Uniform choices: elastic feminism and rhetoric surrounding the 2020 Olympic “pantywar”

ABSTRACT

Through a critical-rhetorical analysis of women’s uniform activism that went viral surrounding the 2020 Olympic Games (held in 2021), this article builds on existing feminist scholarship regarding the ideological correspondence of postfeminism and popular feminism within gendered economies of visibility. By giving primacy to the notion of personal choice, women activist athletes (and the media coverage of them) employed postfeminist discursive practices in service of a popular feminist agenda. While the foregrounding of “choice” stretched the reach of their feminism, allowing it to shapeshift to please a variety of audiences and gain notice, its deployment also functioned to undermine their political commitments. Presenting the concept of “elastic feminism” to characterize this tension, this essay explores the power and pitfalls of prioritizing the rhetorically flexible logics of choice.

KEYWORDS:

• Popular feminism
• postfeminism
• choice feminism
• sport rhetoric
• Olympics

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a Research Development Grant from the Organization for Feminist Research on Gender and Communication and a Summer Research Fellowship from the University of Arkansas Center for Communication Research.

Notes on contributors

Meredith Neville-Shepard

Meredith Neville-Shepard (Ph.D., University of Kansas) is an Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of Arkansas. She is a feminist rhetorical scholar whose research examines popular culture, political discourse, and bodily argument.