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Inside the Blue Book
Girl
Power!
Summer
2001
by Jennifer L. Holley
Sociology
184a
Girls' Culture and Contemporary Society
Faculty: Sharon Kinsella, Assistant Professor, Sociology
Picture
a young woman, an international pop star making millions of dollars
-- who still puts up her hair in ponytails and wears pink baby-doll
dresses. Is this the vision of an empowered -- or disempowered --
woman? The modern day paradox of "girl power" (a phrase made internationally
known by the British pop group The Spice Girls) is explored in Sharon
Kinsella's sociology course, "Girls' Culture and Contemporary Society."
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The
class questions whether being a new style "babe" amounts to passivity.
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Kinsella
defines "girls' culture" as an area of contemporary life that either
features girls as idols or is made by girls. In girls' culture,
many female experiences of life have moved from the margins to the
center of society. The class questions whether being a new style
"babe" -- even if it is coupled with power -- amounts to passivity.
"The
studies I have done and my interest in teaching 'Girls' Culture,'"
Kinsella says, "are in some ways inspired by the research about
young girls who have formed some of the networks in my life." After
completing her undergraduate studies at the London School of Economics,
Kinsella worked as a civil servant in Japan. Her formative friendships
with young Japanese women inspired her, as a graduate student at
Oxford, to study infantilism as a dominant feature of Japanese pop
culture, especially in regard to "cuteness" and the fashion industry.
Kinsella
uses case studies from Japan, as well as some from Europe and the
United States. "We look at a special type of girl identity as formed
by society, and particularly the media," says Kinsella. Also explored
is the rise of "girlish professionalism," the phenomenom in which
typically feminine characteristics, such as flexibility and high
"emotional IQ," have become highly valued in the corporate environment.
Students' enthusiasm for the course was apparent from the first day of class,
when over 200 people showed up. Most students in the class, Kinsella
notes, exuded the "babe power" under discussion; they were by and
large self-confident, funky, stylish, and leaders on campus. "The
students appeared stimulated," says Kinsella, "when they realized
I was speaking directly to them."  |
