On the Convergence Between Femme Theory and Popular Feminine Fiction
Adolescent Girls’ (Re)territorialisation Of Fem(me)ininity Through Young Adult Erotic Romance
In: Journal of FemininitiesSearch for other papers by Claudia Medrano-González in
Current site
Google Scholar
Abstract
Drawing on Femme Theory, this article explores the relationship between the devaluation of feminine knowledge and the academic abjection of feminine erotic romance. Here, I problematise femininity being inherently disempowering, arguing that it can be both a source of oppression (i.e., femmephobia) informed by intersectional axes of identity and a source of power that challenges gendered cultural frameworks. Applying a feminist, post-structuralist lens, I analyse how 100 girls (re)territorialise femininity through Spanish Young Adult erotic romance, contrasting their worldviews with the analysis of femmephobic regulatory discourse embedded in publicity. My findings suggest that publishers rework feminist discourse in an effort to appeal to girls’ presumed desire to assert (sexual) agency, simultaneously challenging gender binaries and revaluing femininity through the imposition of a culture of (sexual) self-confidence. Girls’ narratives support this finding, underscoring how Young Adult Erotic Romance is a gendered risk enforcing compulsory sexual agency, yet also a sex-positive space where they can co-construct fe(me)ninity outside the regulatory bounds.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
-
Allan, J. (2020). Men, Masculinities, and Popular Romance. London and New York: Routledge.
-
Allen, A. K. (2020). Young adult romance. In J. Kamblé, E. M. Selinger, and T. Hsu-Ming (Eds.) The Routledge Research Companion to Popular Romance Studies. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 168–191.
-
Attride-Stirling, J. (2001). Thematic networks: an analytic tool for qualitative research. Qualitative research, 1, pp. 385–405.
-
Balaguer, M. L. (2019). The feminist movement in Spain. Influences of American and European models. IgualdadES, 1, pp. 19–42.
-
Banet-Weiser, S.; Gill, R.; and Rottenberg, C. (2020). Postfeminism, popular feminism and neoliberal feminism? Sarah Banet-Weiser, Rosalind Gill and Catherine Rottenberg in conversation. Feminist theory, 21, pp. 3–24.
-
Bareket, O., Kahalon, R., Shnabel, N., and Glick, P. (2018). The Madonna-Whore Dichotomy: Men who perceive women’s nurturance and sexuality as mutually exclusive endorse patriarchy and show lower relationship satisfaction. Sex Roles, 79, pp. 519–532.
-
Barot, L. (2016) Queer Romance in Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century America: Snapshots of a Revolution. In W. A. Gleason, E. Murphy-Selinger (Eds.) Romance Fiction and American Culture: Love as the Practice of Freedom? London, UK: Routledge, pp. 389–404.
-
Bauer, C. K. (2012). Naughty Girls and Gay Male Romance/Porn: Slash Fiction. Boys’ Love Manga, and Other Works by Female ‘Cross-Voyeurs’ in the US Academic Discourses. Norderstedt, Germany: Grin Verlag.
-
Baxter, J. (2003). Positioning gender in discourse: A feminist methodology. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave MacMillan.
-
Baxter, J. (2008). Feminist Post-structuralist discourse analysis: a new theoretical and methodological approach? In K. Harrington; L. Litosseliti; H. Saunston, and J. Sunderland (Eds.), Gender and Language Research Methodologies. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 243–255.
-
Botella-Tejera, C. and Ogea-Pozo, M. (2022). ¿Por qué lo llaman amor cuando quieren decir sexo? La traducción de las relaciones amorosas en las series adolescentes de hoy. In M. Galindo, and C. Méndez (Eds.) La lingüística del amor. Madrid, Spain: Pie de Página, pp. 201–228.
-
Broad, K. R. (2013). “The Dandelion in the Spring”: Utopia as Romance in Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games Trilogy. In B. Basu, K. Broad, and C. Hintz (Eds.) Contemporary Dystopian Fiction for Young Adults. New York and London: Routledge, pp. 117–130.
