Neoliberal feminism as political ideology: revitalizing the study of feminist political ideologies

The emerging literature on neoliberal feminism appears to signal the revitalization of the study of feminist ideologies, suspended since the mid-1980s. However, it is argued here that scholars tend to conceptualize neoliberal feminism in a way that inhibits ideological analysis, as exemplified in Nancy Fraser's Fortunes of Feminism. They take classifications of feminist political ideologies from the 1980s as representative of the only true feminisms, and thus view neoliberal feminism as a perversion, rather than an outgrowth, of earlier feminisms. This account of the emergence of neoliberal feminism is both historically inaccurate and politically problematic: it positions feminists as passive in the face of an overpowering neoliberal agency, and limits feminists' capacity to imagine themselves as agents of political and ideological change. Building on Michael Freeden's work on political ideologies, an alternative account of neoliberal feminism is offered, one that locates feminist agency in the production of new feminist ideologies.