Core Post 3 - Sabina

This week’s theme on post-feminism really resonated with me as someone who studies various forms of queerness and race on television, similar to the discussions we’ve had in this class on “representation”. I’ve recently begun watching Sex and the City (whenever it is on tv) and something about it felt off to me. Then, Kim Catrall’s character Samantha said “For a sex columnist you have a limited view of sexuality” and something clicked. This show is NOT “sex positive” or “feminist” at all, in fact every episode reinforces white, heterosexual, “normative” behaviors despite claiming to be about women’s sexual freedom and the “power of being a woman in the city”. Most obvious, almost too obvious, is Carrie Bradshaw’s character. On the one hand, she is supposed to be emulated. She has her own column in a newspaper/magazine and has enough money to spend it on an apartment and various other material items (shoes). She is in control of her sexuality and she emulates this neoliberal “girl boss/climbing the ladder” idea. On the other hand, her desire for Mr. Big to notice her, to be with her, and to support her financially reinforces gender stereotypes and mainstream ideas of heteronormative femininity/womanhood. Carrie’s lack of support for her friends, as seen through her selfish behaviors, self-centered actions, and actions like interrupting Charlotte’s engagement news with her break up news shows her ultimate placement of a man above her “friends”, further pushing the idea that happiness can only be found in men. It reminds me of McRobbie’s quote, “Feminism is “taken into account,” but only to be shown to be no longer necessary.” The show considers feminism by talking about women’s sexual pleasures and women’s success in their careers/in a capitalist society, but ultimately tosses that all aside and centers men, platforming a neoliberal vision of feminism.