ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the postfeminist logic that underpins practices and discourses of 'merit' and presents the argument that, while the allocation of rewards according to merit is emblematic of the so-called success of equal opportunities, the recognition of merit and worth relies on traditionally masculine embodied performances and displays. It shows how meritocratic principles that define a shift from ascription to achievement as the primary basis for social selection, underpin and reflect postfeminist understandings of the realization of equality in the workplace and how new embodiments of femininity undermine claims to 'masculine' merit-based success. The chapter considers how merit is constructed and perceived within a neoliberal socio-economic context and a postfeminist gender regime—manifest in part through a shared focus on individual choice, agency and empowerment as key characteristics of an 'objective', meritocratically based organizational system, as well as through a common requirement to 'work on oneself' and self-improve. It points to contradictions and inconsistencies within postfeminism and merit.
