UNDERSTANDING

(POST)FEMINIST GIRLHOOD
THROUGH YOUNG ADULT
FANTASY LITERATURE
Elizabeth Little
Understanding (Post)feminist
Girlhood Through Young Adult
Fantasy Literature

Understanding (Post)feminist Girlhood Through Young Adult Fantasy

Literature takes advantage of growing critical interest in popular young
adult texts and their influence on young people. The monograph offers
an innovative approach by pairing traditional literary analysis with the
responses of readers to show the complex ways that young people respond
to the depiction of female protagonists. In the first section, the book uti-
lises a feminist framework to examine young adult fantasy novels pub-
lished from 2012 to 2018, with a particular focus on A Court of Thorns
and Roses (Maas, 2015) and Red Queen (Aveyard, 2015). The analysis
shows how strong female protagonists in young adult fantasy are post-
feminist heroines who reinscribe patriarchal power structures, embrace
limited understandings of gender roles, and persist in relationships that
oppress them. In the second section, the monograph introduces empirical
data from a series of focus groups discussing those same novels. The dis-
cussion shows that readers respond to these popular young adult fantasy
texts with complexity and nuance that highlights their postfeminist subjec-
tivities as they simultaneously reject and reinscribe elements of postfemi-
nism in their understanding of the girl protagonists.

Elizabeth Little is a Lecturer in the Faculty of Arts and Education at Deakin

University, Geelong, Australia.
Understanding (Post)feminist
Girlhood Through Young
Adult Fantasy Literature

Elizabeth Little
First published 2025
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ISBN: 9781032776996 (hbk)

ISBN: 9781032786797 (pbk)
ISBN: 9781003488972 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003488972

Typeset in Sabon
by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.
To my daughters

Agnes and Sybil

and all girls who love to read
and for Alistair.
Contents

Acknowledgements x
Prologue xi

1 Introduction 1
Understanding girlhood 4
Understanding postfeminism 8
Reading YA fantasy literature 12
Reading sexuality in YA literature 16
Chapter outlines 18

SECTION I
Contemporary young adult fantasy literature 23
2 “I swear this happens in all of these books”:
Femininity, agency, and sexuality in popular
young adult fantasy novels 25
Understanding the themes examined in discourse
analysis 26
Femininity and strength in popular YA fantasy texts 29
Portrayals of agency and power in YA fantasy 36
Depictions of sexuality and romance in popular
YA fantasy novels 38
3 Postfeminism in the A Court of Thorns and Roses
and Red Queen series 47
Femininity 49
Makeovers and transformations 52
Gender roles 54
viii Contents

Agency and power 56

Privileging male power 59
Reclaiming strength, desirability, agency,
and power 62
Sexuality and romance 65
Female sexuality in Red Queen 66
Female sexuality in ACOTAR 72
Conclusion 78

SECTION II
Girl readers’ reading of young adult fantasy79
4 “It’s our turn to talk books”: The girl participants 81
Girls’ agency and voice in feminist qualitative research 81
The girls 85
Victoria 85
Peggy 85
Vera 86
Samantha 86
Sarah-Jane 86
Ruth 86
Feminism 86
The school 90
Key concepts in literary studies 93
Understanding genre 93
Understanding girlhood 98
Considering context and postfeminist subjectivities 102
5 “Girls can actually do something, you know”:
Femininity and gender in ACOTAR and
Red Queen 104
“She’s such a super-sassy female protagonist.
I love her!” 104
“She is better at being a girl” 107
The “glow up” 111
“They should write a book with just girls being
friends” 114
“She shouldn’t have to perform for him, or anyone” 116
Conclusion 117
 Contents ix

6 “Her lack of choices is the whole point of the plot”:

Agency and power in ACOTAR and Red Queen 119
“Choice-less choices” 119
(Re)constituting agency in the individual 123
Male manipulation of agency 128
Conclusion 132
7 “That’s the good stuff”: Romance and sexuality
in ACOTAR and Red Queen  134
Reading romance and the girls’ maturity
and understanding 135
Romance 137
“I don’t really ship them” 137
“There were so many red flags” 141
Sexuality 143
“The scene is cute, but it’s just not right” 144
“No one asked her, but she had a choice” 148
“Chapter 55”, “The Soup” and A Court of Mist
and Fury 151
Conclusion 153
8 “When can we do this again?”: Concluding
thoughts on postfeminism and popular young
adult fantasy texts 155
Mediating identity 156
Further research and implications 158
Conclusion 159

Epilogue 160
References 161
Index 174
Acknowledgements

My sincerest thank you to the many people who made the completion of
this book and the research project possible.
To my dear friend and colleague, Associate Professor Kristine Moruzi.
Thank you for the many hours of work you have given to me and this
project, and the eight years we have spent working together. I am grateful
for your encouragement, mentorship and guidance, and most of all your
friendship. Thank you for encouraging me on my journey as a scholar, a
teacher, and a mother.
To Dr Claire Charles, thank you for your wisdom and guidance, par-
ticularly regarding research in schools and with girls. You inspired me to
continue working in education research and challenged me to keep the
girls at the centre of this project.
Thank you to my Deakin University colleagues, who have challenged
and encouraged me over the years. My thanks to the many secondary
school educators and colleagues who spurred me on and supported my
dream of pursuing this project.
Thank you to my parents Jill and Neil Crompton for instilling values of
curiosity and learning in me from the beginning. Thank you to my brother
Jonanthon for teaching me to dream big and follow my passions, and to
my sister-in-law Dana. Thank you to Dale and Peter Little for their sup-
port and encouragement. Thank you to Stacey for listening to me, baby-
sitting without question, and being the sister I never had.
Thank you to the girls who introduced me to A Court of Thorns and
Roses, and the girls who, with their participation in the online focus groups,
made this research possible. I am so grateful for the enthusiastic way you
approached the novels and your willingness to share your thoughts with
me. Your openness and insights were invaluable.
Finally, thank you to my darling girls, and my beloved husband and
fiercest supporter, Alistair. Without your love, patience, sacrifice, and en-
couragement, this book would never have been written. Thank you.
Prologue

