Girl power's last chance? Tavi Gevinson, feminism, and popular media culture

Keller, Jessalynn

doi:10.1080/10304312.2015.1022947

Cited by 30 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…While research continues to document punitive stereotypes of feminists as irrational, man‐hating, unfeminine, and fanatical (Calder‐Dawe & Gavey, 2016a), scholarship is also tracking a surge of mainstream interest in feminism. Feminism is increasingly entangled with popular culture: notable is the increasing ‘feministification’ of mainstream celebrity culture and the rise of feminist chic, as performed by Beyoncé, Emma Watson, Tavi Gevinson, and Lorde (Keller, ). This research also documents feminist engagement and activism, drawing particular attention to the efforts of young women who are more typically considered apolitical (Ringrose & Renold, ; Sills et al ., ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Authentic feminist? Authenticity and feminist identity in teenage feminists’ talk

Calder-Dawe

Gavey

2017

British J Social Psychol

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This article explores how young people's feminist identities take shape in conjunction with a contemporary ideal of personal authenticity: to know and to express the 'real me'. Drawing from interviews with 18 teenagers living in Auckland, New Zealand, we examine a novel convergence of authenticity and feminism in participants' identity talk. For social psychologists interested in identity and politics, this convergence is intriguing: individualizing values such as authenticity are generally associated with disengagement with structural critique and with a repudiation of politicized and activist identities. Rather than seeking to categorize authentic feminism as an instance of either 'good/collective' or 'bad/individualized' feminist politics, we use discourse analysis to examine how the identity position of authentic feminist was constructed and to explore implications for feminist politics. On one hand, interviewees mobilized authentic feminism to affirm their commitment to normative liberal values of authenticity and self-expression. At the same time, the position of authentic feminist appeared to authorize risky feminist identifications and to justify counter-normative feelings, desires, and actions. To conclude, we explore how encountering others' intolerance of authentic feminism exposed interviewees to the limits of authenticity discourse, propelling some towards new understandings of the social world and their space for action within it.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Authentic feminist? Authenticity and feminist identity in teenage feminists’ talk

Calder-Dawe

Gavey

2017

British J Social Psychol

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“…They are exploring the ruptures and fissures that emerge in spaces of discursive contradiction, fantasy and performativity (Raby 2005). They are focusing more closely on the social contexts in which the relational (Kennelly 2009) collective, intersubjective work of agency is done, for example, in spaces of intense sociality (McRobbie 2009;Dobson 2014;Keller 2015). And they continue to investigate the intrapsychic processes and investments that cut across 'rational' choices and actions (Walkerdine, Lucey, and Melody 2001).…”

Section: Voicementioning

confidence: 97%

“…Email: amy.dobson@monash.edu 2. While modern feminine sophistication may require a kind of withholding of critique, or of 'joining in' with sexism in some spheres, it is worth noting that this claim is increasingly complicated, not least by a lively and burgeoning feminist blogosphere we do not have space to discuss here, driven by young women, and arguably part of young women's subjectification as modern sophisticated subjects in specific cultural classed and raced contexts and locations (see Keller 2015). As Keller (2012) points out, this sphere of active, vocal feminist engagement by young women has received little attention in feminist scholarship.…”

Section: Disclosure Statementmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Some aspects of third wave feminism were built on the idea of inheriting the gains of second wave feminism in terms of this greater capacity for autonomous choice; especially the idea that young women are now free to choose even highly gendered identity practices and styles, for example as expressed through 'girlie feminism' (Baumgardner and Richards 2000), the growing popularity of feminist fashion blogs (see Keller 2015), and 'new-burlesque' performance practices often claimed as feminist and empowering (Ferreday 2008;Willson 2008). The idea is that postsecond-wave feminism, such styles and practices are now divested of singular, oppressive meanings, and can be adopted ironically or re-framed as actively chosen and enjoyed rather than imposed by the patriarchy.…”

Section: Choicementioning

confidence: 99%

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Theorizing agency in post-girlpower times

Harris

Dobson

2015

Continuum

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Post-structuralist youth studies theorists have argued for nuanced perspectives on agency that are not reliant on an assumption of subjects as rational and internally coherent individuals, and understand subjectivity and social structure as produced in concert. These are important theoretical developments that have shaped recent scholarship on girls' identities and cultures. In this paper, we seek to give them some further sociological grounding by thinking through their resonance for the specific debate about young women and what feminist agency consists of, or looks like today. What we wish to further flesh out is how more familiar, modernist ideas about girls' agency have started to reach their limits not merely because of the post-structuralist turn, but because of the socio-cultural conditions of neoliberalism, post-feminism and post-girlpower. We unpack some recent shifts and complexities around three concepts: choice, empowerment and voice. These are the terms by which the possibility of girls' and young women's agency has traditionally been understood in feminist scholarship and much work in girls' studies. However, when we interrogate these concepts within the specific neoliberal, post-feminist, post-girlpower context, their usefulness for either understanding or enabling feminist agency is thrown into question.

