pop feminism

noun

A populist, non-academic approach to feminism, suggesting that women can attain equality with men through a positive, go-getting attitude, without much need to organize politically or to examine or change cultural institutions and biases.

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Meanings

nounpop feminism (uncountable)
  1. derogatorysometimesuncountableA populist, non-academic approach to feminism, suggesting that women can attain equality with men through a positive, go-getting attitude, without much need to organize politically or to examine or change cultural institutions and biases.

    Cinematherapy combines a strategic mix of pop feminism (which presumes female independence and “girl power”) and stereotypes, then, as a primary method of appealing to female audiences.

    2006, Barbara Klinger, Beyond the Multiplex: Cinema, New Technologies, and the Home
    2 more examples

    So pop feminism distorts feminism by depoliticizing it and burying its complexities, and in so diminished a state it has no power to vanquish the male privilege that women experience in their everyday lives.

    1996, Zillah R. Eisenstein, Hatreds: Racialized and Sexualized Conflicts in the 21st Century

    […] strongly associated with a 1990s/early 2000s cultural moment of “pop-feminism,” marked by a high-profile, culturally pervasive, quasi-feminist rhetoric. This rhetoric relied heavily on female celebrities who embraced the “bad girl” stereotype […]

    2011, Su Holmes, Diane Negra, In the Limelight and Under the Microscope
Cite this entry
APA

pop feminism. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pop%20feminism

MLA

“pop feminism.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pop%20feminism. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “pop feminism,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pop%20feminism.

Source: pop feminism on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.