Culture and Subjectivity in Neoliberal and Postfeminist Times

Abstract

This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link: City Research OnlineCulture and subjectivity in neoliberal and postfeminist times Rosalind GillMy aim in this paper is to think through a number of issues concerning the relationship between culture and subjectivity. It seems to me that exploring the relationship of changing forms of political organisation, social relations and cultural practices to changing modes and experiences of subjecthood and subjectivity are among the most important and urgent tasks for critical intellectual work. These questions go to the heart of understanding power, ideology and agency and they require research that is interdisciplinary, psychosocial and intersectional. My particular focus in this short article is on the interrelations between changing representational practices in visual culture and changing subjectivity/ies. I argue that neoliberalism and postfeminism are central to understanding contemporary media culture, and I put the case for research which does not retreat from exploring how these broader social/political/economic/cultural discourses and formations may relate to subjectivity. Bringing subjectivity back inCurrent scholarship on culture and subjectivity is marked by a stark imbalance.On one hand there exists a well-developed intellectual apparatus for analysing representations and cultural forms, particularly those which are visual and/or textual. We have a whole array of sophisticated languages and conceptual tools available to us for minutely dissecting and examining cultural representations or discourses --from semiotics to deconstruction to discursive analysis. Yet it seems to me that the other side of the relationship --the focus on subjectivity --is relatively underexplored, with the exception of a few ground-breaking and important

Perceived social pressures and the internalization of the mesomorphic ideal: The role of drive for muscularity and autonomy in physically active men

“…This limited attention to environmental sources reduces the media to a mere epiphenomenon, rather than viewing a collection of environmental factors that may influence internalization (Gill, 2008). Further research on a wider variety of intraindividual and especially environmental pressure sources will help establish if these are the only or most salient ones with respect to the internalization of muscularity.…”

For Western Girls Only?

“…Gill 2007Gill , 2008Tasker and Negra 2007;McRobbie 2009;Gill and Scharff 2011;Butler 2013). Rosalind Gill (2007Gill ( , 2008 conceptualizes post-feminism as a contradictory sensibility marked by elements such as an emphasis on femininity as a bodily property; the growing imperative for women to (hetero)sexually self-objectify; women's disciplinary consumption of fashion and beauty; and an insistent casting of women's actions as freely chosen, knowing and self-pleasing. For instance, in post-feminist discourse "the maintenance of the feminine body is steeped in the rhetoric of choice as an endless series of supposedly positive and empowering, autonomous consumer decisions for women and girls" (Blue 2012, 6).…”

“…For instance, in post-feminist discourse "the maintenance of the feminine body is steeped in the rhetoric of choice as an endless series of supposedly positive and empowering, autonomous consumer decisions for women and girls" (Blue 2012, 6). With its individualizing logics that downplay and depoliticize the fact that women continue to face gendered inequality, and with its constitutive imbrication with consumerist notions of "choice," post-feminism is also understood as a fundamentally neoliberal sensibility (Gill 2008;Gill and Scharff 2011;Butler 2013). …”

“I’m Glad I was Designed”: Un/Doing Gender and Class in Susan Price’s “Odin Trilogy”

“…Here women can only maintain a beautiful, feminine appearance by becoming consumers of various goods, including clothes, cosmetics and beauty treatments. Consumer femininity is associated with neoliberalist and postfeminist discourses by feminist critics such as Cronin (2000), Gill (2008) and McRobbie (2009). While neoliberalist and postfeminist discourses of freedom of choice, agency and empowerment view individuals ''as entrepreneurial actors who are rational, calculating, and self-regulating'' (Gill, 2008, p. 436), these feminist critics maintain that the agency and freedom of choice that ''empowered'' women have actually come with severe restrictions.…”