Powerful women, vulnerable men and postfeminist masculinity in men’s popular fiction
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v8i2.185Keywords:
heterosexuality, intimacy, masculinity, postfeminism, romanceAbstract
Part of a wider project concerned with the mediation of intimate relationships, this paper examines ‘guy lit’, ‘lad lit’ or ‘postfeminist male romances’. The genre has been growing for the past two decades but has received little scholarly attention. Understood as an answer to ‘chick lit’, the genre is organised around the trials and tribulations of young to middle-aged men as they navigate the perils of growing up and looking for love. The analysis presented here is not concerned with literary merit or cultural value but rather looks sociologically at these popular texts, examining their constructions of masculinity, femininity and intimate gender relations. Drawing on an analysis of 25 novels, the paper explores the ‘unheroic masculinity’ depicted, in which men are presented as troubled, bumbling, hypochondriacal losers in counterpoint to women’s (apparently effortless) success and accomplishments. Although the affable, self-deprecating (un)heroes of postfeminist male romances seem like unlikely ideological warriors, the paper argues that this patterned popular construction effects ideological work by contributing to a distinctively postfeminist sensibility in which male power is repudiated, while feminism is humorously ‘sent up’.
References
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Edwards, T. (2006) Cultures of Masculinity. London: Routledge.
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Featherstone, M. (1991) Consumer Culture and Postmodernism. London: Sage.
Ferriss, S. and Young, M. (eds) (2006) Chick Lit: The New Woman’s Fiction. New York: Routledge.
Fielding, H. (1996) Bridget Jones’s Diary. London: Picador.
Franks, S. (1999) Having None of It: Women, Men and the Future of Work. London: Granta.
Gayle, M. (1999) Mr Commitment. London: Flame.
Gayle, M. (2013) Turning Forty. London: Hodder.
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Gill, R. (2007b) Postfeminist media culture: elements of a sensibility. European Journal of Cultural studies 10: 147–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1367549407075898
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Green, J. (2000) Jemima J: A Novel about Ugly Ducklings and Swans. New York: Broadway Books.
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Hornby, N. (1995) High Fidelity. London: Penguin.
Jackson, P., Stevenson, N. and Brooks, K. (2001) Making Sense of Men’s Magazines. Cambridge: Polity Press.
James, E. L. (2012) Fifty Shades of Grey. London: Arrow Books.
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Kimmel, M. (2006) Guy lit – whatever. Paper presented at ESRC seminar on New Feminities, Open University, Milton Keynes, May.
McRobbie, A. (2004) Notes on postfeminism and popular culture: Bridget Jones and the new gender regime. In A. Harris (ed.) All about the Girl: Culture, Power and Identity 3–14. New York: Routledge.
Morris, R. (2012) UniLad shuts down over ‘rape’ article. The National Student, 2 February. Retrieved on 29 April 2014 from www.thenationalstudent.com/News/2012-02-02/UniLad_Magazines_Surprise_Rape_Article_Unsurprisingly_Causes_Shut_Down.html
Mulvey, L. (1975) Visual pleasure and narrative cinema. Screen 16: 6–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/screen/16.3.6
National Union of Students (2010) Hidden Marks: A Study of Women Students’ Experiences of Harassment, Stalking, Violence and Sexual Assault. London: NUS.
Nixon, S. (2001) Resignifying masculinity: from ‘new man’ to ‘new lady’. In D. Morley and K. Robins (eds) British Cultural Studies 373–86. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
O’Hagan, S. (1991). Here comes the new lad! The unreconstructed man. In D. Jones (ed.) Ten Years of Arena: Sex, Power and Travel. London: Virgin.
Parsons, T. (2000) Man and Boy. London: HarperCollins.
Price, D. (2004) Slick. London: Piatkus.
Projansky, S. (2001) Watching Rape: Film and Television in Postfeminist Culture. New York: New York University Press.
Rance, J. (2013) This Thirty Something Life. London: Hodder.
Reizin, P. (2003) Don’t Try this at Home. London: Hodder & Stoughton.
Spalding, N. (2012) Love … and Sleepless Nights London: Coronet
Stacey, J. (1993) Star Gazing: Hollywood Cinema and Female Spectatorship. London: Routledge.
Stevenson, N., Jackson, P. and Brooks, K. (2003) ‘Reading men’s lifestyle magazines: Cultural power and the information society’. In B. Benwell (ed.) Masculinity and Men’s Lifestyle Magazines 112–31. Oxford: Blackwell.
