Vernacular Feminism: Gendered Media Cultures and Historical Perspectives on Postdiscourse

Although media studies as a discipline has long been involved in various theoretical elaborations of the “post,” it has been concerned far less often with the past that is purportedly posted. In this piece, the concept of postfeminism provides a useful case to highlight how thoughtful engagement with the past has immense value for contemporary media scholarship. I suggest that postfeminist scholarship has typically tackled history only obliquely—via generational tropes—and that a more direct engagement with media history allows an understanding that reaches past the “now” with which postdiscourse tends to concern itself. Patterns of continuity and change have been brought into view through the access to historical media formats facilitated by digital archives. I propose a concept of vernacular feminism as a tool for analyzing historical postfeminism, pointing to the broader relevance for postdiscourses that involve an evocation of the past in the present.