-
Brown, P.; Levinson, S. (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
-
Buckingham, D. R.; Willet, S.; Bragg and R. Russell (2009) Sexualised Goods Aimed at Children, Scottish Parliament Review. http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/s3/committees/equal/reports-10/eor10-02.htm.
-
Burge, A. (2020). Class and Wealth in Popular Romance Fiction. In J. Kamblé, E. M. Selinger, and T. Hsu-Ming (Eds.) The Routledge Research Companion to Popular Romance Studies. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 395–410.
-
Butler, J. (1999). Revisiting bodies and pleasures. Theory, culture & society, 16, pp. 11–20.
-
Carter, R. and Nash, W. (1990). Seeing Through Language: A guide to Styles of English Writing. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell.
-
Christen, P.; Ranbaduge, T. and Schnell, R. (Eds.) (2020). Linking Sensitive Data: Methods and Techniques for Practical Privacy-Preserving Information Sharing: Synopsis by Kerina Jones. Cham, Germany: Springer.
-
Christian-Smith, L. K. (1990). Becoming a woman through romance. London and New York: Routledge.
-
Cuenca-Piqueras, C.; González-Moreno, M. J. and Checa-Olmos J. C. (2020). ¿Empoderadas u objetivadas? Análisis de las ciberfeminidades en las influencers. Investigaciones feministas, 12, pp. 19–29.
-
Dahl, U. (2012). Turning like a femme: Figuring critical femininity studies. nora-Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 20, pp. 57–64.
-
Dahl, U. and Sunden, J. (2018). Femininity in European journal of women’s studies. European Journal of Women’s Studies, 25, pp. 269–277.
-
Davies, A. W. (2023). Love, Simon and failure: Challenging normative discourses and femmephobia in gay youth representations. Sexualities. doi13634607231199409.
-
De Beauvoir, S. 1952. The Second Sex. Translated by H. M. Parshley. New York, NY: Vintage Books.
-
Delin, J. (2000). The Language of Advertising. In J. Delin (Ed.) The Language of Everyday Life. Surrey, UK: Sage Publications, pp. 123–149.
-
Dobson, A. (2015). Postfeminist Digital Cultures: Femininity, Social Media, and Self-Representation. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
-
Dobson, A., and Kanai, A. (2019). From “can-do” girls to insecure and angry: Affective dissonances in young women’s post-recessional media. Feminist Media Studies, 19, pp. 771–786.
-
Dobson, A., and Ringrose, J. (2016). Sext education: pedagogies of sex, gender and shame in the schoolyards of Tagged and Exposed. Sex Education, 16, pp. 8–21.
-
Duñabeitia, J. A. and Planchuelo, C. (2022). El sexo léxico. In M. Galindo, and C. Méndez (Eds.) La lingüística del amor. Madrid, Spain: Pie de Página, pp. 121–140.
-
Echio, A. C. (2022). La construcción del amor romántico en la narrativa juvenil contemporánea. In Universidad de San Martín (Ed.) Segundo Congreso Internacional de Ciencias Humanas “Actualidad de lo clásico y saberes en disputa de cara a la sociedad digital”. San Martín, Argentina: Universidad Nacional de San Martín.
-
Edwards, M. A. (1957). Let the Lower Lights Be Burning. The English Journal, 46, pp. 461–469.
-
Erdwins, C. J.; Buffardi, L. C.; Casper, W. J. and O’Brien, A. S. (2001). The Relationship of Women’s Role Strain to Social Support, Role Satisfaction, and Self-Efficacy. Family Relations, 50, pp. 230–238.
-
Fanlo, R. A. (2009). Narrativa y entretenimiento: el fenómeno del “best-sellerismo”. In V. Tortosa (Ed.), Mercado y consumo de ideas: de industria a negocio cultural. Alicante, Spain: Universidad de Alicante/Universitat d’Alacant, pp. 145–170.
-
Foster, J. and Baker, J. (2022). Muscles, makeup, and femboys: Analyzing TikTok’s “radical” masculinities. Social Media+ Society, 8. doi10.1177/20563051221126040.
-
Foucault, M. (2001). Historia de la sexualidad. Ciudad de México, México: Siglo xxi.
