THE MARKETING OF THE WOMEN'S NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION AND THE MAKING OF POSTFEMINISM

Abstract

Grounded in feminist cultural studies perspectives, this article criticizes the marketing of postfeminist ideologies in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). While seeking to create new consumers, WNBA accounts construct the league and its advertisers as advocates for gender justice. It is argued that this strategy also reinforces a neoconservative project based on the advocacy of personal responsibility and self-help as antidotes to social problems and inequities that have been magnified via late capitalist economic arrangements.