Girlfriends and Postfeminist Sisterhood

Alison Winch is a lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies at Middlesex University, UK. She has published on gender and sexuality in the Journal of Gender Studies, Feminist Media Studies and Women's Writing, among others.

• Introduction: Girlfriend Culture and the Gynaeopticon 1. The Girlfriend Gaze 2. BFF Co-Brands 3. Strategic Sisterhoods 4. Womance 5. Making White Lives Better? 6. Catfight 7. Class and British Reality Television 8. The Friendship Market Conclusion: Feminism, Friendship and Conflicted Feelings Bibliography

"Alison Winch explores the deep and complex emotions involved in female friendships and how these are exploited by brands, television formats and film narratives to tie us into a competitive and unequal consumer culture. By recognising the source of negative as well as positive emotions between women, a more effective political movement could be achieved to counteract this exploitation, she suggests. The book expertly updates and builds on postfeminist scholarly research through close attention to recent popular culture. It makes a compelling argument, challenging established assumptions about the way girls and women are portrayed and how we, in turn, respond." - Jane Arthurs, Middlesex University, UK