-
Fresno-Calleja, P.; Pérez, E. M.; Villar-Argáiz, P. and Pomar-Amer, M. (2020) The Romantic Tourist Novel and the Commodification of the Exotic. In P. Guerrero-Medina; M. Macarena; and M. Valero-Redondo. (Eds.), Advances in English and American Studies. Current Developments, Future Trends. Córdoba, Spain: UCOPress, pp. 191–201.
-
Golafshani, N. (2003). Understanding reliability and validity in qualitative research. The qualitative report, 8, pp. 597–607.
-
García, B. (2013, June 6). Cincuenta sombras de Grey ha mejorado la vida sexual de las españolas. El País. https://elpais.com/smoda/moda/cincuenta-sombras-de-grey-ha-mejorado-la-vida-sexual-de-las-espanolas.html.
-
García-Gómez, A. (2018). From selfies to sexting: Tween girls, intimacy, and subjectivities. Girlhood Studies, 11, pp. 43–58.
-
García-Gómez, A. (2022). T(w)een Sexting and Sexual Behaviour: (D)evaluating the Feminine Other. Psychology and Sexuality, 13, pp. 115–127.
-
Garland‐Thomson, R. (2005). Feminist Disability Studies. Signs, 30, pp. 1557–1587. doi10.1086/423352.
-
Garrote-Bernal, G. and Gallego-Zarzosa, A. (2010). E-bibliografía y esquema para una historia de la literatura erotica (o sexual) española. AnMal Electrónica, 29, pp. 253–290.
-
Gilbert, M. A. (2009). Defeating Bigenderism: Changing Gender Assumptions in the Twenty-First Century. Hypatia, 24, pp. 93–112.
-
Gill, R.; and Kanai, A. (2019). Affirmative advertising and the mediated feeling rules of neoliberalism. In M. Meyers (Ed.), Neoliberalism and The Media. New York and London: Routledge, pp. 131–146.
-
Gill, R., and Orgad, S. (2017). Confidence culture and the remaking of feminism. New formations, 91, pp. 16–34.
-
Gómez-Gray, A. (2018). Lectura, paraliteratura y mujeres en España. De la novela rosa a Cincuenta Sombras. Arenal. Revista de historia de las mujeres, 25, pp. 215–236.
-
González, D. (Producer). (2023). My Fault [Film]. Pokeepsie Films.
-
Grau, S. L., and Zotos, Y. C. (2016). Gender stereotypes in advertising: a review of current research. International Journal of Advertising, 35, pp. 761–770.
-
Guereña, J. L. (2000). La producción erótica española en los siglos xix y xx. xiii. In F. Sevilla and M. Alvar, Congreso de la Asociación Internacional de Hispanistas. Madrid, Spain: Castalia.
-
Halberstam, J. (2011). Queer Art of Failure. Durham and London: Duke University Press.
-
Halberstam, J. (2014). Gender. In B. Burgett and G. Hendler (Eds.), Keywords for American Cultural Studies, Second Edition. New York and London: New York University Press.
-
Hart, M. (2017). Being naked on the internet: Young people’s selfies as intimate edgework. Journal of Youth Studies, 20, pp. 301–315.
-
Hasinoff, A. (2015). Sexting Panic: Rethinking Criminalization, Privacy, and Consent. Champaign, Ill: University of Illinois Press.
-
Heldman, C. (2012, July 2). Sexual Objectification, Part 1: What is it? Dr. Caroline. Pop. Culture. Politics. https://drcarolineheldman.com/2012/07/02/sexual-objectification-part-1-what-is-it/.
-
Horton, K. (2018). Just Use What You Have: Ethical Fashion Discourse and the Feminisation of Responsibility. Australian Feminist Studies, 33, pp. 515–529.
-
Hoskin, R. A. (2017a). Femme theory: Refocusing the intersectional lens. Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture & Social Justice, 38, pp. 95–109.
-
Hoskin, R. A. (2017b). Femme interventions and the proper feminist subject: Critical approaches to decolonizing western feminist pedagogies. Cogent Social Sciences, 3. doi10.1080/23311886.2016.1276819.
