One of HBO’s television series Sex in the City’s major attractions is its obvert defence of women’s independence in a context in which thirtysomething single white (or otherwise) females are regarded as a social anomaly and are still judged and, above all, valued according to their capacity to find a partner and become wives and mothers. Like other examples of post-feminist or chick-lit fiction, however, Sex and the City’s defence of female independence stops short of fully embracing spinsterhood has a fulfilling option for women. This paper focuses on the limitations of postfeminist fiction to escape the patriarchal conventions that still regulate social interaction in both the public and the private spheres.