Sexuality,femininity and fertility control

Fertility control is not a subject to be treated in isolation, rather it must be examined within the wider context of female sexuality which is male defined and male controlled.If women are to avoid unwanted pregnancy they must actively control their own fertility, yet such control can be especially problematic for young women.In this paper the occurrence of unwanted pregnancy is investigated from the standpoint of sexual politics. It is argued that the organization of efficient contraceptive practice entails a positive view of self as controlling one's sexuality and fertility. Hence there is a basic contradiction characterizing the transition to active sexuality.The politics of heterosexual relations are power politics and, as such, the young woman finds herself in a difficult, sometimes insoluble situation.     

Claiming feminism: commentary,autobiography and advice literature for women in the recession

Feminist academics have grown accustomed to the disparagement and misrepresentation of our intellectual endeavours in a climate of antifeminist postfeminism. Yet, in recent years, the position of public feminism has shifted as it is increasingly invoked by celebrities for whom it often functions as a credential of entrepreneurial self-branding. This article identifies and conducts a preliminary analysis of a set of female-authored print texts published in the wake of the ‘Great Recession’ and marked by a distinctly emergent monetisation/corporatisation of feminism. It suggests that these books respond to and further a sense of fraught female aspirationalism in an era of economic contraction and growing signs of neo-patriarchalism.