Several years ago, just before Year 11 English class began, a student
approached me to recommend I read a young adult (YA) fantasy novel
that she had enjoyed. She held the latest publication from popular author
Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Thorns and Roses (2015), offering me her copy
to borrow. But be warned, this girl said, it gets very steamy and it’s not
always consensual. I asked her how she felt about that, and whether it
was really worth reading if the relationship included abuse. She assured
me that it was totally fine and that, in fact, she would have loved to be in
a relationship like that.
I wanted to know more. The teacher in me wondered whether this girl
was critically engaging with the narrative. How was the romance fine, and
why was it desirable to be in a relationship that included non-consensual
intimacy? Was this something she read regularly? What other books had
similar tropes? The feminist in me wondered what kind of girl character
was in the story. How did the relationship work out? Unfortunately, the
bell for class rang and we both returned to our roles as teacher and stu-
dent. My questions remained unanswered.
I considered this brief conversation for years to come, and the questions
raised in this moment triggered the journey that led to this book.
1 Introduction

Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, the growth of the young
adult (YA) literary genre has been exponential, with a “plethora of works
published” for 12- to 18-year-olds (Cullinan et al. 2005, p. 224). The YA
fantasy genre then exploded following the success of J.K. Rowling’s Harry
Potter series and the popularity of the subsequent films (Cart 2016; Cullinan
2005). The fantasy genre was “revived”, and publishers were forced to
“look at [it] with new respect” to meet the demands of the market (Nilsen
and Donelson 2009, p. 218). The number of young adult books published
increased to over 15,000 a year by 2012 (Whitford and Vineyard 2013),
with YA fantasy and romance forming a significant part of that number.
Growth has continued in recent years with the increased popularity of
social media application TikTok’s book community, BookTok, becoming a
significant contributor to popularity and sales of YA fantasy novels.
The popularity of YA fantasy is largely unsurprising, given that it
allows readers to access the familiar aspects of the “coming of age”
trope, but in creative ways with protagonists of a similar age to readers,
plots and places with complexity and variety, and a serious voice and
tone (Cullinan 2005, p. 232). YA literature provides readers with a “dis-
tinctly teen voice” that engages the audience on a new level (Stephens
2007, p. 40). Melissa Thomas (2003) found that fantasy was popular
with teens in the classroom for two reasons: “1. Students like it. 2. It is a
metaphor for the human condition – rife with mythic structures, heroic
cycles and social commentary” (p. 60). YA fantasy, more so than realist
texts, gives readers access to a world with potentially familiar scenarios
that are played out with “overt grandeur” and dramatization (November
2004, p. 33), intensifying the possibilities of heroes’ decisions and thus
the imagination of the reader (Baker 1993, p. 622). Anna Silver describes
teenage students looking for a novel that will “take them away to an-
other world, not like this one” (2006, p. 47), where, through the deci-
sions of the hero, they are able to experience many variable possibilities
for real-life dilemmas.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003488972-1
2 Understanding (Post)feminist Girlhood

Consequently, YA literature is increasingly being interrogated for its

impact on culture as readers use the texts to create meaning in the real
world. The influence of media on the development of children is not a
new phenomenon, since childhood has long been recognised “as a stage
in which external influences play a crucial role in formulating subjec-
tivity” (Miller 2014, p. 122). The foundational work of John Stephens,
Peter Hollindale, Perry Nodelman, and Mavis Reimer has argued for
years that literature for children and young adults carries ideologies into
which children are socialised. Recent research demonstrates that reading
fiction clearly influences the identity construction of young adults and
can inform not only personality, but also “ethical development” (Pattee
2006, p. 32).1 According to Amy Bonomi et al. (2014), “stories are es-
pecially influential” because readers are “drawn into them and cognitive
resources, emotions and mental imagery faculties are engaged” (p. 734).2
Narratives are uniquely placed to influence children and teenagers in their
development.
Contemporary YA texts have also popularised female protagonists.
Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games (2008), as well as Veronica Roth’s
Divergent series (2011), quickly garnered the admiration of teenage girl
readers, with the strong and independent protagonists taking centre stage.
Both series, also subsequently made into multi-million-dollar film fran-
chises, were praised for their female protagonists who seemed to push
back against the usual construction of girls in YA literature, avoiding the
stereotypically feminine characterisation and narrative progressions. How-
ever, scholars such as Andrea Ruthven (2017) and Katha Pollitt (2012)
interrogated the perceived positives of these representations, exposing the
more nuanced aspects of the protagonists that reinforce conservative or
traditional depictions of girlhood, including depictions of femininity that
promote female subordination and minimise the implications of intimate
partner violence.3
Questions about the representation of female protagonists in YA lit-
erature have prompted discussions of the potential influence of these
narratives on readers. The popularity of the Twilight series led to ground-
breaking research of the danger of portraying an “abusive, co-dependent”
relationship (Borgia 2014, p. 157).4 The trend in YA fantasy fiction to
include romance “demands a serious critical reading” of the way narra-
tives produce “cultural meaning” (Borgia 2014, p. 153). For example, the
Twilight trilogy glamorises negative behaviours in ways that the public
“would not be inclined to accept unless veiled in the cloak of the supernat-
ural”, particularly in how they “idealise and romanticise abusive relation-
ships” (Borgia 2014, p. 155). Gail Dines’ (2014) criticism of E.L. James’
adult trilogy 50 Shades of Grey further highlighted connections between
reading behaviour and the sexual and relationship habits of readers.
 Introduction 3

