(Post)Feminist Genealogies in Kate Muir’s Suffragette City ad Lisa Evans’ Old Baggage

This article explores Kate Muir’s Suffragette City and Lisa Evans’ Old Baggage didactic potential based on the interactions between women that belong to different (feminist) generations taking place in both novels. Suffragette City reproduces the conversations and encounters between the ghost of a S...

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Main Author: Mariana Ripoll Fonollar
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Universidad de Alicante 2025-01-01
Series:Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses
Subjects:
Online Access:https://raei.ua.es/article/view/28496
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author Mariana Ripoll Fonollar
author_facet Mariana Ripoll Fonollar
author_sort Mariana Ripoll Fonollar
collection DOAJ
description This article explores Kate Muir’s Suffragette City and Lisa Evans’ Old Baggage didactic potential based on the interactions between women that belong to different (feminist) generations taking place in both novels. Suffragette City reproduces the conversations and encounters between the ghost of a Scottish suffragette fighting for her enfranchisement in the twentieth century, and her great-great-granddaughter living in New York at the beginning of the following century. Old Baggage also deploys the figure of the suffragette, but in this case, embodied by a Londoner in her fifties who has just been granted the right to vote, and a group of newly enfranchised girls. I argue that the intergenerational exchanges between an older suffragette and younger female characters metaphorically facilitate a dialogue between feminism and postfeminism illuminating the tensions and convergences between them. My reading of these novels is supported by what Stéphanie Genz calls the “genealogical approach” (2021) to postfeminism, which does not present both movements as dichotomous but acknowledges that different feminist moments should be understood as interrelated and not superseding each other in apparently distinctive “waves.” My ultimate aim is to present Suffragette City and Old Baggage as didactic texts which reflect on what I refer to as (post)feminist debates to vindicate the pertinence of feminism in a so-called postfeminist context.
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spelling doaj-art-9a04b10ec9d44232b9b01916d888fa9a2025-01-30T09:27:55ZengUniversidad de AlicanteRevista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses0214-48082171-861X2025-01-014213715710.14198/raei.2849636719(Post)Feminist Genealogies in Kate Muir’s Suffragette City ad Lisa Evans’ Old BaggageMariana Ripoll Fonollar0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3284-5820University of the Balearic IslandsThis article explores Kate Muir’s Suffragette City and Lisa Evans’ Old Baggage didactic potential based on the interactions between women that belong to different (feminist) generations taking place in both novels. Suffragette City reproduces the conversations and encounters between the ghost of a Scottish suffragette fighting for her enfranchisement in the twentieth century, and her great-great-granddaughter living in New York at the beginning of the following century. Old Baggage also deploys the figure of the suffragette, but in this case, embodied by a Londoner in her fifties who has just been granted the right to vote, and a group of newly enfranchised girls. I argue that the intergenerational exchanges between an older suffragette and younger female characters metaphorically facilitate a dialogue between feminism and postfeminism illuminating the tensions and convergences between them. My reading of these novels is supported by what Stéphanie Genz calls the “genealogical approach” (2021) to postfeminism, which does not present both movements as dichotomous but acknowledges that different feminist moments should be understood as interrelated and not superseding each other in apparently distinctive “waves.” My ultimate aim is to present Suffragette City and Old Baggage as didactic texts which reflect on what I refer to as (post)feminist debates to vindicate the pertinence of feminism in a so-called postfeminist context.https://raei.ua.es/article/view/28496suffragette cityold baggagesuffragetteintergenerational dialoguesdidacticismfeminism (post)feminism
spellingShingle Mariana Ripoll Fonollar
(Post)Feminist Genealogies in Kate Muir’s Suffragette City ad Lisa Evans’ Old Baggage
Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses
suffragette city
old baggage
suffragette
intergenerational dialogues
didacticism
feminism
(post)feminism
title (Post)Feminist Genealogies in Kate Muir’s Suffragette City ad Lisa Evans’ Old Baggage
title_full (Post)Feminist Genealogies in Kate Muir’s Suffragette City ad Lisa Evans’ Old Baggage
title_fullStr (Post)Feminist Genealogies in Kate Muir’s Suffragette City ad Lisa Evans’ Old Baggage
title_full_unstemmed (Post)Feminist Genealogies in Kate Muir’s Suffragette City ad Lisa Evans’ Old Baggage
title_short (Post)Feminist Genealogies in Kate Muir’s Suffragette City ad Lisa Evans’ Old Baggage
title_sort post feminist genealogies in kate muir s suffragette city ad lisa evans old baggage
topic suffragette city
old baggage
suffragette
intergenerational dialogues
didacticism
feminism
(post)feminism
url https://raei.ua.es/article/view/28496
work_keys_str_mv AT marianaripollfonollar postfeministgenealogiesinkatemuirssuffragettecityadlisaevansoldbaggage