Navigating the neoliberal capitalist appropriation of feminist discourses against compulsory romance

ABSTRACT

This study uses Critical Discourse Analysis to investigate how young women navigate discourses of feminism and compulsory romance under neoliberalism. Groups of young women were asked to discuss their romantic relationships with a moderator. The results demonstrate that the young women used discourses of liberation and empowerment to challenge compulsory romantic discourses, thereby emphasizing their independence. However, they also utilized discourses of desirability, which emphasized their ability to obtain a mate, and therefore, reinforced those romantic discourses they were challenging. This study emphasized the difficulty feminist discourses face under neoliberalism and the delicate navigation required by women constituted by them.

KEYWORDS:

• critical discourse analysis
• feminism
• compulsory romance
• neoliberal capitalism
• liberation
• empowerment

Notes

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2 Justin Charlesbois, Gender and the Construction of Hegemonic and Oppositional Femininities (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2011).

3 Teun A. Van Dijk, “Aims of Critical Discourse Analysis,” Japanese Discourse 1 (1995): 17–27.

4 Lê Thao and Lê Quynh, “Critical Discourse Analysis: An Overview,” in Critical Discourse Analysis: An Interdisciplinary Perspective, ed. M. Short and T. Lê (New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2009), 3–15.

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11 Adrienne Rich, “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 5, no. 4 (1980): 631–60.

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13 For extended discussion, see Korobov and Thorne, “The Negotiation of Compuslory Romance,” 49–70.

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21 Rosalind Gill, “Culture and Subjectivity”; Angela McRobbie, “Post-feminism and Popular Culture,” Feminist Media Studies 4 (2004): 256–64; Adrienne Rich, “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,” 631–60.

22 McRobbie, “Post-feminism and Popular Culture.”

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25 Korobov and Thorne, “The Negotiation of Compuslory Romance,” 49–70.

26 Ibid.

27 Ibid.

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29 Claire Moran, “Re-positioning Female Heterosexuality within Postfeminist and Neoliberal Culture,” Sexualities, 20, no. 1/2 (2017): 121–39.

30 Moran, “Re-positioning Female Heterosexuality.”

31 Korobov and Thorne, “The Negotiation of Compuslory Romance,” 49–70.

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34 Slavoj Žižek, The Puppet and the Dwarf (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003).

35 Moran, “Repositioning Female Heterosexuality.”

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38 Radhika Gajjala, “Woman and Other Women: Implicit Binaries in Cyberfeminisms,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 11, no. 3 (2014): 288–92.

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41 Carol Hanisch, “The Personal is Political,” Writings by Carol Hanisch. February, 1969, http://www.carolhanisch.org/CHwritings/PIP.html.

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