In addition to this social and cultural atmosphere, the readers of YA

fantasy texts are negotiating the ever more complex years of teenage
girlhood. As the twenty-first century has progressed, understandings of,
and scholarship on, girlhood have demonstrated the elaborate negotia-
tions girls are forced to make every day, particularly in relation to media
and cultural products (Harris 2004; Ringrose 2012). Teenage girls are
spending more time viewing images of what “perfect femininity” looks
like on Instagram in hypersexualised images of celebrities, while also nav-
igating slut-shaming culture in the school yard (Willis 2008). They are
seeing “empowered” women use #metoo to call out sexual harassment
in the workplace, while also negotiating the exciting sexual or romantic
attention of their fellow students. How young adult women understand
definitions of girlhood is further complicated by the presence of many
“feminisms” in the twenty-first century.
This book interrogates the confluence of several current and developing
social and cultural trends: The growing popularity of YA fantasy litera-
ture; the complexity of girlhood and identity formation; the persistence of
postfeminist culture; and the influential nature of narratives and their use
as educational resources. Ultimately, I answer the key question: How do
teenage girls understand what it means to be a girl through young adult
fantasy fiction? I do this by examining YA fantasy novels featuring female
protagonists with a focus on femininity, agency, and gender and sexuality,
and then by discussing two of these novels, A Court of Thorns and Roses
(2015) by Sarah J. Maas and Red Queen (2015) by Victoria Aveyard, in
more details with teen girls.
In later chapters, girl readers then voice their understandings and per-
spectives on the three focus areas, while also considering how the texts
may be encouraging or influencing their own identity development. This
research not only analyses representations of girl characters in popular YA
fantasy texts, but also seeks girl readers’ responses to these texts to explore
the extent to which girls are influenced by these texts and whether they are
critically aware of the complex representations in these novels. Ultimately,
this book contributes to the ongoing discussion of girlhood construction
in the light of popular novels that contemporary girls are reading. This
book moves the conversation from speculation about how implied readers
may respond to the depiction of key themes to analysis of real girl readers’
responses to the two chosen novels.
This research is significant in the new knowledge it has produced on
an otherwise unexamined field. Girls are negotiating ever more com-
plex ideas and experiences in relation to gender, sexuality, and agency.
Attention is being given to other media forms that may be influencing
girls’ identity construction, yet the popular genre of YA fantasy and the
everyday action of reading have not received adequate attention. Now is
4 Understanding (Post)feminist Girlhood

the time to prioritise scholarship that investigates girlhood construction in

relation to YA fantasy.
Through the discussion and analysis, I use feminist lens to examine
the impact of postfeminism on the construction of girlhood. Drawing
on the theories of Stephanie Genz and Benjamin Brabon (2009), Angelia
McRobbie (2009), and Rosalind Gill (2008), postfeminism is under-
stood as an entangled sensibility where feminist goals are understood as
achieved, and rhetoric of empowerment and independent choice are at
the fore. Postfeminist culture positions girls to view themselves as equal
in all ways and neglects critical engagement with ongoing systemic and
structural inequality.
In the following sections, I outline how girlhood and postfeminism
can be understood in the first decades of the twenty-first century and
detail the significance of these concepts in setting the tone of the cultural
and social settings for contemporary girls. This is followed by a discus-
sion of YA fantasy and how sexuality is typically depicted in these texts
with a particular focus on the role of YA as an educational tool. In the
final section, I provide an overview of methodology and process utilised
in this research. This chapter establishes the foundational concepts and
processes utilised in this project to situate this research within broader
conversations about the convergence between texts, identity formation,
girlhood, and feminism.

Understanding girlhood
Girlhood in the twenty-first century is increasingly complex. It is argu-
ably the most turbulent time of a woman’s life, with “vast, varied and
intricate” contestations (Vasconcellos and Helgren 2010, p. ix). Its mul-
tiplicity is aptly encapsulated by Anita Harris’ (2004) introductory list
of the young women visible in society: “good girls, bad girls, schoolgirls,
Ophelias, third wavers, no wavers, B girls, riot grrrls, cybergURLs, queen
bees, tweenies, Girlies: young women suddenly seem to be everywhere”
(p. xvii). It has been 20 years since Harris compiled this list, yet the options
for girls remain largely the same. Girlhood is no longer a simple step up
the “maturational ladder” towards adulthood (Brown 2010, p. 108), but
is also influenced by historical, social, political, and cultural discourses.
Girlhood is a foundational concept for this book, as it determines the
complexity of the culture being navigated by the girls who are the basis
for this research. The follow section outlines how girlhood scholarship es-
tablishes this current cultural moment, between 2015 and 2024, as a par-
ticularly tumultuous time for girls to determine their identity and asserts
that media texts of many forms are influencing their identity construction.
Girlhood studies also assert that girls are unique in their experience of
 Introduction 5

