Girl Number 20 revisited: feminist literacies in new hard times

Abstract

This paper revisits the question of ‘voice’ in the context of neo‐liberal social and educational reform. ‘Voice’ has been one of the key concepts of feminist and critical pedagogies in the theory and practice of producing social transformation. I argue in this paper, that the political effectiveness of this concept needs to be reconsidered at a time when the incitement to speak is one of the means by which neo‐liberal subjectivities are produced and regulated. I trace the ways the metaphor Girl Number Twenty circulates in the feminist pedagogy literature, with the purpose of engaging in a dialogue about the particular challenges girl number twenty encounters in the context of the new hard times wrought by neo‐liberalism and the shifting tensions between media, ideology and feminist teachers. The paper draws on ethnographic material from a school‐community project that took place in Toronto, Canada with girls' aged 10–14 from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds (Vietnamese, Cambodian, Portuguese, Afro‐Caribbean and Chinese).

Acknowledgements

This paper emerged out of a question posed to me by Roger Simon, some years ago now. I want to thank him for that question and for all the others that have long provided food for thought. I also thank the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments.

Notes

1. See for example, Apple (1996), Arnot and Barton (1992), Dehli (1996), Kenway (1995).

2. For a more elaborate articulation of this project see (Gonick, 2003).

3. The ‘at risk’ discourse is in wide circulation and is usually attached to marginalized youth and their relations to the law, social life and education. For critical analyses of the ‘at risk’ discourse see Peter Kelly (2003).

4. The incitement for girls' voices is also a feature of feminist research on girls, including my own. I acknowledge the complications and complexities of both requiring girls' voices to counter histories of marginalization and silencing as well as problematizing the dangers increasing visibility may generate.