German Feminism in the Age of Neoliberalism: Jana Hensel and Elisabeth Raether’s Neue deutsche Mädchen

During the past five years, a widespread resurgence of popular feminism has taken place in Germany. This essay places the emergence of “popfeminism,” a specifically German variant of contemporary feminism, within the context of the socioeconomic developments, generational contests, and feminist history that have informed it. Analyzing Jana Hensel and Elisabeth Raether’s east-west dialogue Neue deutsche Mädchen (New German girls) (2008), a memoir about the lives of young women in Germany today, as an emblematic popfeminist text, I argue that popfeminism should be read as both a symptom of and a point of orientation within the neoliberal order that has increasingly characterized Germany since the fall of the Wall.