Postfeminism, Pink Covers, and the Politics of Chick-Lit

On the complicated legacy of Bridget Jones and her chick-lit-erary sisters

Cast your mind back to the '90s. A new book has just been released. It’s a romcom with a clumsy heroine and a meet cute at a Christmas Turkey Curry Buffet in a middle-class village in England. The heroine then spends the rest of her time worrying about dieting and if a man will ever truly love her amidst the chaos of committing a number of social faux pas before securing her match at the end of the story. It’s like Pride and Prejudice except this story has miniskirts, self-help books and flirty office emails.

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Of course, this is the plot of Helen Fielding’s beloved Bridget Jones’s Diary (1996). Set in the '90s, this seminal text is often hailed as ‘the beginning’ of chick-lit’s popularity and success (Yardley, 2006). Fielding not only captured the zeitgeist with verve, she did so with a flourish of quintessential British humour. It’s easy to underestimate the cultural and literary impact of a book like Bridget Jones’s Diary. It reads like a frothy comedy: single woman, mid-thirties, balancing her love life, career, and a series of New Year’s resolutions that never quite stick. But when it was published in 1996, Fielding’s novel did more than launch a thousand spin-offs and pastel-coloured covers (Thomas, 2002) - it defined a freshly emerging genre. And it did so in the shadow of a changing feminist landscape.

By the 1980s, the term postfeminism had entered the general lexicon in the UK through popular media, signalling a supposed “end” to Second Wave feminism. Rooted in ‘anti-feminist rhetoric’, this cultural shift positioned feminist discourse as outdated, implying that feminism had been ‘taken into account’ so that it was ‘no longer needed’ (Rowntree et al., 2012). In fact, Natasha Walter writes that postfeminist attitudes in the UK saw feminism as ‘man-hating and […] a rather sullen kind of political correctness or puritanism’ (1998). Feminism, in this context, was not just passé, it was positively discouraged - recast as shrill, joyless, and out of touch with the glossy optimism of the new cultural moment. By the time chick-lit emerged in the 1990s, postfeminist thinking had already taken hold in the public imagination. Despite the arrival of Third Wave feminism, the persistence of the term “postfeminism” in both popular and academic contexts – as exemplified by Mazza’s 1990s anthology - reflected an ongoing reluctance to acknowledge or engage with new feminist paradigms. And chick-lit was aware of this: Imelda Whelehan writes that ‘if there was a political message [in chick-lit publications], the pill was appropriately sugared’ (Whelehan, 2005). The bitter consequence, however, is that it is accused of being ‘trash’ (Anna Weinburg quoted in Ferriss and Young, 2006) and a ‘disgrace to feminism’ (Fielding quoted in Ezard, 2001); reflecting the enduring tension between marketable femininity and feminist credibility.

This view is compounded by the genre’s obsession with romance, relationships and consumerism - retreating from the progress made by earlier feminist narratives. The female authored novels preceding chick-lit - 1970-80s bonkbusters and Consciousness Raising novels – had been primarily concerned with strong female leads who built business empires using their ‘good looks and business acumen’ or women seeing what was wrong with lives and setting out to change them (Whelehan, 2005). Often, these narratives led female heroines away from the home. Chick-lit’s heroines, on the other hand, were seen as circling back to traditional roles as their narratives focus on the home as a ‘destination’ rather than a ‘point of departure’ (Whelehan, 2005). Marriage and monogamy weren’t questioned; they were the goal. Romance wasn’t a subplot; it was the whole point. These female leads are criticised for being ‘shopping-and-dieting airheads’ (Mazza, 2006) who go on a mission to find ‘the One’, usually by ‘diving into the dating pool’ (Yardley, 2006). Finally, after all the chaotic fumbling in the bedroom, the workplace and the shopping mall, chick-lit aspires to coupledom in the family home. Consequently, leading women gently - but unmistakably - “back into the kitchen”. It is easy to see why Second Wavers might accuse the genre of being disappointing.

Bridget Jones was born into that world. She was self-deprecating, insecure, and romantic. She counted calories and worried about the size of her thighs. She was also clever, capable, and, perhaps most importantly, funny. But the genre she helped define quickly drew criticism. Chick-lit, some argued, was the literary equivalent of a shopping spree: frivolous, apolitical, unserious. Herein lies, perhaps, the most persistent critique of the genre: tone. Feminism, many believe, should be ‘serious’ (Ferris and Young, 2006). Chick-lit, on the other hand, is not. In the minds of many chick-lit detractors, ‘chick lit’s humor marks it as unserious’ (2006). And something unserious couldn’t possibly be political, could it? If there was a political message in these books, Imelda Whelehan notes that the ‘pill was appropriately sugared’ (2005). The humour, in other words, isn’t the absence of meaning - it’s the medium. It seems that chick-lit’s clever humour and subsequent commercial success (Whelehan, 2005), also prevented it from being considered a ‘smart, postfeminist writing’ (Weinburg quoted in Ferriss and Young, 2006).

And that’s where things get complicated.

Because chick-lit didn’t just reflect postfeminist values - it played with them, critiqued them, sometimes subverted them. Bridget’s diary isn’t a celebration of neurosis and superficiality; it’s a mirror, held up to a culture that teaches women to count every calorie, weigh every romantic gesture, and tie their self-worth to the idea of “having it all.” The genre’s commercial success depended on its accessibility but its legacy depends on something more subtle: its ability to smuggle serious ideas into entertaining stories.

Still, chick-lit remains difficult to defend on literary terms. Even its champions often frame it as “guilty pleasure.” When Jeanette Winterson who considers herself ‘unashamedly high art’ famously declared that she ‘likes entertainment’ and ‘loved Bridget Jones’s Diary’ in 2001 (Ezard), she alluded to the distinction between good fun and art. It comes as no surprise then, that chick-lit has somehow been perverted from Mazza’s high-art anthology to ‘popular fiction’, a ‘fad’, even (2006).

And yet, there’s something to be said for what these books achieved. They gave voice to a generation navigating a confusing and self-contradictory world: where feminism had supposedly “succeeded,” but expectations hadn’t really changed. Where women could work and earn and speak - but were still expected to look flawless doing it and only until they retired to the role of housewife in the leafy suburbs. Chick-lit might not always critique this tension overtly. But it captured it. And that, in itself, is a kind of resistance.

So perhaps it is time to approach these texts with greater critical generosity - not to overlook their limitations, but to read them within their cultural moment. To take them seriously without denying their wit or charm. After all, if Bridget Jones taught us anything, it’s that even “shopping-and-dieting airheads” can speak meaningfully to the concerns of their time.