Regretting Nothing, or Regretting Everything? Postfeminism, Femininity, and Regret in Miss Austen Regrets

This article considers how regret is mobilized within a postfeminist cultural context, taking the 2007 BBC film Miss Austen Regrets (dir. Jeremy Lovering, UK) as its case study. The article proposes that what is regretted in postfeminist culture speaks to the values and tensions that underpin this cultural context and explores how the expression or experience of regret is treated as proof of women's failures of subjectivity and decision-making. Through examining three of the main characters — Jane Austen, Cassandra Austen, and Fanny Austen Knight — and their interactions with regret, this article argues that both normative femininity and feminist perspectives are key sites where notions of “success” and “failure” are negotiated and where the risks for making the “wrong decision” as a postfeminist subject are highest. Through exploring femininity, individualism, and relationality via regret, the article argues that regret offers a new perspective on understanding the affective register of postfeminism. Furthermore, the article suggests that expressions of regret simultaneously shore up conservative postfeminist logics regarding normative femininity and individualism, while also making visible and offering feminist critiques of structural inequalities and relationality

Epistemology · Femininity · Nothing · Regret · Sociology · Computer Science · Gender Studies · Law in Society and Culture · Philosophy · Psychology · Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism · Social Psychology