THE LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF SISTERHOOD: REVISITING FAY WELDON’S FEMALE FRIENDS (1974) IN THE FOURTH WAVE

In this paper I am to revisit a classic of women’s writing, Fay Weldon’s Female Friends (1974), in light of the current feminist fourth wave, when the language of sisterhood seems to have been returned to popular discourse. My aim is to examine the complexities surrounding female relations in the novel. I argue that, although Weldon does advance the possibility of sisterhood, she also questions some of the premises that were underlying this term during the second wave. Furthermore, my contention is that the novel addresses the importance of women’s individual agency, a discourse of the third and fourth wave, as a necessary step towards the construction of sisterhood.