-
Hoskin, R. A. (2019). Femmephobia. The Role of Anti-Femininity and Gender Policing in lgbtq+ People’s Experiences of Discrimination. Sex Roles, 81, pp. 686–703.
-
Hoskin, R. A., and Hirschfeld, K. (2018). Beyond aesthetics: A femme manifesto. Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture & Social Justice, 39, pp. 85–87.
-
Hoskin, R. A. (2021). Can femme be theory? Exploring the epistemological and methodological possibilities of femme. Journal of Lesbian Studies, 25, pp. 1–17.
-
Hoskin, R. A. and Blair K. L. (2022a). Critical femininities: a ‘new’ approach to gender theory. Psychology and Sexuality, 13, pp. 1–8.
-
Hoskin, R. A., and Blair, K. L. (Eds.). (2022b). Critical Femininities. London and New York: Routledge.
-
Hoskin, R. A., and Blair, K. (2024). The femme factor: Transforming pop culture analyses through femme theory. Sexualities, pp. 1–17. doi10.1177/13634607241259540.
-
Hoskin, R. A., Serafini, T., and Gillespie, J. G. (2023). Femmephobia versus gender norms: Examining women’s responses to competing and contradictory gender messages. The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality, 32, pp. 191–207.
-
Hoskin, R. A., and Taylor, A. (2019). Femme resistance: The fem(me)inine art of failure. Psychology & Sexuality, 10, pp. 281–300.
-
Hoskin, R. A., and Whiley, L. A. (2023). Femme‐toring: Leveraging critical femininities and femme theory to cultivate alternative approaches to mentoring. Gender, Work & Organization, 30, pp. 1317–1333.
-
Instituto de la Mujer y para la Igualdad de Oportunidades [Spanish Institute of Women for Equal Opportunities]. (2022). Diagnóstico de las mujeres jóvenes en la España de hoy [Attitudes of Spanish Young Women Today]. https://www.inmujeres.gob.es/publicacioneselectronicas/documentacion/Documentos/DE1771.pdf.
-
Jackson, S., and Vares, T. (2015). Too many bad role models for us girls’: girls, female pop celebrities and ‘sexualization. Sexualities, 18, pp. 480–498.
-
Jackson, S.; Vares, T.; and Gill, R. (2012). ‘The whole playboy mansion image’: Girls’ fashioning and fashioned selves within a postfeminist culture. Feminism & Psychology, 23, pp. 143–162.
-
Johnson, N. R. (2010). Consuming Desires: Consumption, Romance, and Sexuality in Best-Selling Teen Romance Novels. Women’s Studies in Communication, 33, pp. 54–73.
-
Kamblé, J. (2020). Romance in the Media. In J. Kamblé, E. M. Selinger, and T. Hsu-Ming (Eds.) The Routledge Research Companion to Popular Romance Studies. New York: Routledge, pp. 269–294.
-
Kamblé, J. (2023). The Popular Romance Heroine’s Journey to Selfhood and Self-Presentation. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press.
-
Kamblé, J.; Selinger, E. M.; Hsu-Ming, T. (Eds.) (2020). The Routledge Research Companion to Popular Romance Fiction. London and New York: Routledge.
-
Kanai, A., and Gill, R. (2020). Woke? Affect, neoliberalism, marginalised identities and consumer culture. New Formations, 102, pp. 10–27.
-
Kearney, M. C. (2020). Girls’ Media Cultures. In Eds. K. Ross, I. Bachmann, V. Cardo, S. Moorti, and M. Scarcelli, The International Encyclopedia of Gender, Media, and Communication. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 1–5.
-
Kennedy, M. (2019). Tweenhood: Femininity and celebrity in tween popular culture. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic Publishing.
-
Kennedy, M. (2020). ‘If the rise of the TikTok dance and e-girl aesthetic has taught us anything, it’s that teenage girls rule the internet right now’: TikTok celebrity, girls and the Coronavirus crisis. European journal of cultural studies, 23, pp. 1069–1076.
-
Killingsworth, S. (2010). Twenty-Five Years and Counting of Sweet Valley: Jessica and Elizabeth in Romance Novels for Young Children? Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 24, pp. 123–139.
