Gender commodity : marketing feminist identities and the promise of security /

Goodman (English, Florida State Univ.) argues that in societies dominated by neoliberal hegemonies, gender has become a commodity, which, like all marketable commodities according to Marx, induces subjects' alienation from the products of their labor. Under modern neoliberalism, Goodman argues, the product of labor is one's gender identity, the production of which is a form of work. Consequently, Goodman suggests, modern feminism must frame a critique of neoliberalism that exposes its hegemony and provides avenues for reconnections to real social relations. This expansive argument rests primarily on examinations of third-wave feminist bloggers Laurie Penny, Clementine Ford, and Jessica Valenti; the movies Drones (2013), by Rick Rosenthal, and A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014), by Ana Lily Amirpour; the novels The Heart Goes Last (2015), by Margaret Atwood, and Confessions of the Fox (2018), by Jordy Rosenberg; and the YouTube channel ContraPoints, which features videos by cultural critic Natalie Wynn. This book is an extension of the provocative thinking that Goodman developed in her previous works, Gender Work: Feminism After Neoliberalism (2013) and Feminist Theory in Pursuit of the Public: Women and the "Re-privatization" of Labor (2010). Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students and faculty. --Gary Douglas MacDonald, Virginia State University