Working Women on Screen / Palgrave Studies in (Re)Presenting Gender (PDF)

"This is a wide-ranging and timely collection with a sharp critical and analytical lens on the current realm of popular representations of women and work in the frame of neoliberal culture. It will be immensely useful for teachers and researchers in feminist media studies."

Angela McRobbie, Professor Emeritus Goldsmiths University of London, UK.

"This book sheds new light on the ways in which women's paid labour is depicted in the contemporary moment. It is both necessary and vital and unpicks the complexities of how limited and often damaging screen representations are suffused in the contemporary media landscape."

Kirsty Fairclough, Professor of Screen Studies, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.

Working Women on Screen: Paid Labour and Fourth Wave Feminism critically examines screen media representations of women's participation in the contemporary labour market. Within the context of fourth wave feminism, there has been a new proliferation in the global media landscape of representations of women's paid labour. This has coincided with the development of critical and ideological issues surrounding intersectionality and culture wars, as well as the impacts of recessions, political upheavals, and pandemics. Workplace dynamics and post-#MeToo politics have led to the complexification of structures, oppressions and relationships that impact what women can do for money. As a result, the "working woman" is now a constant presence on our screens, though articulated in widely divergent ways. The chapters within this collection critique issues that are deeply embedded in neoliberal conceptions of contemporary feminism, such as aspects of "lean-in" culture, structural oppression, and women's experiences of the "glass ceiling" and "glass cliff". The volume analyses representations related to the intersecting dynamics of gender, race, class, sexuality, and disability in television, film, social media and video games.

Dr Ellie¿Tomsett¿is a Senior Lecturer in Media and Communication at Birmingham City University, UK.

Dr Nathalie Weidhase is a Lecturer in Media and Communication at the University of Surrey, UK.