-
Kim, L., Smith, D. S., Hofstra, B., and McFarland, D. A. (2022). Gendered knowledge in fields and academic careers. Research Policy, 51. doi10.1016/j.respol.2021.104411.
-
Kokkola, L. (2011). Virtuous vampires and voluptuous vamps: Romance conventions reconsidered in stephenie meyer’s “twilight” series. Children’s Literature in Education, 42, pp. 165–179.
-
Kraxenberger, M.; Knoop, C. A., and Menninghaus, W. (2021). Who reads contemporary erotic novels and why? Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 8, pp. 1–13.
-
Lindsey, T. B. (2015). Post-Ferguson: A “Herstorical” Approach to Black Violability. Feminist Studies, 41, pp. 232–237.
-
Lobato, R., and Lotz, A. (2020). Imagining global video: The challenge of Netflix. Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, 59, pp. 132–136.
-
Loh, B. (2016). Beyond the discourse of sexualization: An inquiry into the adultification of tween girls’ dressing in Singapore. Girlhood Studies, 9, pp. 126–143.
-
Lumby, C., and Albury, K. (2010). Too much? Too young? The sexualisation of children debate in Australia. Media International Australia, 135, pp. 141–152.
-
MacDonald, F. (2016). Childhood and Tween Girl Culture: Family, Media and Locality. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
-
Markert, J. (2020). Publishing the Romance Novel. In J. Kamblé, E. M. Selinger, and T. Hsu-Ming (Eds.) The Routledge Research Companion to Popular Romance Studies. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 352–371.
-
McAlister, J. (2020). Erotic romance. In J. Kamblé, E. M. Selinger, and T. Hsu-Ming (Eds.). The Routledge Research Companion to Popular Romance Studies. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 212–229.
-
McAlister, J. (2022). Love and listening: the erotics of talk in the popular romance novel. In A. Brooks (Ed.) The Routledge Companion to Romantic Love. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 117–127.
-
McCall, L. (2005). The complexity of intersectionality. Signs: Journal of women in culture and society, 30, pp. 1771–1800.
-
McCann, H. (2022). Is there anything “toxic” about femininity? The rigid femininities that keep us locked in. Psychology & Sexuality 13, pp. 9–22.
-
McCann, H. and Roach, C. M. (2020). Sex and sexuality. In J. Kamblé, E. M. Selinger, and T. Hsu-Ming (Eds.) The Routledge Research Companion to Popular Romance Studies. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 411–428.
-
McHugh, M. C. (2020). Menstrual Shame: Exploring the Role of ‘Menstrual Moaning’. In: C. Bobel, I.T. Winkler, B. Fahs, K. A. Hasson, E. A. Kissling, T. A. Roberts (Eds.) The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Menstruation Studies. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 409–422.
-
Ménard, D. and Cabrera, C. (2011). ‘Whatever the approach, tab B still fits into slot A’: Twenty years of sex scripts in romance novels. Sexuality & Culture, 15, pp. 240–255.
-
Menzie, L. (2020). Stacys, Beckys, and Chads: the construction of femininity and hegemonic masculinity within incel rhetoric. Psychology & Sexuality, 13, pp. 69–85.
-
Middleton, M. (2019). Feminine exhibition design. Exhibition, 38, pp. 82–91.
-
Mishali, Y. (2014). Feminine trouble: The removal of femininity from feminist/lesbian/queer esthetics, imagery, and conceptualization. Women’s Studies International Forum, 44, pp. 55–68.
-
Modleski, T. (1997). My life as a romance reader. Paradoxa, 3, pp. 15–28.
-
Nash, J. C. (2008). Re-thinking intersectionality. Feminist review, 89, pp. 1–15.
-
Nash, J. C. (2012). Theorizing pleasure: New directions in Black feminist studies. Feminist Studies, 38, pp. 507–515.
-
Neville, L. (2018). Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys: Women and Gay Male Pornography and Erotica. Leicester, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
-
O’Rourke, E. (2023). Vexed in the city: Femme Failure in the World of Carrie Bradshaw and the “Long-Winded Lady”. Sexualities. doi10.1177/13634607231160059.