childhood years, and this uniqueness warrants detailed consideration and

demands the voice of individual girls be heard.
The understanding of girlhood as historically, socially, politically, and
culturally conceptualised is a significant development of twenty-first-century
scholarship. Until relatively recently, studies into childhood and youth ac-
cepted “boys’ experiences as normative” (Vasconcellos and Helgren 2010,
p. 3)5 and “systematically overlooked” experiences of girls (Harris 2004,
p. xviii). However, girls’ experiences are unique. They have “complex and
multifarious” identities, which are produced in a conflation of influences
(Harris 2004, p. xx). Valerie Walkerdine (1997) argues that girls are con-
stituted at the intersection of various competing claims to truth. Christine
Griffin (2004) asserts that “there is nothing essential about girlhood”,
but rather it is “always produced and negotiated (by us all, but especially
by girls) in particular historical and political moments” (p. 29). Jennifer
Eisenhauer (2004) adds that being a girl is “not simply something that
someone is” but something that “one is discursively constituted as” (p. 79,
emphasis in original). The discussion of girlhood remains pertinent, despite
the first theories being offered 30 odd years ago. For example, scholars at
Rutgers University launched the Girlhood Studies Collective last year, with
an international symposium featuring more than 50 presentations (Girl-
hood Studies Collective 2023). Critical engagement with questions of what
it means to be a girl continues to be relevant and needed.
Furthermore, research that seeks to comment on the identity construc-
tion of girls and young women navigates a complex terrain of gender and
biological identity. The Victorian Government State Department of Edu-
cation and Training, the jurisdiction where I worked as a secondary school
teacher in Australia, has recently adopted a policy on gender identity that
includes various gender fluid terms and seeks to ensure equal opportuni-
ties for those who identify with a gender different from the sex they were
born with (State Government of Victoria 2021). The “self-evident” as-
sumption that “girls are female children” no longer stands (Driscoll 2002,
p. 2). Young females must now also consider that having the biological
aspects of female does not necessarily confirm their identity as a girl. What
it means to be a girl is both collectively and individually experienced, and
produced and reproduced in and through social, cultural, and historical
practices. While this research engages with people of a specific age, and a
specific gender, I do not maintain that participants naturally fit into spe-
cific categories, or that once they identify a certain way they must remain
fixed within it. For the purpose of this research, “girl” is understood as a
person between the ages of 11 and 18, or high school age, who identifies as
a girl and experiences the consequences of this identity. It is worth noting
too that I use the term “girls” repeatedly in this book, but I use it without
the patronising undertones it is often associated with. The participants
6 Understanding (Post)feminist Girlhood

refer to themselves as girls, and as this book shows, that is an identity that
is complicated and sophisticated, and not to be scoffed at.
Girlhood studies scholars assert that contemporary girls are navigating
neoliberal messages in relation to individuality, choice, agency, and power.
Progress into the twenty-first century has seen a move away from an indus-
trial modernity mindset that is characterised by capitalism, manufacturing,
and community identities towards a global capitalism that is characterised
by individual progress and prosperity (Harris 2004, p. 3), or what Gill
(2007) describes as neoliberalism. Neoliberalism has created a culture that
values individuality and encourages girls to assert power and authority
in their decisions, as they now have access to economic and social insti-
tutions that were previously monopolised by men. The new market has
led to greater opportunities for employment and education for women,
changes to discrimination laws, and ideas about choice and freedom that
are central to concepts of individuality (Harris 2004, p. 8). Neoliberalism
has encouraged choice, agency, and power to be used for individual gain,
a significant shift from the humanist understanding of agency as unlim-
ited, universalised, and absolute freedom: Instead, choice refers to “one’s
ability to choose maximum material gain and profit”, while agency is the
ability to be “active” in this materialistic endeavour (Chen 2013, p. 443).
Harris argues that the current generation of young women, particularly
white middle-class girls, is defined by choices that will lead to a new “way
of being” that is influenced by “girls’ educational success; their consump-
tion, leisure and fashion practices; apparent rejection of institutionalised
feminism; sexual assertiveness; professional ambitions; delayed mother-
hood and so on” (2004, p. 17). While these changes seemingly give girls
better opportunities, postfeminist scholars would question whether con-
temporary girls have true agency, or if they are simply being restricted and
disciplined in new and nuanced ways (Gill 2007, 2008). In this research,
I problematise the assumption of agency and choice, and explore girls’ per-
spectives on YA fantasy’s representation of agential female protagonists.
Girls and young women are also negotiating a complex space when
considering sexuality and romance. On the one hand, they exist in a hyper-
sexualised culture in which women’s bodies are used to sell any and every
product (Brown 2016). In the 1990s, Griffin (1993) asserted the impos-
sibility of navigating the tension between “good” and “bad” girls, while
Lesley Johnson (1993) similarly interrogated the contradictions involved
in growing up as a girl. The contemporary girl in Western culture is “objec-
tified” for her “potentiality for capitalist reproduction”, and much of the
media she views will position her as a consumer (Pincock 2018, p. 908).
The “confidence culture” has a “gendered technology of self” that works
productively by calling girls “to act upon [them]selves” and consume pro-
duces for improvement (Gill and Orgad 2017, p. 4). On the other hand,
 Introduction 7

girls’ social media newsfeeds are inundated with the popularised #metoo
campaign, calling out sexual harassment and bringing light to women’s
experiences of relationship and intimate partner violence. Yet, women are
also defined by ideals that “valorise a norm of femininity located within a
heteronormative imperative” (Pincock 2018, p. 908; see also Butler 1990).
As McRobbie (2004) explains:

Young women have license now to be badly behaved (drunk disor-

derly and undressed on any number of TV programs about females
on holiday in Spanish resorts), while at the same time they reinhabit
tradition (with some barely perceptible ironic inflection) by rediscov-
ering with delight, rituals and customs which feminism has dispensed
with, including ‘hens nights’, lavish white weddings, and the adop-
tion of the male surname on marriage. (p. 9)

Girls experience contradictory messages about sexuality and romance,

and this research questions the potential influence of YA fantasy on con-
structing girlhood identities in relation to these key aspects.
Girls’ understanding of success is informed by the nuanced ways they
experience and define sexuality, romance, agency, power, and choice.
Scholars of girlhood studies invest in determining and challenging how
girls constitute success, or believe they have “achieved” girlhood, and
clear tension exists. Girls are supposed to have the world at their feet yet,
as Harris (2004) claims, academic, journalistic, and popular debates also
highlight the “increasing fears about young women’s low self-esteem and
risk behaviours” as they seek to succeed in their girlhood (p. 13). Girls
have difficulty trying to get through girlhood “successfully” to become
“the right kind of woman” (Driscoll 2002, p. 2).
Furthermore, definitions of girlhood are influenced by the increased
focus on girls, both as being celebrated and scrutinised. Girls are now vis-
ible than ever and are applauded if considered “successful” (Harris 2004,
p. 4), but “also scrutinised” when they do not meet society’s expectations
(Driscoll 2002, p. 3). The vested interest in highlighting the successes of
girls and young women has created more opportunities for exposure in
general, and thus more space for “failure” (Harris 2004, p. 9) and more
regulation of all girls as they seek to avoid the “aberrant experiences” of
those who do not “make it” (p. 1). Catherine Driscoll (2013) asserts that it
is “imperative” that researchers know that “ideal Girls” are “inseparable
from highly visible critiques” (p. 293). Girls are consuming and processing
complex messages about what they need to be, as well as complex mes-
sages about what success as a girl will look like. In this research, I seek
to encourage critical engagement with how girls understand success or
failure, or even simply being, in light of the many varied understandings
8 Understanding (Post)feminist Girlhood

