Having a top-class mindset? Post-feminism and the co-construction of class and mindset among young Finnish women

ABSTRACT

Young white women are presented as winners in neoliberal governmental discourses, but despite the assumption that they are in a privileged position, not all young women reach the top. This paradox, elaborated here from different angles in research inspired by post-feminism and neoliberalism, calls for a focus on class-based differences among young women and their mindsets. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with Finnish women aged 18–28, this article contributes empirically to theoretical debates on the psychic lives of young women who are making educational choices and entering the labour market. The article shows how, even in egalitarian Finland, class still adds to the gender harms done to young women, contributing to their feelings of mistrust and hopelessness. The article also suggests that a privileged background makes it possible to consider atypical choices, such as individual, well-managed time out that prepares young women to make achievements in the future.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• social class
• post-feminism
• neoliberalism
• qualitative research

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Professor (emerita) Päivi Korvajärvi, the leader of our research project ‘Division into two?’, for her helpful comments during the process of writing this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Hanna-Mari Ikonen, PhD, is a University Lecturer in Gender Studies, Tampere University, Finland.

Notes

1 Indeed, ‘entrepreneurial’ is the buzzword of neoliberal capitalism, although it is less clear what is really meant by it. Sometimes, innovativeness and the creative elements of entrepreneurship are muted, and the entrepreneurship discourse mainly serves managerial purposes to produce latently governed, obedient entrepreneurs – ‘manopreneurs’ (Hjorth 2005, 390).

2 Blair (2017) took a slightly different course: she purposefully chose only ‘top girls’, to evaluate how the discourse of successful girls was translated and transformed in everyday life.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Koneen Säätiö.