Confidence Culture
Shani Orgad author Rosalind Gill author
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Duke University Press
Published:9th Feb '22
Should be back in stock very soon
This paperback is available in another edition too:
- Hardback£85.00(9781478014539)
In Confidence Culture, Shani Orgad and Rosalind Gill argue that imperatives directed at women to “love your body” and “believe in yourself” imply that psychological blocks rather than entrenched social injustices hold women back. Interrogating the prominence of confidence in contemporary discourse about body image, workplace, relationships, motherhood, and international development, Orgad and Gill draw on Foucault’s notion of technologies of self to demonstrate how “confidence culture” demands of women near-constant introspection and vigilance in the service of self-improvement. They argue that while confidence messaging may feel good, it does not address structural and systemic oppression. Rather, confidence culture suggests that women—along with people of color, the disabled, and other marginalized groups—are responsible for their own conditions. Rejecting confidence culture’s remaking of feminism along individualistic and neoliberal lines, Orgad and Gill explore alternative articulations of feminism that go beyond the confidence imperative.
“Shani Orgad and Rosalind Gill’s brilliant study of the intersections within and between ‘confidence culture’ and neoliberal capitalism makes a vital contribution to how we think about gender, the body, and media. Complicating analyses on both the media representation and the user applications of the contemporary confidence movement, this crucially important book will appeal to media studies, American studies, and feminist scholars as well as a wide public audience.” -- Sarah Banet-Weiser, author of * Empowered: Popular Feminism and Popular Misogyny *
"Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty; professionals." -- M. M. Ferree * Choice *
"Confidence Culture offers critical feminist insight into the conditions shaping our existence, experiences and our feelings. . . . An absolute necessity for scholars of gender, media studies, sociology and other interdisciplinary areas." -- Ipsita Pradhan * LSE Review of Books *
"Confidence Culture is sure to be of interest to cultural studies scholars, particularly those studying the machinations of modern feminism. The authors’ examination of a seemingly uplifting turn in popular culture exposes how oppressive systems of power persist even in these contexts; rather than empowering women, this phenomenon prompts women to reevaluate their identities to avoid blame and hides neoliberal ideologies behind feminism optics." -- Amy Whiteside * Cultural Studies *
ISBN: 9781478017608
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 363g
256 pages