of what these terms connote. By using a feminist lens to interrogate what

“success” looks like in postfeminist culture, I will consider how girl read-
ers understand and aspire to the girlhood represented in YA fantasy.

Understanding postfeminism
Various feminisms are currently in use as interrogative theoretical frame-
works, particularly in cultural, literary, and media studies. Tyson (2014)
asserts that the term “feminisms” should be used “to underscore the mul-
tiplicity of points of view of its adherents and offer ways of thinking that
oppose the traditional tendency to believe there is a single best point of
view” (p. 79, emphasis in original). Gill (2007) similarly asserts, “there
is no single feminism, but instead many, diverse feminisms” (p. 2). Many
uses of third-wave feminism, postfeminism, celebrity feminism, and new
feminism seek to define the terms as lineal and static concepts. However,
I believe that attempts to stringently explain and narrow the meaning of
any branch of feminism and delineate the concept to a series of “tick lists”
(Genz 2006, p. 340) fail to adequately consider the numerous and varied
ways that gender politics operate in society.
In this book, I apply a contemporary feminist framework. I acknowl-
edge, however, that feminism continues to be a contested term with multiple
meanings. As Lucinda McKnight (2016, p. 3) questions, “Are we feminists?
What are feminists? What is feminism?”. The current feminist climate is
one of many strongly held and sometimes opposing understandings of what
it means to be female or to identify as a woman. Historically, according to
Scholz (2010), feminism developed in three major waves. First-wave femi-
nism refers to the period of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centu-
ries, where women were seeking equality within the civil sphere, primarily
through voting and property rights. Second-wave feminism built on the
work of earlier feminists, but extended their concerns to include issues of
sexuality, family, workplace, reproductive rights, and other legal inequali-
ties. Middle-class white women largely drove the movement, and it was
from this perceived deficiency that third-wave feminism emerged. While
“acknowledging that it stands of the shoulders of other, earlier feminist
movements”, third-wave feminism seeks to move beyond the limited focus
of its predecessor (Heywood and Drake 1997, p. 7). Third-wave feminism
aims to look further than the “civil, intellectual, social, economic and legal
rights” of women to include “other sources of oppression” such as “stereo-
typing, violence and oppression” as well as considering “women’s bodies as
sites of domination” (Scholz 2010, pp. 6–7).
More recently, feminism has been theorised in further waves, some
of which overlap with each other while continuing to build on previous
waves. Parry (2019) describes the fourth wave as using social media “to
 Introduction 9

take up the micropolitics of the third wave while situating their individual
lived experiences within broader global discourses” (p. 1). This has, ac-
cording to their research, seen an increase in “collective movements based
on social, economic and political agendas” that build from second wave
organising tactics (p. 2). At the same time, intersectional feminism has
come to the fore. While initially theorised by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1988,
the term has been taken up fervently in response to continued discrimi-
nation of marginalised people (Khaleeli 2016). Crenshaw (1988, p. 140)
identified that certain people experienced oppression in layer ways, namely
Black women working for General Motors, where elements of their iden-
tity that uniquely marginalised them intersected, making them “multiply-
burdened”. In contemporary terms, intersectional feminism has assisted
in framing discussions about many marginalised people. Simultaneously,
celebrity feminism has surfaced internationally, with feminist activism re-
ceiving significant attention from celebrities and social media influencers.
As Jackson (2021) discusses, while there has been an increase in the gen-
eral dialogue around feminist issues, celebrity feminism has seen a shift
away from activism and consideration of the way systemic and structural
oppression continues.
Despite spending time defining these various waves, I agree with Angela
McRobbie (2009) who states that thinking about feminism in this way
can be limiting. Considering theories in different stages of achievement
“stifles” a rich understanding of feminism by emphasising “heterosexual
kinship metaphors about mothers and daughters” and privileging the idea
that activist movements have “beginnings and endings” (p. 126). Instead,
I view feminism as an amalgamation of all of these theoretical underpin-
nings that is mediated through my own identity, outlined below.
Importantly, I argue that the contemporary cultural moment is dis-
tinctly postfeminist. While there is significant debate over the meaning of
postfeminism, in this research, I draw on the work of Rosalind Gill and
Angelia McRobbie to view postfeminism as a sensibility – or as the girls
who participated in the research for this book said – a “vibe”. This “vibe”
imbues societal and cultural attitudes about women and marginalised peo-
ple. The postfeminist sensibility is a tense space where the feminist goals
of the first and second waves are viewed as completed, and women are
believed to be equal in all ways. Because of this equality, women and other
marginalised people are free to negotiate with the world as they will, fully
in control and agential.
Postfeminist culture embraces “competing discourses” that position
girls and women as empowered and liberated, yet uphold and maintain
the bounds of patriarchal structures and power dynamics.
Angela McRobbie and Rosalind Gill argue postfeminism has a vested
interest in maintaining the subjugated position of women and girls in many
10 Understanding (Post)feminist Girlhood

