Opening of the women's library,London

This article interrogates the ways in which post-feminism and third wave feminism are used interchangeably, both within the academy and in the media. As it identifies the ways in which third wave feminism seeks to define itself as a non-academic discourse, it points up the tensions implicit in the contemporary feminist project. It outlines such popular components of third wave feminism as girl culture, the grrrl movement and BUST magazine, before addressing the arguments concerning agency in such icons as Courtney Love, Madonna and the Spice Girls. Positing that the metonymic gap between the personal and the political allows post-feminism to be a viable alternative to feminism, it argues that the wave paradigm paralyses feminism, pitting generations against one another.