Feminism in Times of Crisis: Dr Jessica Martin releases a new book

Dr Jessica Martin has recently published a book that seeks to explore gender inequalities, the rise of media driven feminism, and how public figures have shaped a new kind of 'austerity celebrity'.

Dr Jessica Martin joined the School of Sociology and Social Policy in September 2019 and is the current programme manager of MA Gender Studies. Her research focuses on the intersections of gender, class and race.

Most recently, Dr Martin has published a book entitled ‘Feminisms and Domesticity in Times of Crisis: The Rise of the Austerity Celebrity’ (Bloomsbury, 2025). Following this publication, we had the opportunity to speak with Dr Martin about her new book, the motivations behind the research and her future academic plans.

Please tell us about your new book

In this book, I follow the gender studies tradition and situate the domestic as a crucial site in which power circulates, is reinforced and resisted with specifically gendered implications. The hypervisibility of domesticity, femininity and nostalgia in popular culture during moments of profound political crisis prompted me to take a cultural studies approach in interrogating what this mediation means for contemporary feminism. To do so, I draw on a range of case studies I conceptualise as “austerity celebrities”; public figures whose mediation is linked to domestic practices and who forge their visibility through articulations with crisis culture. Through this, I build the argument that the convergence of nostalgia and femininity in these mediations has produced new discourses of performative thrift, feminised labour and aspirational domesticity which are key resources for the justification of austerity policy. I suggest that we understand this as an adaptation of the postfeminist sensibility, which has subsumed gendered discourses of thrift, morality and nationhood during times of crisis to maintain it’s hegemony across popular culture and contemporary feminism.

Can you give an insight into the research process and journey leading up to publication?

The book builds on data I collected and analysed as part of my PhD, extending this into the current conjuncture of crisis spanning the climate, healthcare and cost-of-living after 15 years of austerity in the UK. This ensured I was able to map out the discursive shift from the so-called ‘end of austerity’ into the current crisis culture, which reignited and entrenched many of the hegemonic discourses around nationhood, femininity and nostalgia. Inspired by work in celebrity studies, I wanted my case studies to be intertextual, so I conducted a multi-modal critical discourse analysis of a wide range of texts including television and newspaper articles as well as digital texts such as blogs and social media.

When I started the work I was part of the Media and Gender group at the University of Leicester, and since coming to Leeds I have joined the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Studies. Both of these spaces inspired and supported me to pursue this work and provided generous feedback (as well as crucial friendships!) at various stages of the project.

I worked with commissioning editor Veidehi Hans and the book was published as part of the Library of Gender and Popular Culture at Bloomsbury, which was edited by Claire Nally and Angela Smith.

What do you hope readers will take away from the book?

I hope to make the case that austerity in the UK has been a political choice with significant implications for marginalised groups, and one which gets both contested and reinforced throughout popular culture. I also hope that we begin to treat the seemingly “apolitical” with some suspicion. Texts, people and ideas that masquerade as neutral, objective or “apolitical” are often doing deeply political work – and I think it’s our job as sociologists to grapple with this. For me, this means engaging with areas of society often dismissed as trivial or frivolous, like celebrity culture.
Finally, I hope to have made a contribution to work which is capturing the elasticity of contemporary feminisms, which continue to circulate across society in multiple and contested formations, benign and otherwise. All of these are quite ambitious takeaways – but I would be very happy if the book at least contributes to some of these debates and inspires people to come and chat to me!

What is next for you?

I have been working on a project with Claudia Coveney looking at knowledge production, governance and hierarchies in specific digital communities – we hope this work will be out in the world very soon. I also have some new publications for collections on media and gender which will be published early next year. I continue my role as programme manager for the MA Gender Studies for now and I am always happy to hear from passionate and curious students who are interested in the subject. And finally, I have my first period of research leave beginning next year which I am equally excited and daunted about – but I am very open to reading recommendations!