White, classed and gendered: pre-teen girls negotiate successful young womanhood

ABSTRACT

Within neoliberal postfeminism young women are depicted as powerful, unconstrained and ready to work for success. However, research reveals a far more complicated picture than this straightforward ode to success. We explore the intersection of racialised, classed and gendered ideals of successful femininity from the perspective of Māori (indigenous New Zealand) and Pākehā (European descent) pre-teen girls, addressing the lack of research with this age group and with indigenous girls. A poststructuralist examination of focus group data demonstrated that while much of the girls’ talk adhered to a postfeminist construction of female success, there was also an astute exploration of the structural inequalities confronting women and girls. Constructions of a gendered workforce that de-powers and undervalues women and an examination of the racialised barriers to Māori women's success unravels the postfeminist claims that success is universally available. We unpick these intricacies and what this could mean for educators.

KEYWORDS:

• Postfeminism
• successful femininity
• pre-teen girls
• gender
• ethnicity

Acknowledgements

We are immensely grateful to the girls who gave their time and energy to participate in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Sophie Cossens completed her Master's degree in the School of Psychology at Victoria University of Wellington. Her research project examined the meanings of successful young womanhood among pre-teen girls from different ethnic backgrounds. Sophie Also holds a BA (hons) in Psychology from the University of Otago.

Sue Jackson is associate professor in the School of Psychology at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Her work centres on gender, sexuality, bodies and the ways they are represented and made sense of in popular culture and she has a long-standing international track record for research with girls and young women in these areas. Her most recent research project examined pre-teen girls’ engagement with ‘sexualised’ popular culture in their everyday lives and was supported by the NZ Royal Society Marsden Fund.