ways. For example, perceived freedoms in regards to female sexuality are

“celebrated by the feminist movement” (Genz 2006, p. 344). However,
within a postfeminist framing, those same expressions of female sexuality
simultaneously operate within a “patriarchal interest in heterosexual femi-
ninity” (Genz 2006, p. 344). Discourses of “freedom and choice” in vari-
ous forms of media “actually generate highly regulatory frameworks for
girls’ identities” (Charles 2014, p. 2). The postfeminist girl emerges from
“contemporary writing as active, empowered, above influence and be-
holden to no one, able to choose to ‘use beauty’ to make herself feel good,
feel confident” (Gill 2007, p. 74) yet “feminist politics are undermined
or made redundant” (Charles 2014, p. 28). When revisiting the defini-
tion of postfeminism “10 years on”, Gill (2017) offers a succinct litera-
ture review6 that highlights key aspects of the sensibility as: Emphasis on
choice and agency, the disappearance of vocabularies for talking about
structural inequalities and cultural influence, the prevalence of the beauty-
industrial complex, intensification of disciplining women’s bodies, influ-
ence of the makeover paradigm beyond appearance to also incapsulate
the self (p. 613). Postfeminist discourses are “contradictory in nature”
and present girls in a “double-entanglement” (Gill 2007, p. 149) as they
pursue apparent feminist themes and updated gender politics while main-
taining the rigid patriarchal expectations of girls and women.
There has been some speculation over the continued relevance of criti-
cal engagement with postfeminism particularly as feminist politics have
supposedly become more mainstream. In 2013, Beyonce released a song
called “Flawless”, and the film clip included a section of Chimamanda
Ngozi Adichie’s TedTalk “We should all be feminists”. A year later, ac-
tress Emma Watson gave a speech to the United Nations in her role as
Goodwill Ambassador for UN Women to launch the “He for She” cam-
paign against gender violence. There was a growing sense that feminist
rhetoric had been normalised – feminism was accepted. Roxanne Gay
(2014) pondered the prevalence of these “fame-inists”, suggesting that
having feminist icons to follow may be good, if only we knew where we
wanted them to take us. At the same time, Jessalynn Keller and Mau-
reen Ryan (2014) argued that “postfeminism falls short of adequately
accounting for complicated politics, as well as the internal dynamics of
various forms of feminism currently visible across media culture” (cited
in Gill 2017, p. 613). Retallack, Ringrose, and Lawrence (2016) argued
that postfeminism is “potentially redundant” given the increased visibil-
ity of social-media based feminisms.
Gill (2017, p. 611) describes this time as “a moment in which feminism
has seemingly moved from being a derided and repudiated identity among
women to become a desirable stylish and decidedly fashionable one” and
 Introduction 11

with this supposed normalisation came a corresponding rise in “forms of

anti-feminism and popular misogyny” (Gill 2017, p. 612). While Banet-
Weiser (2015) argued that feminism “is certainly popular right now”, Gill
(2017, p. 618) furthered that this “does not mean a feminist future is
secure, or that feminist politics are suddenly hegemonic”, meaning nor-
malised and accepted.
Critical engagement with postfeminism is still relevant with contem-
porary media culture, despite 20 years passing since Gill and McRobbie
first began discussing texts such as Bridget Jones Diary and The Spice
Girls. This is evident in contemporary research into feminist media cul-
tures. Tamar Taber and Natalie Coulter (2023) similarly analysed post-
feminist sensibilities in texts for girls, highlighting the way teen girls were
portrayed in three Disney and Nickelodeon tween comedies. Eve Ben-
nett (2023) examines how costuming choices in contemporary “feminist”
texts in-fact re-establish postfeminism as integral to girls and women’s
success. Imogen Wara and Joost de Bruin (2023, p. 3) explore the feminist
heroine in the new Star Wars trilogy, Rey, arguing that she encourages
girls to navigate the postfeminist double-bind of “when to be girls and
when to be powerful, when to be mother and when to be professional,
when to be sexy for male pleasure and when to be sexy for their own
pleasure”. These scholars are all doing the same thing – their work is
“a feminist analysis of postfeminist culture”, a practice still relevant and
necessary because feminism is still relevant and necessary (Banet-Weiser
et al. 2020, p. 5): The emphasis used here indicates that it is the analytical
stance towards postfeminist “vibes” that is essential. This research uses
a feminist framework to examine the presence of postfeminist culture in
young adult fantasy texts to better understand how implied and real girl
readers are positioned to respond to girl characters.
I understand feminist research as inherently invested in social, politi-
cal, and economic equality between all peoples. The positionality of re-
searchers alter how they mediate feminism as they do feminist research.
As a white, cis-gendered, heterosexual, middle-class educated woman,
now a mother to two girls, with a metropolitan Australian upbringing
during the 1990s, my experience of gender and the privileged position I
inhabit inform how I understand feminism. While I largely engage with
intersectional feminist theory in politics, my lived experience and posi-
tionality limit the ways I can enact these theories. My feminism is in-
tersectional in practice, yet I acknowledge that the intersections in my
identity regularly work to privilege rather than marginalise me. Just as I
discuss the girl participants’ individual subjectivities in Chapter 5, I ac-
knowledge that my own subjectivity interacts with my feminist politics
when conducting this research.
12 Understanding (Post)feminist Girlhood

Reading YA fantasy literature

YA literature has forged its own identity as a genre in the past few decades.
While some academics use the term “adolescent literature”, “teen fiction”,
or “juvenile fiction” (Hayn 2012, p. 7), the term “young adult litera-
ture” is frequently used to avoid “the negative connotations of the words
‘adolescent’ and ‘teens’” (Cole 2009, p. 49). Stephens (2007) defines YA
literature as a:

story that tackles the difficult, and oftentimes adult, issues that
arise during an adolescent’s journey toward identity, a journey told
through a distinctly teen voice that holds the same potential for liter-
ary value as its “grownup” peers. (p. 40)

