SHARI L. THURER
Boston, MA

Feminism Meets Postfeminism

Featuring Females: Feminist Analyses of Media.
Edited by Ellen Cole and Jessica Henderson Daniel. Psychology of Women Book Series, Cheryl Brown Travis (Series Ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2005. 231 pp. Cloth, $69.95.

Not long ago a young woman patient confided to me, without a hint of irony, that she wished she were Paris Hilton. This was not one of my finest therapeutic hours. As a psychoanalytically trained psychologist I know very well that the content of our unconscious is not politically correct, lest it need not be unconscious. Beneath our civilized facades, we are all greedy ids, wanting what we want, when we want it, and then wanting more. To be sure, my patient, like all humans, wanted to be unreservedly adored for just being herself, without actually having to do anything "worthy" of adoration. I dutifully tried to summon up empathy and, of course, her associations. But it's hard for a middle-aged feminist to be value free. Three decades after the second wave of the feminist movement, young women want to be Paris Hilton, a flagrant icon of vacuous, opportunistic, raunchy display, a woman who outrageously colludes with her own commodification. Did women's liberation ever happen?