Feminist Organization Studies and PostFeminism: Exploring a New Agenda

This paper presents a review of the notion of postfeminism and argues that an understanding of this cultural phenomenon should be inserted into feminist organization studies. While various feminist perspectives have a well established presence within organization studies and acknowledge that full gender equity has still to be achieved, there is less recognition that the continued pursuit of equality is occurring within a postfeminist cultural milieu, which regularly asserts the claim that gender issues have been dealt with and equality ‘secured’. The strong cultural presence of the postfeminist claim that gender issues have been ‘sorted’ certainly complicates and disrupts the continuing need for feminist theorising within a field such as organization studies. In providing a review of postfeminism, the paper also considers its conflation with and differentation from third wave feminism as there has been confusion and slippage between the two with a resultant lack of clarity regarding how they are differentiated from each other. In addition, while there are some similarities between postfeminism and third wave feminism around for example explorations of contemporary femininity, third wave feminism provides us with the means to critique postfeminism as a cultural phenomenon. In the final part of the paper, an example of how postfeminism can be used within the organization studies context, which focuses on the emergence of entrepreneurial femininities among women business owners, is presented.