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Grounded in rich empirical research and providing a timely contribution to debates on engagements with feminism, Repudiating Feminism explores how young German and British women think, talk and feel about feminism. Drawing on in-depth interviews with women from different racial and class backgrounds, and with different sexual orientations, Repudiating Feminism reveals how young women's diverse positionings intersect with their views of feminism.

Drawing on thirty qualitative in-depth interviews with a diverse group of feminist activists who are mainly active online, this article analyses how research participants construct and portray 'activists' and 'influencers'. One theme that emerged from the data is the commercial orientation of influencers, the monetisation of their activities online and how this differs from activist pursuits. Activism, by contrast, was constructed as focused on making social change, and not driven by commercial interests. This article argues that the research participants' discussion of the differences between 'influencer' and 'activist', and the attribution of monetisation to influencers, underplays the ways in which market logics help to structure contemporary forms of activism that take place in the digital economy. Second, the article places the investment in forms of activism that are uncompromised by commercial pursuits in the wider context of feminised and exclusionary cultures of perfection. Lastly, the article reflects on common constructions of influencing as a feminised as well as trivial pursuit and cautions against accounts that uncritically present influencing as trivial in contrast to activism, which is considered more serious.

This article explores some of the classed dynamics of doing digital feminist activism. Based on 30 qualitative in-depth interviews with feminist activists, who are based in Germany and the UK, the article examines the ways in which class background and class inequalities shape feminists' experiences of being politically active on Instagram. Taking Instagram's visual focus as a starting point for analysis, the article demonstrates the know-how and editorial skills required to produce visually appealing content. Access to this form of expertise is not equally available, however, and class background affects —though does not determine— who feels confident and at ease in producing visually engaging content. Shifting to a different set of knowledges, the second part of the article homes in on a widely shared sense amongst the activists that they had to know and say the "right" things when taking part in activism online. Self-education was deemed an important feature of doing digital feminist activism, and this article critically explores the classed, but also racialised politics of digital "learning cultures", and the ways in which the apparent requirement "to know" may have exclusionary effects.

This article attempts to map the discursive terrain that marks contemporary engagements with feminism in Germany. In particular, the article explores a 2010 interview with Germany's family minister, Kristina Schröder, and its coverage in the media. Based on a discourse analysis, the article traces four discursive themes that characterise contemporary negotiations of feminism: a repudiation of the figure of the "feminist-as-lesbian"; a postfeminist sensibility; an individualist and neoliberal outlook; and a limited engagement with differences amongst women. By theorising these discursive strands, the article places the German context into wider debates. More specifically, it makes contributions to existing research by demonstrating how particular stereotypes—e.g., feminists are against heterosexual sex—attach to feminism through reiteration. In addition, it intervenes in current debates about gender politics by demonstrating how statements about "western" women's emancipation work in tandem with problematic discourses about "other," allegedly oppressed women, to construct the western, autonomous, feminine subject.

Young women's rejection of feminism is well-recognized if seemingly paradoxical. Based on 40 qualitative interviews with a diverse group of German and British research participants, this article adopts a performative approach to enhance our understanding of young women's relationship with feminism. First, the article argues that rejections of feminism as anti-man, lesbian or unfeminine should be read as performances of femininity. Second, the article regards performances of femininity as racialized and classed. It traces how race and class are assumed in talk about feminism and examines how young women's positionings intersect with feminist dis-identification. The construction of feminists as unfeminine, for example, posed particular challenges to women who were positioned at a distance from notions of 'respectable femininity' because of their class background. While the relationship between young women's positionings and stances towards feminism is not predetermined, the article investigates how gender identity, sexuality, race and class matter in engagements with feminism.

Even though the normativity of heterosexuality has come into question in recent years, heterosexual norms continue to figure as a structuring principle in contemporary social life. Drawing on 40 qualitative interviews with a diverse group of young German and British women, this article analyses empirical research on feminist disidentification to show that heteronormativity plays a central role in young women's negotiations of feminism. Numerous respondents established a link between feminism, unfemininity, man-hatred and lesbianism. By exploring constructions of 'the feminist', and by reconceptualizing the figure of 'the feminist' as a constitutive outside of heterosexual norms that haunts the interviews, this article foregrounds the importance of examining the dimension of sexuality in analyses of contemporary social phenomena.

This article draws on eighteen qualitative in-depth interviews with female, early-career classical musicians to investigate if, and if so in which ways, recent discourse around the lack of diversity in the classical music profession has affected how young musicians talk about inequalities in the field of classical music. The article demonstrates that the research participants were aware of ongoing inequalities and discussed them openly. This marks an important shift from previously conducted research, which highlighted the 'unspeakability' of inequalities in the classical music profession and the cultural and creative industries. By drawing on discursive psychology, this article explores the rhetorical and ideological work that such 'inequality talk' performs, arguing that conversations about inequalities do not necessarily lead to political change. Divided into three analytical sections, the article demonstrates that inequality talk can become an end in itself, rather than a means to an end (such as political change); that a fatalist sentiment can characterise discussions of inequalities, presenting structural change as unachievable; and that acknowledgement and recognition of privilege, crucial to overcoming inequalities, is not a consistent feature of inequality talk, which in turn risks reinforcing the normativity of whiteness and middle-classness in the field of classical music. Overall, the article provides a detailed analysis of recently collected empirical data to caution against overly optimistic accounts of the shift towards a more open discussion of inequalities in the classical music profession and beyond.

"This volume brings together twenty original essays on the changes and continuities in gender relations and intersecting politics of sexuality, race, class and location. The book is located in debates about contemporary culture at a moment of rapid technological change, global interconnectedness and the growing cultural dominance of neoliberalism and postfeminism. The collection traverses disciplines, spaces and approaches. It is marked by an extraordinarily wide focus, ranging from analyses of celebrity magazines and makeover shows to examinations of the experiences of young female migrants, 'mail order brides' and young women who repudiate feminism. The contributions are united by their attempts to think through the ways in which experiences and representations of femininity are changing in the twenty-first century. Are we seeing new femininities? Are neoliberalism and postfeminism constructing new identities and subjectivities? What kinds of analytic tools and cultural politics are needed to critically engage with the current moment? This book will be of interest to everyone studying gender, media or cultural studies"--

This article draws on two empirical studies on contemporary engagements with classical music in the United Kingdom to shed light on the ways in which class inequalities are reproduced in practices of production and consumption. It discusses three ways in which this occurs. First, classical music was 'naturally' practiced and listened to in middle-class homes but this was misrecognised by musicians who labelled families as 'musical' rather than as 'middle class'. Second, the practices of classical music production and consumption such as the spaces used, the dress, and the modes of listening show similarities with middle-class culture. Third, musicians made judgements of value where classical music was seen as more valuable than other genres. This was particularly visible in studying production. In data on consumption, musicians were careful about making judgements of taste but described urban genres as illegible to them, or assessed them according to the criteria that they used to judge classical music, such as complexity and emotional depth. This hierarchy of value tended to remain unspoken and uncontested. Studying production and consumption together allows these patterns to emerge more clearly.