Massey Professor finalist in British Psychology Society Book Awards

A book co-authored by Critical Health Psychology Professor Sarah Riley has been shortlisted in the 2021 British Psychology Society Book Awards. The book Postfeminism and Health: Cultural Psychology and Media Perspectives, was written by Professor Riley, Associate Professor Adrienne Evans from the Postdigital Cultures Research Centre, Coventry University, United Kingdom and Dr Martine Robson from Aberystwyth University, Wales.

This book, published in Routledge’s Critical Approaches to Health series, is part of the growing field of books on postfeminist studies. Professor Riley studies postfeminism as a set of ideas about ideal femininity that circulate across a range of actors including media, everyday talk between family and friends, advertising, and public institutions.

“The book speaks to scholars across disciplines, government officials, and daughters in their bedroom because it offers new ways to think through key issues impacting on women’s health today. It connects those in the global North with health policies in the global South, across a range of issues including weight, sex, motherhood, cosmetic surgeries, digital communities.

“It takes the reader through a journey, giving them new tools to think with theory and make sense of a transnational form of sense-making that is structuring how women understand themselves, their health, and their responsibilities for other’s health,” she says.

“It’s been so great to know that the book has resonated with so many different people. That means we’ve given people new ways to understand themselves and the pressures they’re under that might help them find more affirmative pathways through.

“We used poststructuralist informed theories that are relatively marginal in psychology, so it was really exciting to have the book recognised as offering a valuable contribution by the British Psychology Society. It also shows the contribution that critical psychology and transdisciplinary work between psychology and media studies can make.”

Professor Riley’s book is one of five shortlisted texts. You can see the full list of shortlisted authors here.

The winner will be announced later this month.