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“…Women identifying as riot grrrls, listing the reasons for the movement voiced the following demandsIn Riot Grrrl manifesto young women state: "us girls crave […] books and fanzines that speak to US that WE feel included in and can understand in our own ways" orand "we wanna make it easier for girls to see/hear each other's work so that we can share strategies and criticize-applaud each other. "19 As Jessalynn Keller notices: "the riot grrrl community was sustained through girls' self-produced media products" (Keller, 2015), similarly to the first, site The Ardorous, and then works collected in Babe. Yet another resemblance would be the need to question the image of the girl, girlishness and femininity.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Reclaiming Adolescent Sexuality: Images of Girlhood in Petra Collins’s Babe

Kamińska

2017

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Reclaiming Adolescent Sexuality: Images of Girlhood in Petra Collins’s BabeThis paper examines photographs, drawings, collages and other art forms collected in the book Babe, edited by photographer Petra Collins and published by Prestel in 2015. I read the collected artwork as an attempt to present the image of the girl (including her sexuality) from a young woman’s perspective. Babe, which includes works such as photographs of teenagers with visible period blood on the underwear or a to-do list with the goal of never faking another orgasm, asks who a contemporary girl is and how young artists can challenge traditional images of femininity. In my analysis I focus on the excessive use of the color pink in Babe, characterizing the way artists blend innocence with eroticism. I argue that by playing with artifacts of “girlishness,” artists can both expose the absurdity of the image of the girl in popular culture and reclaim symbols of girlhood. I suggest that Collins – despite her ambitions to create an inclusive platform for female artists – does not present a diverse image of girls, who in Babe is still predominantly white and able-bodied. I introduce the potential reading of Babe as a feminist visual manifesto, in reference to the Riot Grrrl movement and the cultural phenomenon of “girl power.” I suggest that the book offers a possibility of exploring the figure of the girl from the perspective of young female artists. Odzyskując młodzieńczą seksualność: wizerunki dziewczyńskości w „Babe” Petry CollinsArtykuł jest analizą fotografii, rysunków, kolaży i innych prac zebranych przez fotografkę Petrę Collins w albumie „Babe", wydanym w 2015 roku przez Prestel. W artykule odczytuję zebrane prace jako szansę zaprezentowania wizerunku dziewczyny (w tym jej seksualności) z perspektywy młodej kobiety. Babe – w której znajdują się zarówno fotografie nastolatek z widoczną krwią menstruacyjną na bieliźnie, jak i zdjęcie listy zadań, na której artystka umieszcza postanowienie, by nigdy więcej nie udawać orgazmu – zadaje pytanie kim dzisiaj jest dziewczyna i w jaki sposób młode artystki mogą kwestionować utarte obrazy kobiecości. Podczas analizy skupiam się na przewadze różu w warstwie wizualnej albumu, ukazując sposób, w jaki artystki łączą pozorną niewinność z erotyzmem. Twierdzę, że poprzez grę z konwencjami „dziewczyńskości” autorki prac mogą zarówno eksponować sztuczność wizerunku młodej kobiety w kulturze popularnej, jak i odzyskiwać symbole dziewczęcości. Sugeruję, że Collins – mimo próby stworzenia inkluzywnej platformy dla artystek – nie oferuje zróżnicowanego obrazu dziewczyny, która w Babe wciąż jest przeważnie biała i pełnosprawna. W odczytaniu Babe jako feministycznego wizualnego manifestu odwołuję się do ruchu Riot Grrrl i fenomenu kulturowego reprezentowanego przez hasło „girl power”. Sugeruję, że album oferuje zgłębienie postaci dziewczyny z punktu widzenia młodych artystek.

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Girl power's last chance? Tavi Gevinson, feminism, and popular media culture

Cited by 30 publications

References 12 publications

Authentic feminist? Authenticity and feminist identity in teenage feminists’ talk

Authentic feminist? Authenticity and feminist identity in teenage feminists’ talk

Theorizing agency in post-girlpower times

Reclaiming Adolescent Sexuality: Images of Girlhood in Petra Collins’s Babe

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