-
Paechter, C. (2018). Rethinking the possibilities for hegemonic femininity: Exploring a gramscian framework. Women’s Studies International Forum, 68, pp. 121–128.
-
Pérez-Fernández, I., and Pérez-Ríu, C. (2021). Romantic escapes in contemporary popular romance fiction. Lausanne, Switzerland: Peter Lang.
-
Projansky, S. (2014). Spectacular girls: Media fascination and celebrity culture. New York: New York University Press.
-
Radway J. (1991). Reading the Romance: Women, patriarchy, and popular literature. Chapel Hill, N.C.: The University of North Carolina Press.
-
Ramirez, R. (2007). Race, Tribal Nation, and Gender: A Native Feminist Approach to Belonging. Meridians, 7, pp. 22–40.
-
Ramsdell, K. (2020). Libraries and Popular Romance Fiction. In J. Kamblé, E. M. Selinger, and T. Hsu-Ming (Eds.) The Routledge Research Companion to Popular Romance Studies. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 371–393.
-
Renold, E., and Ringrose, J. (2011). Schizoid subjectivities? Re-theorizing teen girls’ sexual cultures in an era of ‘sexualization’. Journal of sociology, 47, pp. 389–409.
-
Ringrose, J. (2015). Schizo-feminist educational research cartographies. Deleuze Studies, 9, pp. 393–409.
-
Ringrose, J., and Barajas, K. E. (2011). Gendered risks and opportunities? Exploring teen girls’ digitized sexual identities in postfeminist media contexts. International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics, 7, pp. 121–138.
-
Rubin, D. A. (2012). “An Unnamed Blank That Craved a Name”: A Genealogy of Intersex as Gender. Signs, 37, pp. 883–908.
-
Sanz-Torrado, M. R. (2019). El premio de narrativa erótica “La sonrisa vertical”. Historia, crítica y contexto. [Doctoral Thesis. Department of Spanish Literature. Complutense University of Madrid] Complutense University of Madrid Repository.
-
Schippers, M. (2007). Recovering the feminine other: Masculinity, Femininity, and gender hegemony. Theory and Society, 36, pp. 85–102.
-
Schwartz, A. (2022) Radical vulnerability: selfies as a Femme-inine mode of resistance, Psychology & Sexuality, 13, pp. 43–56.
-
Scott, J. B. (2020). What do glitter, pointe shoes, & plastic drumsticks have in common? Using femme theory to consider the reclamation of disciplinary beauty/body practices. The Journal of Lesbian Studies, 25, pp. 36–52.
-
Scott, J. B. (2021). Negotiating relationships with powerfulness: Using femme theory to resist masculinist pressures on feminist femininities. Psychology & Sexuality, 13, pp. 33–42.
-
Scott, J. B. (2023). The Elle Woods effect: Being “girled” while reclaiming girliness. Sexualities. doi10.1177/13634607231164714.
-
Seifert, C. (2015). Virginity in young adult literature after Twilight. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
-
Serano, J. (2013). Excluded: Making feminist and queer movements more inclusive. Berkeley, Cal.: Seal Press.
-
Snitow, A. (1979). Mass Market Romance: Pornography for Women is Different. Radical History Review, 20, pp. 141–161.
-
Sontag, S. (2004). The double standard of aging. In A. Prince and S. Silva-Wayne (Eds.), Feminisms and womanisms: A women’s studies reader. Toronto, Canada: Women’s Press.
-
Stoner, K. (2016, October 10). Dresses Made from Romance Novels Challenge Myth of Feminine Ideal. Northwestern Now. https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2016/10/dittmar-build-her-a-myth/.
-
Stryker, S. (2008). Transgender History, Homonormativity, and Disciplinarity. Radical History Review, 100, pp. 145–157. doi10.1215/01636545-2007-026.
-
Sutherland, J. (2006, February 14). Slashing Through the Undercult. Telegraph Media Group, London.https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3650072/Slashing-through-the-undercult.html.
-
Taft, J. K., and O’Kane, C. (2023). Questioning children’s activism: What is new or old in theory and practice? Children and Society, 38, pp. 744–758.
