‘Awaken your incredible’: Love your body discourses and postfeminist contradictions

Gill, Rosalind; Elias, Ana Sofia

doi:10.1386/macp.10.2.179_1

Cited by 144 publications

(93 citation statements)

References 19 publications

(22 reference statements)

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“…Notwithstanding this, a striking feature of this example and much of the technology of self circulating around body confidence more generally is that in inciting women to 'love your body' they rely upon repeatedly making visible what we have called 'hate your body' talk (Gill & Elias 2014). LYB discourses rely upon and reinforce the cultural intelligibility of the female body as 'difficult to love' (Lynch 2011;Murphy 2013).…”

Section: Turning Away From Culture and Structural Inequalitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These messages urging girls and women to 'love your body' are affirmative, seemingly feminist exhortations to believe in ourselves, feel confident and attractive 'at any size', to 'remember' that we are 'incredible'. They instruct young women that 'the power is in your hands' (all quotes come from recent Love Your Body campaigns -see Gill & Elias, 2014).…”

Section: And the New York Times Bestseller The Confidencementioning

confidence: 99%

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The Confidence Cult(ure)

Gill

Orgad

2015

Australian Feminist Studies

Self Cite

230

165

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In this paper we explore how confidence has become a technology of self that invites girls and women to work on themselves. The discussion demonstrates the extensiveness of what we call the 'cult(ure) of confidence' across different areas of social life, and examines the continuities in the way that exponents of the confidence cult(ure) name, diagnose and propose solutions to archetypal feminist questions about labour, value and the body. Our analysis focuses on two broad areas of social life in which the notion of confidence has taken hold powerfully in the last few years: popular discussions about gender and work, and consumer body culture. Examining the incitements to self-confidence in these realms, we show how an emergent technology of confidence, systematically re-signifies feminist accounts, by turning away from structural inequalities and collectivist critiques of male domination into heightened modes of self work and self-regulation, and by repudiating the injuries inflicted by the structures of inequality. We conclude by situating the 'confidence cult(ure) in relation to wider debates about feminism, postfeminism and neoliberalism.

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Section: Turning Away From Culture and Structural Inequalitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: And the New York Times Bestseller The Confidencementioning

confidence: 99%

The Confidence Cult(ure)

Gill

Orgad

2015

Australian Feminist Studies

Self Cite

230

165

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Whilst the exhortations to be 'fearless', 'courageous' and 'present' may have a different meaning in relation to queer visibility and pride, the words and phrases are strikingly similar to those that have become mainstreamed through 'love your body' discourses in campaigns from Dove, Nike and others. 43 The same edition highlights (lack of) confidence as an issue on their problem page, as editor Jane Czyzselska responds to 'S' who asks 'how can I help my partner to feel more sexually confident?' Notably, however, the response is framed in terms of mutual pleasure and in encouraging the unconfident partner to more fully know and embrace her own sexual desires.…”

Section: Confidence Is the New Sexymentioning

confidence: 99%

Confidence culture and the remaking of feminism

Gill¹,

Orgad²

2017

New Formations

Self Cite

111

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In this paper we explore how confidence works as a technology of self, exhorting women and girls to act upon themselves, and how it is reconfiguring feminist concerns. Our analysis demonstrates how the confidence cult(ure) has materialised in three different sites: discussions about women in the workplace; texts and practices promoting 'confident mothering'; and contemporary sex and relationship advice. We show that confidence acts as a disciplinary technology of self which is addressed almost exclusively to women and is articulated in highly standardized terms which disavow any difference between and among women. It is an individualising technology which demands intense labour, places the emphasis upon women self-regulating and locates the source of the 'problems' and their 'solutions' within a newly upgraded form of confident subjectivity, thus rendering insecurity and lack of confidence abhorrent. We then discuss how the confidence culture is deeply implicated in the new luminosity of feminism, and we argue that it contributes to the remaking of feminism in three central ways: 1) by continuing and promoting elements of postfeminist sensibility, yet through celebration rather than repudiation of feminism; 2) through an inclusive address that expunges difference and the possibility of its critique; and 3) by favouring positive affect and outlawing 'negative' 'political' feelings. We argue that this move, which calls forth a new kind of a 'cool' 'feminist' subject, is simultaneously political, psychological and aesthetic.

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“…Their obscuring and marginalization are furthered by presentations of women's decisions and feelings as private and personal. The Good Wife and other contemporary media texts present women's capacity to return to work after a time away from the labour market (or equally women's ability to reach senior leadership positions) as predominantly a matter of their ability to crack "the confidence code" (Kay and Shipman 2014), be daring, assertive and "lean in" (McRobbie 2013;Gill and Elias 2014;Rottenberg 2014). Tracey Wright's and other women's work and life decisions are often presented as private choices and personal mistakes, the message being that if they chose to "opt out" of the workplace, they have only themselves to blame for their "foolish folly" -as one Guardian commentator put it (February 24, 2015).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Incongruous encounters: media representations and lived experiences of stay-at-home mothers

Orgad

2016

Feminist Media Studies

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This article juxtaposes mediated representations of stay-at-home mothers (SAHMs) with accounts of 22 UK educated middle-class SAHMs. It exposes a fundamental chasm between media constructions of women's "opting out" of the workplace as a personal choice, and the factors shaping women's decisions to leave a career, and their complex, often painful consequences. The juxtaposition highlights three aspects largely rendered invisible in current representations of SAHMs: (1) the influence of husbands' demanding careers and work cultures on their wives' "choices" to not return to paid employment; (2) the issue of childcare; and (3) women's immense unpaid domestic and maternal labour. Although media representations often fail to correspond to middle-class SAHMs' lives, they shape their thinking and feelings and reconstruct their deepest yearnings and sense of self. In particular, SAHMs speak of feeling invisible, lacking confidence and being silent and silenced. I conclude by discussing how the disconnect between media representation and SAHMs' experience may be enhancing and sustaining their silence, which supports and re-secures a patriarchal capitalist system, and reflecting on the role of feminist media research to voice the lived experience of gender inequality.

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‘Awaken your incredible’: Love your body discourses and postfeminist contradictions

Abstract: This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link:

Cited by 144 publications

References 19 publications

The Confidence Cult(ure)

The Confidence Cult(ure)

Confidence culture and the remaking of feminism

Incongruous encounters: media representations and lived experiences of stay-at-home mothers

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