The Rise of Neoliberal Feminism & Empowered: Popular Feminism and Popular Misogyny

Catherine Rottenberg: The Rise of Neoliberal Feminism.
From Hillary Clinton to Ivanka Trump, more and more high-powered women are unabashedly identifying as feminists. In this talk, Catherine Rottenberg discusses her recently published book, The Rise of Neoliberal Feminism, offering insight into why we are witnessing this new phenomenon in which feminism has suddenly become a source of pride and cultural capital for high-profile women. She argues that not only is a new strand of feminism on the rise but that neoliberalism may actually need feminism in order to "solve" the thorny issues of reproduction and care work.   
“Written with energetic sparkling prose and great erudition, Catherine Rottenberg displays a capacious knowledge of all the recent twists and turns in popular presentations of feminism. This is exactly the book we need now to grapple with a neoliberal rationality working to undermine feminist resistance to the worsening situation of the majority of women, while clearing pathways for a passionate return to dynamic feminist dialogue and creative, all-embracing feminist practices.” (Lynne Segal, author of Radical Happiness: Moments of Collective Joy)
Sarah Banet-Weiser: Empowered: Popular Feminism and Popular Misogyny.
In this book, Banet-Weiser contends with how, and in what ways, the rise of popular feminism in the twenty-first-century North American and European context has encouraged both a response and an intensification of popular misogyny. Analyzing popular feminist and popular misogynist expressions, practices, and activism on multiple media platforms, she argues that we need to understand the relationship between popular feminism and popular misogyny in order to grasp the significance, and the endurance, of both. In the contemporary moment, popular feminism and popular misogyny are created, expressed, and circulated within an economy of visibility, a mediated context that emphasizes visibility in an era of advanced capitalism and networked, multiple media platforms.
“Put down that ‘Cats Against Patriarchy’ mug and hear a bitter truth: the friendly glimmer of popular feminism is shadowed at every turn by a virulent misogyny that's proven just as valuable in the cultural and political marketplace. In Empowered Sarah Banet-Weiser draws on years of scholarship to examine this fast-curdling symbiosis, tracing its persuasions and promises with an engrossing urgency.”
(Andi Zeisler, author of We Were Feminists Once: From Riot Grrrl to CoverGirl®, the Buying and Selling of a Political Movement)
Catherine Rottenberg is an Associate Professor in the American and Canadian Studies Department at the University of Nottingham. She is the author of The Rise of Neoliberal Feminism (Oxford, 2018), Performing Americanness (Dartmouth, 2008), and editor of Black Harlem and the Jewish Lower East Side (SUNY 2013).
Sarah Banet-Weiser is Professor of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics.  She is the author of Empowered: Popular Feminism and PopularMisogyny (Duke, 2018), and Authentic™: The Politics of Ambivalence in a Brand Culture (NYU, 2012), and the co-editor of Commodity Activism: Cultural Resistance in Neoliberal Times (NYU 2012) and Racism Postrace (Duke 2019), among others.  She is currently the co-editor of Communication, Culture & Critique.  
Angela McRobbie is Professor of Communications at Goldsmiths College, University of London. She is the author of Be Creative: Making a Living in the New Culture Industries (2015), The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change (2008), The Uses of Cultural Studies (2005), British Fashion Design: Rag Trade or Image Industry? (1998).
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Catherine Rottenberg
The Rise of Neoliberal Feminism
Oxford University Press, 2018
Sarah Banet-Weiser
Empowered: Popular Feminism and Popular Misogyny
Duke University Press, 2018