-
Talbot, M. (1995). A Synthetic Sisterhood. False Friends in a Teenage Magazine. In K. Hall and M. Bucholtz (Eds.) Gender Articulated. Language and the Socially Constructed Self. New York and London: Routledge.
-
Talbot, M. (2005). Choosing to refuse to be a victim: ‘Power feminism’and the intertextuality of victimhood and choice. In M. Lazar (Ed.). Feminist critical discourse analysis: Gender, power and ideology in discourse. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan UK.
-
Taylor, A. (2018). Flabulously’ femme: Queer fat femme women’s identities and experiences. Journal of Lesbian Studies, 22, pp. 459–481.
-
Taylor, A. and Hoskin, R. A. (2023). Fat femininities: On the convergence of fat studies and critical femininities. Fat Studies, 12, pp. 72–85.
-
Tsaliki, L. (2022). Constructing young selves in a digital media ecology: Youth cultures, practices and identity. Information, Communication & Society, 25, pp. 477–484.
-
Varela, N. (2019). Feminismo 4.0. La cuarta ola. Barcelona, Spain: Ediciones B.
-
Velázquez-Torres, B. O. (2021). El amor romántico. La erotización de la violencia patriarcal. México: Universidad de Ciencias y Artes Chiapas.
-
Wolf, N. (2002). The beauty myth: How images of beauty are used against women. New York, NY: HarperCollins.
-
Woodley, B. (2023). Failing Femininities: The Femmes of ms Additional 37049. Object, 24, pp. 7–28.
-
Zeisler, A. (2016). We were feminists once: From riot grrrl to CoverGirl, the buying and selling of a political movement. New York, NY: Routledge.
-
Zubiaurre, M. (2014). Culturas del erotismo en España, 1898–1939. Madrid, Spain: Cátedra.
-
Zubiaurre, M. (2000). El canon literario y el relato erótico: historia y sexualidad en La hija de Marx, de Clara Obligado. In F. Sevilla and M. Alvar (Eds.) Actas delxiiiCongreso de la Asociación Internacional de Hispanistas: Madrid 6–11 de julio de 1998. Madrid, Spain: Castalia, pp. 257–270.
-
Warren, A. L. (2019). Kiss and Sell: Is There a Market for Erotica in 18-to 25-year-olds? InterscriptuclJournal of Publishing, 2, pp. 1–19.
-
Willinsky, J.; and Hunniford, R. M. (1993). In L. Christian-Smith (Ed.) Texts of Desire: Essays on Fiction, Femininity and Schooling. London, UK: Falmer Press.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 487 | 487 | 112 |
| Full Text Views | 22 | 22 | 11 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 56 | 56 | 19 |
On the Convergence Between Femme Theory and Popular Feminine Fiction
Adolescent Girls’ (Re)territorialisation Of Fem(me)ininity Through Young Adult Erotic Romance
In: Journal of FemininitiesSearch for other papers by Claudia Medrano-González in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
Drawing on Femme Theory, this article explores the relationship between the devaluation of feminine knowledge and the academic abjection of feminine erotic romance. Here, I problematise femininity being inherently disempowering, arguing that it can be both a source of oppression (i.e., femmephobia) informed by intersectional axes of identity and a source of power that challenges gendered cultural frameworks. Applying a feminist, post-structuralist lens, I analyse how 100 girls (re)territorialise femininity through Spanish Young Adult erotic romance, contrasting their worldviews with the analysis of femmephobic regulatory discourse embedded in publicity. My findings suggest that publishers rework feminist discourse in an effort to appeal to girls’ presumed desire to assert (sexual) agency, simultaneously challenging gender binaries and revaluing femininity through the imposition of a culture of (sexual) self-confidence. Girls’ narratives support this finding, underscoring how Young Adult Erotic Romance is a gendered risk enforcing compulsory sexual agency, yet also a sex-positive space where they can co-construct fe(me)ninity outside the regulatory bounds.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 487 | 487 | 112 |
| Full Text Views | 22 | 22 | 11 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 56 | 56 | 19 |