Michele Paule – författare

This book explores the circulation and reception of popular discourses of achieving girlhood, and the ways in which girls themselves participate in such circulation. It examines the figure of the achieving girl within wider discourses of neoliberal self-management and post-feminist possibility, considering the tensions involved in being both successful and successfully feminine and the strategies and negotiations girls undertake to manage these tensions.The work is grounded in an understanding of media, educational, and peer contexts for the production of the successful girl. It traces narratives across school, television and online in texts produced for and by girls, drawing on interviews with girls in schools, online forum participation (within the purpose-built site www.smartgirls.tv), and girls’ discussions of a range of teen dramas.

This book explores the circulation and reception of popular discourses of achieving girlhood, and the ways in which girls themselves participate in such circulation. It examines the figure of the achieving girl within wider discourses of neoliberal self-management and post-feminist possibility, considering the tensions involved in being both successful and successfully feminine and the strategies and negotiations girls undertake to manage these tensions.The work is grounded in an understanding of media, educational, and peer contexts for the production of the successful girl. It traces narratives across school, television and online in texts produced for and by girls, drawing on interviews with girls in schools, online forum participation (within the purpose-built site www.smartgirls.tv), and girls’ discussions of a range of teen dramas.

What do teenage girls think of leadership when power is concentrated amongst the white, male elite? How do the hostile conditions of visibility for women impact how these girls imagine their futures? Who Runs the World? takes research into girlhood, leadership and visibility in a new critical direction. Drawing on research conducted with girls in schools and youth organizations, it investigates what girls apprehend leadership to mean both in their own lives and for women in the public eye. Research participants range from girls at elite independent schools to girls likely to be underrepresented due to their class, ethnicity, religion, ability, or sexuality. The book disrupts common assumptions around ‘role models’, in a context of cuts to youth provision and hostile media conditions for women leaders and celebrities. Who Runs the World? is essential reading for anyone interested in gendered inequalities and in girls as audiences, citizens, and subjects of discourses of gender and power.

What do teenage girls think of leadership when power is concentrated amongst the white, male elite? How do the hostile conditions of visibility for women impact how these girls imagine their futures? Who Runs the World? takes research into girlhood, leadership and visibility in a new critical direction. Drawing on research conducted with girls in schools and youth organizations, it investigates what girls apprehend leadership to mean both in their own lives and for women in the public eye. Research participants range from girls at elite independent schools to girls likely to be underrepresented due to their class, ethnicity, religion, ability, or sexuality. The book disrupts common assumptions around ‘role models’, in a context of cuts to youth provision and hostile media conditions for women leaders and celebrities. Who Runs the World? is essential reading for anyone interested in gendered inequalities and in girls as audiences, citizens, and subjects of discourses of gender and power.