Introduction

Abstract

The past 20 years has witnessed a renewal of interest in feminist activism on both sides of the Atlantic. In part this has been a response to neoliberal and neoconservative attacks, both implicit and explicit, on the gains made by feminists during the 1960s and 1970s (Walby, 2011; Reger, 2012). Such a backlash against women has occurred at both the legislative and societal level in Britain and the US, exacerbating, inter alia: sustained violence against women; an increasingly blatant sexual objectification of women and girls; persistent attacks on women’s bodily autonomy; and continued economic inequality.¹ An increasing awareness of these and other multitudinous injustices helped spark and sustain a reinvigorated feminist activism in the US and Britain. And yet, despite the seeming commonalities between the two movements, it is not clear whether the blanket term ‘Anglo-American feminism’ has much empiric value. Drawing upon original qualitative data, this research identifies numerous differences between the two movements at the level of discourse and praxis, which are mediated both by the neoliberal political context and by the intellectual turn towards intersectionality. This book brings a comparative dimension to the ongoing analysis of feminism and feminist activism by mapping, analysing, and theorising third wave feminisms in the US and Britain.