This definition largely encapsulates Sarah Herz and Donald Gallo’s

(1996) list of definitive aspects of a YA novel,7 which Marci Glaus (2014)
also uses. Herz and Gallo (1996) also discuss the length of the text and
explain that the “actions and decisions of the main characters must be
major factors in the outcome of the conflict” (pp. 10–11). YA fiction deals
with the protagonist’s journey toward a clear identity, a better understand-
ing of themself, and making sense of the world. Protagonists frequently
deal with issues of relationships, school experiences, family dynamics, and
societal pressures, which typically form a key part of teenagers’ everyday
experiences. Both the contemporary nature of characters’ voice and cir-
cumstance, and the teenage agency in creating change make this genre so
popular with the target audience.
The development of YA literature, while sometimes traced to an early
emergence of youth culture in the 1930s, did not reach its peak until the
1980s (Cart 2016, p. 43). Alleen Nilsen (1993) refers to this as the “golden
age”, with more complex topics and “well-crafted and challenging” nar-
ratives (as cited in Knickerbocker et al. 2017, p. 6). Of particular note
was the increased visibility of romantic and sexual relationships in YA in
comparison to the children’s literature genre. Prior to the publication of
Judy Blume’s Forever (1975), “adolescent sexual experience … was gained
off-stage or in thickly metaphorical or obscured passages” (Pattee 2006,
p. 34). Protagonists in contemporary YA literature are more likely to ex-
perience, if not directly then through their friends, decisions related to
sexuality, and many books explore “sexual feelings” (Perez 2006, p. 20).
As American YA author Brent Hartinger wonders, “how can you write
about teens and not deal with one of what is probably in the top three
most important concerns?” (Perez 2006, p. 20). YA literature became a
significant genre in its own right that deals with issues that were important
to its readership.
 Introduction 13

While YA literature is recognised as its own independent category, texts

can also be classified within other genres, such as crime, action, historical
fiction, and fantasy. The YA fantasy novels selected for this research are
immensely popular with teenage girl readers, and this popularity warrants
critical attention. Fantasy scholarship has been profoundly influenced by
Tvetan Todorov (1973), who produced the “most important and influen-
tial critical study” of the genre and spurred on debates about the merit and
purpose of a form of literature which had previously been “dismissed as
being rather frivolous or foolish” (Jackson, 1981, p. 5). Todorov’s defini-
tive work continues to shape examination of fantasy texts, including in the
important work on Rosemary Jackson. Both Todorov and Jackson’s work
were foundational for this book’s framework.
Todorov (1973) defines the fantasy genre as texts that “oblige the reader
to consider the world of the characters as a world of living persons and to
hesitate between a natural and supernatural explanation” (p. 32). Texts
include characters who experience this same hesitation, with narratives that
must be read not as “allegory or poetics”, but understood as the words that
are “actually given” (p. 33). Put simply, a fantasy work requires the reader
to enter into a world for which they may have limited explanation, and to
surrender to that world’s laws of nature as though they were real. Todorov
also asserts that to define the genre of fantasy, every literary study “must
participate in a double movement”, by making comparisons between a par-
ticular individual work and the literary genre more broadly, and vice versa
(1973, p. 7). The fantasy genre, YA included, builds on its rich history to
deepen the readers’ experience of that fantasy.
According to Todorov, defining texts as fantasy in only a “theoretical
and abstract” sense, without reference to an individual text, is a “failure”
(1973, p. 21). As Jackson (1981) warns, any attempt to theorise “about
fantasy in literature” is in some ways “self-defeating”, as it removes the
escapism or “simple pleasure principle” that so much of fantasy endorses
(p. 2). The positioning of individual works within the genre is further
necessary, as Todorov seeks to define fantasy by analysing the structural
features that various texts have in common, rather than randomly se-
lecting works and “cataloguing recurrent themes” (1973, p. 7; Jackson
1981, p. 5). Jackson also asserts that there is no single “abstract entity”
called fantasy, but rather a “range of different works which have similar
structural characteristics” (1981, p. 8). Finally, a key aspect of Todorov’s
work to define fantasy involved looking at a text in relation to those that
had come before, and understanding that “a text is not only a product of
a pre-existing system, it is also a transformation of that system” (p. 6).
Jackson writes that the “possibilities” for a text are in many ways deter-
mined by the texts that have “preceded it”, and the features the historic
text gave to the genre which modern texts may “repeat or repudiate”
14 Understanding (Post)feminist Girlhood

(1981, p. 8). Therefore, it is understood that defining YA fantasy must

involve looking at the historicity of the genre more broadly, as well as
understanding that a modern definition may well be transforming as more
works are published and scrutinised.
While primarily coming to the fore in realism, the young adult genre
developed as its own entity. By the 1990s, there were “clear markers sepa-
rating the teen market from the children’s market” in fantasy (Levy and
Mendlesohn 2016, p. 161). Although children’s fantasy included material
that pushed long-held boundaries of propriety in children’s stories, the
influence of social realism further increased the dark and violent nature
of YA fantasy. Children’s fantasy tended to include a “younger protago-
nist, lighter endings, cartoon violence and no sex”, whereas YA fantasy
headed in the “opposite direction” (Levy and Mendlesohn 2016, p. 161).
YA fantasy fiction, while featuring a coming-of-age narrative essential to
the definition of YA literature, also allows authors (and therefore readers)
to explore “worlds whose concrete features and schemes or actions are
metaphors that carry a probing examination of who we are as humans”
(Baker 1993, p. 622). In fantasy, characters make decisions that could
“change the course of history and sway the balance of power” (Baker
1993, p. 622). Not only are the possibilities of “hard science” explored –
how a world is made up and functions – but also the “social sciences –
people, their societies, relationships, [and] psychological make-up” that
will form a character’s experience (Du Mont 1993, p. 11). YA fantasy
developed to engage teenagers who were disinterested in childish narra-
tives and to ensure a break from the children’s literature genre. In the early
twenty-first century, fantasy was no longer a genre of appropriation, but
became one of the most dominant genres within YA literature.
In the last two decades, YA fantasy has increasingly followed the YA
realist trend of including romantic and sexual relationships. As Levy
and Mendlessohn assert, the main question in YA fantasy became “with
whom, or perhaps what, the romance would occur” (2016, p. 201). The
genre allows the emotions and issues of protagonists to be played out
with “overt grandeur” and dramatization (November 2004, p. 33). Ow-
ing to the fantastical setting of the narratives, the protagonists’ actions
are in many ways removed from the real world. This amalgamation of
several literary traditions in fantasy, romance, and YA created a new
space for the essential components of YA to operate at a heightened level;
the teenage readers feel that they are “special with special problems” and
this belief is accompanied by the idea that “one’s intimate relationships
are essentially more important than the great quests or battles that are
taking place out in the world” (Levy and Mendlessohn 2016, p. 197).
Readers are drawn into exciting worlds with narratives that amplify their
everyday experiences.
 Introduction 15

