Ambivalent aspirations: Young women negotiating postfeminist subjectivity in media work

Abstract

This article contributes to the critical literature on postfeminist articulations of young women as ideal subjects of aspiration and meritocracy by focussing on young women’s lived experiences and ways of navigating the contradictory effects of these articulations. Drawing on ethnographic research on the creative and cultural industries in Finland, the article examines how women aspiring to careers in the media field negotiate postfeminist and neoliberal enticements to inhabit the position of an aspirational subject. The findings indicate that young women’s responses to these enticements are more complex than is often assumed in theories emphasising the regulatory power of neoliberal and postfeminist cultural scripts. It is argued that young women recognise the ideological invitations of postfeminist ‘aspiration scripts’, but they respond to these interpellations in ways imbued with ambivalence and simultaneously characterised by compliance and criticism.