Rethinking Agency and Resistance: What Comes After Girl Power?

Girl power and ‘selfie humanitarianism’

“…The interrogation of the discourses of girlhood being propagated by this campaign revealed that whether in the global North or South, 'the girl', as Gonick et al (2009) argue, is now expected to be an ideal neoliberal subject: empowered, agentic and entrepreneurial. We further argue that this mediated construction of the girl in contemporary post-humanitarian communication enables and reinforces an inward gaze, which shifts away from a political concern with global injustices into an individualised, neoliberalised charity that is intertwined with entrepreneurial projects of the self.…”

For Western Girls Only?

“…A number of feminist scholars have begun to consider how such old tropes and figurations are being reworked in neoliberal, postfeminist times (e.g. Gonick et al 2009;Sensoy and Marshall 2010;Wilson 2011Wilson , 2012Koffman and Gill 2013;Switzer 2013). They variously find and problematize the fact that with, through, indeed buttressing the contention that the work of feminism is achieved in the West is the discursive displacement of its continued need to the non-West.…”

“…Via a new positioning of girls and women of the global South as ideal beneficiaries of development programming and intervention, such rhetorics are being operationalized by states, the neoliberal development industry and global corporate agendas (Gonick et al 2009;Sensoy and Marshall 2010;Wilson 2011Wilson , 2012Koffman and Gill 2013;Switzer 2013). Switzer characterizes this as a "(post)feminist development fable" about "young female exceptionalism" that takes gender equality and women's (2009,(88)(89).…”

Sparkle: luminosity and post-girl power media

“…Bringing the work of Harris, Gill and McRobbie into conversation, Gonick et al (2009) argue we are now in a 'post-girl power' moment:…”