PAMLA 2025: Anger and Frustration in Contemporary American Women's Fiction [Deadline Extended]
Many mainstream media outlets have observed an uptick in the mainstream popularity of American women's fiction that center on rage-filled female characters or that express anger at contemporary society. The complicated aftermath of second-wave feminism has in some ways enabled women to speak more frankly about their bodies, desires, and experiences, but these forms of sexual and social liberation of the past several decades have led to a strong backlash against reproductive freedom and a resurgent public-sphere misogyny; many feminist critics have also noticed that media discussions of progress for women—how many female CEO’s run Fortune 500 companies, for instance—have silenced structural critique of a patriarchal society.