Old Plots and New Identities: Ambivalent femininities in late modernity

Bright and Beautiful: High achieving girls, ambivalent femininities, and the feminization of success in the primary school

“…Running alongside a persistent focus on boys, school-based masculinities, and achievement in educational research in recent years has been a proliferation and resurgence of critical girlhood study texts debating and theorizing what it means to be a girl and the production of young contemporary femininities in post-feminist, neo-liberal societies (Aaopola, Gonick, & Harris, 2004;Driscoll, 2002;Gonick, 2004;Harris, 2004a;Mitchell & Reid-Walsh, 2005;Walkerdine et al, 2001;Youdell, 2005). Each of these texts (although focusing almost exclusively on teenage girls and young women) in different ways stress the need to situate cultural images and discourses of ''over-achieving, consumer oriented girl power'' (Harris, 2004b) with the complex, multiple, and contradictory nature of girls' identities:…”

Uneven Relationalities, Collective Biography, and Sisterly Affect in Neoliberal Universities

“…Contemporary femininities are characterized by the requirement to be both "aggressors and nurturers" (Ringrose 2007(Ringrose , 2013. Irreconcilable tensions between being a relational subject and exhibiting the kind of individualized agency previously associated with masculinity (Gonick 2004a) are heightened for women in neoliberal regimes because such difficulties are experienced as the result of personal failures or successes. Although there is talk of collaboration and interdisciplinarity, individual performance is surveyed and rewarded.…”

“…Although there is talk of collaboration and interdisciplinarity, individual performance is surveyed and rewarded. The subject positions made available to academics through neoliberal managerialist discourses elevate the individualized agency and competitiveness inherently associated with white masculinity (Alemán 2014;David 2014;Gonick 2004a;Swan 2010). The collective, relational, and emotional aspects of working in the academy, such as social and disciplinary relations that are traditionally associated with white feminine dispositions and feminist discourses, are backgrounded while competitive individualism is rewarded.…”

“…The responsibility to construct and discipline the individualized self-as it exists within normative discourses and networks of relations-operates with particular force on girls and women, who are always-already at risk of failing to secure that position (Gonick 2004a;Ringrose 2007Ringrose , 2013. It has long been suggested that girls tend to be socialized as "helpers" or relational beings, making it exceptionally hard for them to let go of their investments in "caring, being helpful" relational subjects (Singh 1993, qtd.…”

The ‘problem’ with single women

“…There has been a proliferation of interest in studying the constitution of contemporary femininity and a level of scepticism regarding the claims made about the role choice plays in shaping women's agency (Baker, 2008(Baker, , 2010Budgeon, 2011Budgeon, , 2014Carlson, 2011;Gill & Scharff, 2011;Gonick, 2004;Harris, 2004;McRobbie, 2009;Rich, 2005). This is a significant development within gender studies because the scholarship which interrogates the social construction and performance of masculinity has not been matched by research dedicated to questioning the structure of femininity.…”