Responsible girls: the spatialized politics of feminine success and aspiration in a divided Silicon Valley, USA

Abstract

This article offers a comparative ethnographic examination of working-class Latina and middle-class white girls' narratives of aspiration and expressions of self-cultivation in early twenty-first-century Silicon Valley, USA. I argue that such girls' subject-making statements of aspiration and gendered practices of self-cultivation reflect their emotively charged negotiations of race and class differentiated ideals of feminine success, their experience of school and community spaces inscribed by hierarchies of race, class, and gender, and shifting political-economic circumstances. Moreover, I maintain that such statements and practices reveal girls' engagements with an open-ended gendered dynamic of responsibilization.

Niñas responsables: la política espacializada del éxito y aspiraciones femeninos en un Silicon Valley, EE.UU. dividido

Este artículo ofrece un análisis etnográfico comparativo de las narrativas de aspiración y expresiones de autoinstrucción de niñas latinas de clase trabajadora y blancas de clase media en Silicon Valley, EE.UU., a comienzos del siglo XXI. Sostengo que dichas afirmaciones de aspiración y prácticas generizadas de autoinstrucción que las hacen sujetos reflejan sus ideales del éxito femenino, diferenciados por negociaciones emotivamente cargadas de raza y clase, sus experiencias en los espacios de la escuela y la comunidad inscriptas por jerarquías de raza, clase, y género y circunstancias político-económicas cambiantes. Además, sostengo que tales afirmaciones y prácticas revelan los involucramientos de las niñas con dinámicas generizadas no predeterminadas de responsabilización.

负责任的女孩：美国两极分化的硅谷中，女性成功与渴望的空间化政治

本文针对二十一世纪初期美国硅谷中的拉丁裔工人阶级女孩和白人中产阶级女孩，在两者渴望并表达自我耕耘的叙事中，提供比较民族志研究。我主张，这些女孩渴望主体建构的宣言，以及自我耕耘的性别化实践，反映出她们对于具有种族与阶级差异的女性成功理想所进行的充满情绪性的协商，她们被种族、阶级与性别铭刻的学校与社群空间经验，以及转变中的政治经济条件。此外，我主张上述的宣言与实践，揭露了女孩们参与至开放式的性别化动态的责任化之中。

Keywords::

• gender/sexuality
• neoliberalism
• schooling
• responsibility
• risk

Palabras claves::

• género/sexualidad
• neoliberalismo
• escolaridad
• responsabilidad
• riesgo

关键词:::

• 性别／性欲
• 新自由主义
• 学校教育
• 责任
• 风险

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the helpful comments of the anonymous reviewers of this article, as well as those of Gender, Place, and Culture Editor Lynda Johnston.

Notes

^1. Following many scholars of neoliberal governmentality, I mean by ‘responsibilization’ the transfer of responsibility for social and economic circumstances from the state onto the individual.

^2. Data collection and analysis primarily concerned everyday experiences of schooling, perceptions of self, school and future, and social, economic, and familial circumstances.

^3. The data are from a questionnaire I administered in 2002 to 81 Morton students to gain information about parental employment.

^4. For example, median gross rent in California was $747 in 2002, whereas it was $1410 in San Jose at the same time (City of San Jose 2002).

^5. This injunction provoked an ACLU suit (American Civil Liberties Association 1997).

^6. For example, Arizona's SB 1070, partially struck down by the Supreme Court in June 2013.

^7. In her treatment of ‘agential girlhood’, Thomas (2011) critiques both pop cultural post-feminist discourse and feminist scholarly analyses (she cites Anita Harris) that identify agentive feminist subjects not located in hierarchical space.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Elsa Davidson

Elsa Davidson is an assistant professor of Anthropology at Montclair State University in Montclair, New Jersey.