Tasker, Y. and Negra, D. (2014) Gendering the Recession: Media and Culture in an Age of Austerity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Thompson, L. J. (2013) Mancaves and cushions: making masculine and feminine domestic space in postfeminist romantic comedy. In J. Gwynne and N. Muller (eds) Postfeminism and Contemporary Hollywood Cinema 149–65. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9781137306845.0015
Tincknell, E., Chambers, D., Van Loon, J. and Hudson, N. (2003) Begging for it: new femininities, social agency and moral discourse in contemporary teenage and men’s magazines. Feminist Media Studies 3: 47–63.
Tseelon, E. (1995) The Masque of Femininity: The Presentation of Woman in Everyday Life. London: Sage.
Whelehan, I. (2000) Overloaded: Popular Culture and the Future of Feminism. London: Women’s Press.
Whelehan, I. (2002) Bridget Jones’s Diary: A Reader’s Guide. London: Continuum.
Whelehan, I. (2005) The Feminist Bestseller. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Yardley, C. (2006) Will Write for Shoes: How to Write a Chick Lit Novel. New York: St Martin’s Press.
Beaumont, M. (2000) E: The Novel of Liars, Lunch and Lost Knickers. London: HarperCollins.
Benwell, B. (2003) Ambiguous masculinities: heroism and anti-heroism in the men’s lifestyle magazines. In B. Benwell (ed.) Masculinity and Men’s Lifestyle Magazines 151–68. Oxford: Blackwell.
Beynon, J. (2002) Masculinities and Culture. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Brabon, B. A. (2013) ‘Chuck flick’: a genealogy of the postfeminist male singleton. In J. Gwynne and N. Muller (eds) Postfeminism and Contemporary Hollywood Cinema 116–30. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Burns, A. (2013) The chick’s ‘new hero’: (re)constructing masculinity in the postfeminist ‘chick flick. In J. Gwynne and N. Muller (eds) Postfeminism and Contemporary Hollywood Cinema 131–48. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Carrington, B. (1999) Too many St George’s crosses to bear. In M. Perryman (ed.) The Ingerland Factor: Home Truths from Football 71–86. Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing.
Crewe, B. (2003) Representing Men: Cultural Production and Producers in the Men’s Magazine Market. Oxford: Berg.
Doane, M. A. (1992) Femmes Fatales: Feminism, Film Studies and Psychoanalysis. London: Routledge.
Du Gay, P. and Pryke, M. (2002) Cultural Economy. London: Sage.
Edwards, T. (2003) Sex, booze and fags: masculinity, style and men’s magazines. In B. Benwell (ed.) Masculinity and Men’s Lifestyle Magazines 132–46. Oxford: Blackwell.
Edwards, T. (2006) Cultures of Masculinity. London: Routledge.
Faludi, S. (1992) Backlash: The Undeclared War against Women. London: Chatto & Windus.
Farrimond, K. (2013) The slut that wasn’t: virginity, (post)feminism and representation in Easy A. In J. Gwynne and N. Muller (eds) Postfemminism and Contemporary Hollywood Cinema 44–59. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Featherstone, M. (1991) Consumer Culture and Postmodernism. London: Sage.
Ferriss, S. and Young, M. (eds) (2006) Chick Lit: The New Woman’s Fiction. New York: Routledge.
Fielding, H. (1996) Bridget Jones’s Diary. London: Picador.
Franks, S. (1999) Having None of It: Women, Men and the Future of Work. London: Granta.
Gayle, M. (1999) Mr Commitment. London: Flame.
Gayle, M. (2013) Turning Forty. London: Hodder.
Gill, R. (2007a) Gender and the Media. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Gill, R. (2007b) Postfeminist media culture: elements of a sensibility. European Journal of Cultural studies 10: 147–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1367549407075898
Gill, R. and Herdieckerhoff, E. (2006) Rewriting the romance: new femininities in chick lit? Feminist Media Studies 6(4): 487–504. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14680770600989947
Gray, J. (1992) Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. New York: HarperCollins.
Green, J. (2000) Jemima J: A Novel about Ugly Ducklings and Swans. New York: Broadway Books.
Grossberg, L. (1986). On postmodernism and articulation: an interview with Stuart Hall. Journal of Communication Inquiry 10(2): 45–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/019685998601000204
Gwynne, J. and Muller, N. (2013) Introduction: postfeminism and contemporary Hollywood cinema. In J. Gwynne and N. Muller (eds) Postfemminism and Contemporary Hollywood Cinema 1–10. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hall, S. (1988). The toad in the garden: Thatcherism among the theorists. In C. Nelson and L. Grossberg (eds) Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture 35–57. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Hansen-Miller, D. and Gill, R. (2011) ‘Lad flicks’: discursive reconstructions of masculinity in popular film. In H. Radner and R. Stringer (eds) Feminism at the Movies: Understanding Gender in Contemporary Popular Cinema 36–50. London: Routledge.
