Hill girls, consumption practices, power, and city style: raced and classed production of femininities in a higher education setting

Abstract

This study investigated the ways a diverse group of university women in the USA utilised racialised and classed discourses of femininity in the creation of subjectivities. Interview and focus group data were collected over a two‐year time period and focused on how women navigated the higher education setting. Two forms of femininity, ‘Hill girl’ and ‘City style’, were salient. Hill girl femininity was based on markers such as white skin that had been tanned, and consumption practices. City style femininity was also defined through consumption practices and identification as a woman of colour. Material markers like race and class both limited and expanded the discourses available to women. New subjectivities were created with particular rights, while simultaneously making them subject to policing. The women in this study used contrasting and, at times, contradictory discourses to explore various forms of femininity that were connected to institutional power and privilege.

Keywords:

• femininities
• discourse
• gender
• lived identities
• race

Notes

1. Although the notion ‘White’ has been complicated in recent scholarship (see Frankenberg 1993), Caucasian informants utilised the term when they spoke of themselves and other Caucasians. As such, this is the term utilised in the paper. The term ‘Whiteness’ refers to a subject position that embodies being Caucasian and recognising oneself as a raced person. Research indicates that White students do not have to think of themselves as White (Delpit 1995; McIntyre 1997; Sleeter 2001) and, therefore, they believe themselves to be non‐raced.

2. The term ‘girl’ was used by the university women, regardless of age, to refer to themselves and each other. The paper, in an attempt to respect informants' own naming practices, sometimes utilises the term ‘girl’ though, more often, refers to participants as ‘young women’.

3. Sororities and fraternities on US university campuses are single‐sex (and often single‐race) social organisations. The groups provide social activities to members and some personal and professional networking beyond the undergraduate university experience. They are similar to European ‘corporations’.

4. In the USA, the automobile BMW is considered a symbol of wealth because of its price in comparison to other brands like Toyota or Chevrolet.