands of postfeminist culture and expose the constructed and contradictory nature of neoliberal ideals. This resistance against diary-keeping as a disciplinary technique ‘may reveal subversive elements not immediately obvious and not in keeping with the work’s conscious agenda.’ (Marsh, 2004: 54)
Bridget Jones Diary begins with Bridget’s listing of her new year’s resolutions, but these goals are exagerated to an ironic extent. And, Bridget can’t attain these goals by the end of the year. Bridget is referred to as the epitome of postfeminist femininty as she is always obsessed with her weight, as she writes down every bit of calorie intake and change in her weight in her diary. Unlike classical romance heroines who are effortlessly beautiful, Fielding shows readers the costs of beauty labor for women. In the first parts of the novel, Bridget flirts with her boss, Daniel Cleaver who doesn’t look for a commitment, but seeking a casual relationship. However, at the same time, she also thinks about Mark Darcy, who is a human-rights lawyer. The choice between the two is classical choice of women between the bad boy and the nice guy. (Gill, 2007: 227) Fielding points to the fact that women still make these decisions as second-wave feminism left heterosexual relationships unreconstructed, though it provided legal and professional rights of women. Bridget daydreams of marrying with Daniel, but later
when she learns that he is cheating on her, then they split. Meanwhile, Bridget’s mother, Pamela is in a relationship with a Portuguese con-man, Julio. He makes her loan money from her, and she also borrows money from her friends. At last, she is arrested by police, but Mark solves this problem by proving Julio as guilty and acquits Pamela of the charges. As one of the sub-plots of the novel, Mark always shows up in times when Bridget is in a trouble and saves her, as a typical romantic hero. After this incident, Mark offers a dinner to Bridget. The novel ends with prospect of a shared future of Bridget with Mark, but there is no wedding or prospect of marriage at the end of the novel as typical of chick-lit. Bridget writes down this score in her diary and although she doesn’t achieve most of the other goals, having a boyfriend compensates for this.
Second novel of the series, Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason, was published in 1999. The socond novel was a disappointment after the success of the first novel. It covers the same themes with first diary, and Bridget keeps account of her weight and calorie intake meticulously and tries to secure a marriage with Mark. Their relationship with Mark seems to have progressed as they live together, and their daily lives attained a routine. However, Bridget obsesses over the intention of Mark with her, and she suspects whether he is homosexual after seeing a semi-naked teenage boy in his bedroom. Then, Rebecca tries to separate them to marry with Mark herself. She talks about Bridget’s way of life as immoral and mocks her overweight. Then, Mark and Bridget split, and Mark is engaged with Rebecca. Meanwhile, Bridget and Sharon go on a vacation in Thailand, then Sharon falls for a guy there, and they start to spend time together. That guy turns out to be a drug-dealer, and he hid drugs in the bag of Bridget, so she is arrested at the airport. That was the last drop to a bad year that drives Bridget to ‘the edge of reason.’ She stays in a women’s jail in Thailand for months, but later Mark saves her heroically by finding and arresting the drug-dealer guy. Later on, Mark opens his feelings to Bridget, and they were reunited again. At the end of the novel, Jude marries with Richard, but relationship of Mark and Bridget remains unconsummated with marriage.
Bridget Jones: Mad about the Boy was published in 2013, and it covers again the
same themes of women’s relationships with men and their own bodies. Bridget is now over fifty and have two kids, Billy and Mabel. Mark is revealed to have been killed in a terrorist attack in Sudan, and this fact also disrupts ‘happily ever after’ formula and lets Bridget explore widowhood in contemporary setting. Main concerns of Bridget in the
final part of the series are the care of her children and her deepening loneliness. Bridget stays celibate for four years after the death of Mark, but she feels she can’t go on like that. She wants to be in a relationship, but she also has misgivings as she wants to be a good mother and be loyal to the memory of Mark. Her friends eventually convince her to start a relationship, and then she again enters the dating world as emotionally revirginised. And then she takes on the beauty rituals by renewing her wardrobe, and she gets on twitter, facebook and dating sites to find a boyfriend. She begins a relationship with a 29-year-old man, her toy boy. Throughout the novel, Bridget struggles through social streotypes about older women going out with younger men and hardships of being a single mother. For that reason, some critics suggest that Mad about
the Boy can be classified as a mixture of mommy lit and matron lit, rather than a chick
lit novel.
CHAPTER TWO
DISCIPLINING FEMALE BODY: SUBVERSIVE BODILY ACTS IN THE POSTFEMINIST ERA
2. 1. Beauty Myth
Women, especially in the Western world, have suffered from the repressive and subjugating rule of the patriarchy for centuries, and they have been deprived of their rights to education, sexualities and their freedom with their body. Femininity has been coded with the attributes of softness, fragility and emotioninality, while masculinity has been coded with rigidity, solidness, and reason. In this binary hierarchical system, men are positioned as higher gender, while the women are signified as the other of man. The restrictions and repressive taboos on the bodies of women have been continuing to exert their power on women with increasing intensity. Historically, women have been expected to be beautiful and loveable, especially in the industrial bourgeois society in which women abandoned their part in social and economic life and were imprisoned in their homes. This ideal of beauty paralyses women in general and turns them into embodiments of heterosexual male fantasy. Many feminists have taken up activism against beauty ideology in women’s liberation. For example; In 1968, feminist activists raided the Miss America Contest and burned their bras, cosmetic products to raise consciousness about the oppression of beauty myth. Yet Media saw this event as ridiculous and aggressive so they stamped all feminists as ‘braburners.’ Second-wave feminism rejected gender hierarchy and meaningless beauty ideals imposed on women in order to make them feel more comfortable in their skins.
Beginning with 1980s, mass media launched an attack on the image of the feminists, and they began to propagate the beauty ideals in disciplinary ways. As Germaine Greer says: ‘Thirty years ago it was enough to look beautiful; now has to have a tight, toned body, including her buttocks and thighs, so that she is good to touch all over.’ (2007: 22) TV shows, films, and advertisements made use of ultra-feminine models with standardised and normalising body shape and size, and this was a backlash
