Girlfriends and Postfeminist Sisterhood

From Mean Girl to BFF, Girlfriends and Postfeminist Sisterhood explores female sociality in postfeminist popular culture. Focusing on a range of media forms, including film, magazines, conduct books, TV and digital networking sites, Alison Winch reveals the ways in which friendships are increasingly encouraged to be strategic. Girlfriendship is examined as an affective social relation where slut-shamers, frenemies and bridezillas bond by controlling each other's body image through a 'girlfriend gaze'. Through a combination of psychosociological theory and media analysis, this book offers a complex understanding of patriarchy, by looking at how neoliberalism penetrates the intimate relations between women.

Alison Winch is a lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies at Middlesex University, UK. She has published on gender and sexuality in the Journal of Gender Studies, Feminist Media Studies and Women's Writing, among others.

Introduction: Girlfriend Culture and the Gynaeopticon
1. The Girlfriend Gaze
2. BFF Co-Brands
3. Strategic Sisterhoods
4. Womance
5. Making White Lives Better?
6. Catfight
7. Class and British Reality Television
8. The Friendship Market
Conclusion: Feminism, Friendship and Conflicted Feelings
Bibliography