The increased popularity of YA fantasy also coincided with a rise in

female protagonists. In particular, the arrival of The Hunger Games,
Divergent, and Shadow and Bone series heralded a new interest in strong
girls. Du Mont (1993) cites the 1980s as the beginning of “increased op-
portunities for women”, as both protagonists and authors in YA fantasy
(p. 12). Forrest (1993) writes that:

Fantasy is one area of young adult literature that offers a rich source
of gender-fair fiction. It is popular with both male and female adoles-
cents and has traditionally been a genre in which women escape the
standard cultural roles. Portrayals of passive females can certainly be
found: nevertheless, readers are often offered a chance to experience
what females could be instead of what they are. (p. 38, emphasis in
original)

Du Mont suggests that fantasy YA is a platform through which the

presentation of female protagonists is moving even further away from gen-
der stereotypes, as “science fiction and fantasy, as literature of change,
should be more than one stop ahead of real-world society” (1993, p. 15,
emphasis in original). Furthermore, Baker (1993) asserts that speculative
fiction explores “strange creatures, objects of power, unusual customs and
foods” through “lengthy descriptions”, claiming that “physical descrip-
tion dominates current fantasy” (p. 621). In her recent monograph Female
Heroes in Young Adult Fantasy Fiction (2023), Leah Phillips outlined the
importance of transgressive bodies in YA fantasy to inform girls’ ideas
about their own bodies. This emphasis on the physical allows for the de-
velopment of a narrative that highlights the construction of the female
body and its experience alongside a male body.
Ultimately, the categorisation of A Court of Thorns and Roses and Red
Queen as YA fantasy is significant for this analysis. The texts are situated
within a genre that suggests elements of identity formation to young read-
ers (Stephens 2007, p. 41), and the experience of protagonists is heightened
by the world-changing potential of their decisions (Baker 1993, p. 622).
Readers have come to expect that fantasy novels will have “genre conven-
tions of romance” that “satisfy” their need for the relationships they find
engaging (Kokkola 2011, p. 178). Moreover, the popularity of female pro-
tagonists is cemented in YA fantasy fiction and appeals to female audiences
(Antero 2013). The combination of these elements uniquely positions these
texts to speak into the lives of young people on many of the issues they are
facing, including sexuality, agency, and power. However, there remains a
gap in the scholarship that interrogates how representations of sexuality
may be influencing the identity formation of young readers. This project
will consider not only how YA texts are portraying girlhood, but also how
16 Understanding (Post)feminist Girlhood

readers may be interpreting these portrayals, and the extent to which read-
ers are mediating identity through YA fantasy novels.

Reading sexuality in YA literature

YA literature is recognised as a tool for sexual education. According to
Jane Brown et al. (2006), teenagers are turning to fiction as their source of
information for several reasons and “consistently cite” YA literature as an
“important” resource (p. 1019). Amy Vogels (2002) asserts that through
the actions of “an empathetic character” of a similar age, readers can learn
about the potential positive or negative consequences without facing a
“parental lecture” (para 16). Marlene Perez (2006) further suggests that
unpacking the reactions of characters to sexual encounters also allows
readers to “explore the emotional impact” (p. 21). Literature provides a
landscape, unlike a text book or informative website, where details are of-
ten provided “not just of the sex act, but also of the emotional component
of intimacy” (Pattee 2006, p. 34). In research with my colleague Kristine
Moruzi (2024), we found that teenage girls were turning to YA fantasy
novels to better understand consent, and argue for their increased use to
create opportunities for nuanced discussions with young people. With the
increasing exposure of readers to issues of sexuality, gender, and sexual
relationships, further research into the potential influence of young adult
literature on identity formation is necessary.
This project builds from existing research that asserts the impact of
media on teens’ identity formation. The presentation of sexuality and
relationships has been found to impact audiences’ “worldviews and ide-
ologies”, passively encouraging readers and viewers to mimic the behav-
iour of protagonists in books and on screens (Dines 2014, p. I).8 Sorsoli
et al. (2006) have studied the impact on readers of “information ‘scripts’”
detailing a variety of sexual behaviours (p. 36). Having identified a gap
in the amount of research being conducted into “how and why” media
consumption influences sexual behaviour among adolescents, Sorsoli et al.
(2006) interviewed 272 teenage students to ascertain any trends between
the media they read and view, and their sexual attitudes and behaviours
(p. 28). The research revealed that scripts between characters “become so
internalised and automatic that adolescents may become quite nonreflec-
tive about behaviours”, suggesting that audiences fail to critique what they
are consuming (p. 36). They also found that young women in particu-
lar became involved in narratives. One interviewee claimed that she was
“upset” by the actions of fictional characters, suggesting that she had be-
come emotionally invested in the sexual relationship of a person who did
not really exist (Sorsoli et al. 2006, p. 36). The study also found that teen-
agers strongly identified with “characters and their romantic relationships,
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