Situating Nordic Girls' Studies

Abstract

While we have been working on this themed issue the political talk about The Girl has entered a new phase in a global shift manifested both by the establishment of the International Day of the Girl and through the launching of various campaigns on themes such as: Give Girls an Education and Eradicate World Poverty. The necessity for such initiatives was cruelly illustrated by the violent attack on Pakistani girls' rights activist Malala Yousafzai on her way home from school on 9 October 2012. Such blatant discrimination makes it difficult for us not to feel that we live in a privileged part of the world. The five Nordic nation states-Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden-are indeed often perceived by outsiders, too, as progressive countries that have come very far in achieving gender equality. However, although Nordic girlhood may appear in stark contrast to that of the millions of disadvantaged girls in the world, there are complexities and ambivalences beneath the surface of Nordic progressiveness that a reductive, comparative, and linear, framework fails to take into account. The societal model known as the Nordic model has, since the twentieth century, been a shared historical experience in the Nordic region. This entails, with some national variation, the organization of society characterized by a tax-funded and inclusive welfare system. However, as historians Henrik Berggren and Lars Trädgårdh (2012) have argued, it would be more accurate to understand Nordic societies as social investments states, rather than welfare states: Though the path hasn't always been straight, one can discern over the course of the twentieth century an overarching ambition in the Nordic countries not to socialize the economy but to liberate the individual citizen from all forms of subordination and dependency within the family and in civil society: the poor from charity, the workers from their employers, wives from their husbands, children from parents-and vice versa when the parents become elderly (14).

Performing the Self in the Mainstream

“…On the other hand, the offline-based interactions with their schoolmates and the trivializing label of "pink blogger" also frame the girls' performances. Public engagement based on life accounts and the stereotypically feminine area of style seems incompatible with the normative ideal of a gender-equal Nordic Girl granted with endless possibilities (Formark & Bränström Öhman 2013). Whereas some have argued that girls are freer to experiment with femininity in online settings compared with the offline settings, this investigation concludes that the girls' performances of self are complex balancing acts disciplined according to the normative ideals of the postfeminist body and the ideals of Nordic Girlhood.…”

“…Historically, women's public visibility in Norway has been largely connected to the second-wave feminist movements that initiated and pushed forward the fight for social gender equality. In this light, an engagement in the public sphere based on the accounts of teenage life and style seems misguided and incompatible with the normative ideal of Nordic Girlhood (Formark & Bränström Öhman 2013). At present, the "pink blogger" label is mostly associated with top female bloggers in their twenties who blog for a living and conveys additional connotations of the commodification of personal communication and of promoting unrealistic body ideals.…”

Psykisk ohälsa, utsatthet och en legitimerande oro – diskursiva förståelser av flickor som placeras vid särskilda ungdomshem

“…De senaste decennierna har intresset för flickan som samhällsvarelse vuxit och forskare menar att flickan kommit att fungera som framtidssymbol (McRobbie, 2004;Aapola, Gonick & Harris, 2005;Gonick, 2006;Formark, 2013). I inledningen till det nordiska temanumret av tidskriften Girlhood Studies beskriver redaktörerna hur den nordiska flickan är situerad i vad de kallar en postfeministisk nyliberal diskurs där individualisering sker på alla arenor (Formark & Bränström Öhman, 2013). Detta, menar de, skapar en tillvaro där flickor ses som vinnare med världen för sina fötter samtidigt som de åläggs hela ansvaret att navigera och lyckas i en fortsatt patriarkal värld (jfr Pomerantz, Raby & Stefanik, 2013).…”

Light, Love and Desire: The New Wave of Finnish Girls' Literature

“…esim. Lähteenmäki 2002, 272-276, 281;Harris 2004a, xvii-xviii;Eisenhauer 2004, 79-81;Franck 2013, 220;Formark & Bränström Öhman 2013;Mulari 2015). Esimerkiksi Maria Ulfgard (2002,(333)(334) esittää tutkimustulostensa pohjalta, että tytöt ovat taitavia lukijoita, mutta eivät välttämättä tunne tarvetta erityisesti tulkita lukemiaan kirjoja.…”

“…Yhteiskunnan ja/tai kansakunnan tasoon vaikuttaa se, mikä maa on kyseessä; esimerkiksi pohjoismaista diskurssia voi pitää erilaisena kuin angloamerikkalaista (vrt. Formark & Bränström Öhman 2013).…”