Political Memoir, Celebrity, and the Reclamation of Feminism: Gendered Self-representation in Julia Gillard's My Story and Hillary Clinton's What Happened

Offering a close textual analysis of My Story (2014), the memoir of Australia's first woman Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and What Happened (2017), by the 2016 US Democratic Presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, this article explores their attempts-as is becoming common for celebrities-to use the memoir form to attempt to regain some control over their public personas and their feminisms. Focusing on the kind of feminist selves they seek to bring into being through these memoirs, this article examines the rhetorical strategies they each deploy to disrupt the dominant gendered narratives that came to circulate during their time in power and beyond.

Automated summary

This article offers a close textual analysis of the memoirs of Julia Gillard, Australia's first woman Prime Minister, and Hillary Clinton, the 2016 US Democratic Presidential nominee. It explores their attempts to use memoirs as a means to regain control over their public personas and feminisms.