LAUSR

ABSTRACT When the Chinese version of CosmoGIRL! was launched in Hong Kong, the editorial board was explicit about the magazine’s intention to create an alternative approach for girls in a cosmopolitan city to find their own way of living. This paper examines how the magazine frames the concept of ‘the girl’ through the lens of postfeminism. It asserts that the freedom of choice among girls emphasized in the magazine is not an unlimited form of freedom. This is largely because the idea of ‘compulsory heterosexuality’ underlies much of the content in the magazine. This paper argues that the magazine’s unquestioning inclination towards the complementary framework of opposite-sex relationships dichotomizes the bitch and feminine characteristics. This situation is reflective of the one facing postfeminists in their arguments regarding the development of girls in a neoliberal economy such as Hong Kong.