Theorizing agency in post-girlpower times

Abstract

Post-structuralist youth studies theorists have argued for nuanced perspectives on agency that are not reliant on an assumption of subjects as rational and internally coherent individuals, and understand subjectivity and social structure as produced in concert. These are important theoretical developments that have shaped recent scholarship on girls' identities and cultures. In this paper, we seek to give them some further sociological grounding by thinking through their resonance for the specific debate about young women and what feminist agency consists of, or looks like today. What we wish to further flesh out is how more familiar, modernist ideas about girls' agency have started to reach their limits not merely because of the post-structuralist turn, but because of the socio-cultural conditions of neoliberalism, post-feminism and post-girlpower. We unpack some recent shifts and complexities around three concepts: choice, empowerment and voice. These are the terms by which the possibility of girls' and young women's agency has traditionally been understood in feminist scholarship and much work in girls' studies. However, when we interrogate these concepts within the specific neoliberal, post-feminist, post-girlpower context, their usefulness for either understanding or enabling feminist agency is thrown into question.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

^1. Email: [email protected]

^2. While modern feminine sophistication may require a kind of withholding of critique, or of ‘joining in’ with sexism in some spheres, it is worth noting that this claim is increasingly complicated, not least by a lively and burgeoning feminist blogosphere we do not have space to discuss here, driven by young women, and arguably part of young women's subjectification as modern sophisticated subjects in specific cultural classed and raced contexts and locations (see Keller 2015). As Keller (2012) points out, this sphere of active, vocal feminist engagement by young women has received little attention in feminist scholarship.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anita Harris

Anita Harris is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Monash University and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow. She researches in the area of youth studies, with a focus on girls' studies, youth cultures, diversity and citizenship. She is the author/editor of Young People and Everyday Multiculturalism (Routledge 2013); Next Wave Cultures: Feminism, Subcultures, Activism (ed) (Routledge 2008); Young Femininity: Girlhood, Power and Social Change (with Sinikka Aapola and Marnina Gonick) (Palgrave, 2005); Future Girl (Routledge 2004); and All About the Girl (ed) (Routledge 2004).

Amy Shields Dobson

Dr Amy Shields Dobson holds a University of Queensland Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies. She previously lectured in Sociology and Gender at Monash University, where she remains a Research Adjunct in Sociology. Amy has published several articles and chapters in international anthologies on young people's social media practices and gender politics. Her current projects examine sexting in schools, and female genital cosmetic surgery in Australia.