Mean Girl Feminism: How White Feminists Gaslight, Gatekeep, and Girlboss

Nguyen (communication arts, Univ. of Waterloo; editor, Rhetoric in Neoliberalism) deftly delves into the damage white women feminists do when they uphold racist structures that benefit them, refuse to acknowledge their privilege, serve as gatekeepers, utilize patriarchal tactics to maintain power, or remain complicit in ongoing oppression. Building on the work of Rachel Cargle, Laila Sayad, Rafia Zakaria, and others, Nguyen offers a roadmap of what it would take to abolish “mean girl feminism.” To define that term and to describe the four types of people it involves, Nguyen uses examples that range from post–civil rights movement discourse, novels, and political theories to Gossip Girl episodes and Saturday Night Live sketches. Nguyen expertly and engagingly explains what performative activism is and analyzes how it shows up in popular culture and harms others.