Description
Book SynopsisIn
Confidence Culture, Shani Orgad and Rosalind Gill argue that imperatives directed at women to “love your body” and “believe in yourself” imply that psychological blocks rather than entrenched social injustices hold women back. Interrogating the prominence of confidence in contemporary discourse about body image, workplace, relationships, motherhood, and international development, Orgad and Gill draw on Foucault’s notion of technologies of self to demonstrate how “confidence culture” demands of women near-constant introspection and vigilance in the service of self-improvement. They argue that while confidence messaging may feel good, it does not address structural and systemic oppression. Rather, confidence culture suggests that women—along with people of color, the disabled, and other marginalized groups—are responsible for their own conditions. Rejecting confidence culture’s remaking of feminism along individualisti
Trade Review“Shani Orgad and Rosalind Gill’s brilliant study of the intersections within and between ‘confidence culture’ and neoliberal capitalism makes a vital contribution to how we think about gender, the body, and media. Complicating analyses on both the media representation and the user applications of the contemporary confidence movement, this crucially important book will appeal to media studies, American studies, and feminist scholars as well as a wide public audience.” -- Sarah Banet-Weiser, author of * Empowered: Popular Feminism and Popular Misogyny *
"Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty; professionals." -- M. M. Ferree * Choice *
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Confidence Culture offers critical feminist insight into the conditions shaping our existence, experiences and our feelings. . . . An absolute necessity for scholars of gender, media studies, sociology and other interdisciplinary areas." -- Ipsita Pradhan * LSE Review of Books *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Introduction: The Confidence Imperative 1
1. Body Confidence 29
2. Confidence at Work 56
3. Confident Relating 76
4. Confident Mothering 100
5. Confidence without Borders 124
Conclusion: Beyond Confidence 143
Notes 163
Bibliography 203
Index 229
