Doing Postfeminism: Navigating Agency and Structure toward Empowerment in a Consumer Society

• In Event: 209 - Theory Section Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 14. Sex and Gender

Abstract

In sociological research, theorists often debate the extent to which individual members of society actively participate in the construction of society. On one hand, the pragmatic ethnomethodologists believe that individuals actively construct society through interactions in their daily lives. On the other hand, structural approaches believe that external forces coercively provide limited options for members to experience. This disagreement is also reflected in literature related to women’s empowerment through postfeminist media. The current examination situates the postfeminist debate with existing agency/structure literature, paying particular attention to the well-cited ethnomethodological ‘Doing Gender’ research of West and Zimmerman, as well as Baudrillard’s conception of a consumer society. The examination then recalls Bourdieu’s rejection of the “false dichotomy” of agency versus structure and proposes that empowerment in a postfeminist consumer society should be explored through the complex interplay of both aspects of the social world.

Author

• Alyssa Mullins, University of Central Florida