Hatch, B. (2001) The International Gooseberry. London: Orion.
Hornby, N. (1995) High Fidelity. London: Penguin.
Jackson, P., Stevenson, N. and Brooks, K. (2001) Making Sense of Men’s Magazines. Cambridge: Polity Press.
James, E. L. (2012) Fifty Shades of Grey. London: Arrow Books.
Jeffers McDonald, T. (2012) The view from the man cave: comedy in the contemporary ‘homme-com’ cycle. In A. Horton and J. E. Rapf (eds) A Companion to Film Comedy 217–35. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781118327821.ch10
Jensen, T. (2010). ‘What kind of mum are you at the moment?’ Supernanny and the psychologising of classed embodiment. Subjectivity 3(2): 170–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/sub.2009.2
Kimmel, M. (2006) Guy lit – whatever. Paper presented at ESRC seminar on New Feminities, Open University, Milton Keynes, May.
McRobbie, A. (2004) Notes on postfeminism and popular culture: Bridget Jones and the new gender regime. In A. Harris (ed.) All about the Girl: Culture, Power and Identity 3–14. New York: Routledge.
Morris, R. (2012) UniLad shuts down over ‘rape’ article. The National Student, 2 February. Retrieved on 29 April 2014 from www.thenationalstudent.com/News/2012-02-02/UniLad_Magazines_Surprise_Rape_Article_Unsurprisingly_Causes_Shut_Down.html
Mulvey, L. (1975) Visual pleasure and narrative cinema. Screen 16: 6–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/screen/16.3.6
National Union of Students (2010) Hidden Marks: A Study of Women Students’ Experiences of Harassment, Stalking, Violence and Sexual Assault. London: NUS.
Nixon, S. (2001) Resignifying masculinity: from ‘new man’ to ‘new lady’. In D. Morley and K. Robins (eds) British Cultural Studies 373–86. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
O’Hagan, S. (1991). Here comes the new lad! The unreconstructed man. In D. Jones (ed.) Ten Years of Arena: Sex, Power and Travel. London: Virgin.
Parsons, T. (2000) Man and Boy. London: HarperCollins.
Price, D. (2004) Slick. London: Piatkus.
Projansky, S. (2001) Watching Rape: Film and Television in Postfeminist Culture. New York: New York University Press.
Rance, J. (2013) This Thirty Something Life. London: Hodder.
Reizin, P. (2003) Don’t Try this at Home. London: Hodder & Stoughton.
Spalding, N. (2012) Love … and Sleepless Nights London: Coronet
Stacey, J. (1993) Star Gazing: Hollywood Cinema and Female Spectatorship. London: Routledge.
Stevenson, N., Jackson, P. and Brooks, K. (2003) ‘Reading men’s lifestyle magazines: Cultural power and the information society’. In B. Benwell (ed.) Masculinity and Men’s Lifestyle Magazines 112–31. Oxford: Blackwell.
Tasker, Y. and Negra, D. (2014) Gendering the Recession: Media and Culture in an Age of Austerity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Thompson, L. J. (2013) Mancaves and cushions: making masculine and feminine domestic space in postfeminist romantic comedy. In J. Gwynne and N. Muller (eds) Postfeminism and Contemporary Hollywood Cinema 149–65. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9781137306845.0015
Tincknell, E., Chambers, D., Van Loon, J. and Hudson, N. (2003) Begging for it: new femininities, social agency and moral discourse in contemporary teenage and men’s magazines. Feminist Media Studies 3: 47–63.
Tseelon, E. (1995) The Masque of Femininity: The Presentation of Woman in Everyday Life. London: Sage.
Whelehan, I. (2000) Overloaded: Popular Culture and the Future of Feminism. London: Women’s Press.
Whelehan, I. (2002) Bridget Jones’s Diary: A Reader’s Guide. London: Continuum.
Whelehan, I. (2005) The Feminist Bestseller. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Yardley, C. (2006) Will Write for Shoes: How to Write a Chick Lit Novel. New York: St Martin’s Press.
Published
2014-06-25
Issue
Section
Special Issue Articles
How to Cite
Gill, R. (2014). Powerful women, vulnerable men and postfeminist masculinity in men’s popular fiction. Gender and Language, 8(2), 185-204. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v8i2.185
