SOC425H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Slut, Neoliberalism, Girl Power
Document Summary
The paper examines the centrality of consumption to valued modern femininityamong young women ar ound the world, as well as the structural reality ofgendered access to income. At the crux of the matter, is the fact that while these scripts and ideals areglobalized and appealing for y oung women eager to look modern, the economicmeans to actualize them vary widely. I first begin by briefly discussing how consumption has become central tovalued modern femininity amo ng young women. The association of women with consumption, shopping and "retail therapy" hasarguably become a kind o f feminized "common sense". "civilizing" missions beginning in thehousehold underlay their drive to engage in and produce modern co nsumingwomen. For increasing numbers of young women around the world, economicindependence has resulted in a sig nificant decoupling of consumption fromrelationships with providing men. For many other young women, and the schoolgirls discussed here in particular, consumption desires reg ularly outstrip their economic ability to satisfy them.
