Youth Engagement: The Civic-Political Lives of Children and Youth, 2013
Purpose – This article critically (re)examines the Girl Effect narrative in order to problematize... more Purpose – This article critically (re)examines the Girl Effect narrative in order to problematize the ways that this discursive paradigm shapes the forms and possibilities for girls’ political subjectivity and agency.Approach – Based on a close, textual reading of the first Girl Effect video, the study adopts the tools of deconstruction to reveal the discursive (im)possibilities for differently situated girls. It draws from contemporary girls’ studies scholarship and postcolonial feminist theory to identify the production of oppositional girlhoods and neoliberal girl power, while further considering how these disciplinary effects inform girls’ political practices.Findings – The author suggests that the Girl Effect paradigm offers limited understandings of girls’ political subjectivity: prompting Western girls to become agents of missionary girl power and positioning Third World girls as perpetual victims waiting for rescue.Originality/value – By exploring the effects of the Girl Effect logic, this article troubles the political ideologies framing the “invest in girls” message and contributes original research to the growing field of girls’ studies.
This article examines the boundaries of girls' political participation at the United Nations ... more This article examines the boundaries of girls' political participation at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). It explores the structural and conceptual limits to girls' meaningful political participation, and brings critical attention to the problematic management of girls' political practices in formal ‘adult’ spaces. Based upon a series of qualitative interviews with 11 adolescent girl delegates attending the CSW in 2010, the study investigates how girls understand and challenge their political marginalization in order to actualize their participation rights. Using the tools of feminist standpoint theory, the author (re)imagines the forms and possibilities for girls' political participation by privileging their voices and experiences as current political actors.
Greta Thunberg's prominence in the climate justice movement symbolically positions girls at the e... more Greta Thunberg's prominence in the climate justice movement symbolically positions girls at the epicenter of geopolitical resistance, but, while she is given immediate authority across media outlets, other girls' visions of a more equitable future are often disregarded; this demands our careful attention. We discuss the work of five New York City-based girl activists of color engaged in this movement. We explore the ways in which their intersectional identities and social positions shape their mobilization strategies and draw connections to other popular social justice movements; their activist playbook reveals the transformative potential of intersectional feminist politics in the hands of Generation Z. These girl activists of color generate sophisticated, relational platforms for climate justice informed by the interconnected issues of racial and economic injustice.
This research studies how Latinas have been characterized in Hollywood movies and television in t... more This research studies how Latinas have been characterized in Hollywood movies and television in the past twenty years, questioning who is able to portray Hispanic women, who gets to be considered a Hispanic woman in Hollywood, and what productions look for when casting a “ Latina ” character. Data analysis includes analysis of films with Latinas as the central characters and the roles Hispanic women play in films. I aim to trace how the perception of Latinas has changed over the past twenty years in film and television in order to highlight the lack of diversity in films and television and to turn the spotlight onto the need for the creation of more realistic stories for Hispanic women.
Stories about girl activism circulate as exceptional narratives of individual girl power causing ... more Stories about girl activism circulate as exceptional narratives of individual girl power causing intergenerational partnerships and community collaborations to become invisible and apparently unnecessary to girl activist efforts. At the same time, practitioner-scholars attest that sharing authentic stories about intergenerational feminist praxis is difficult to do since it requires us to write with intentional vulnerability exposing the failures and tensions inherent to girl activism networks. In this article, I provide an autoethnographic exploration of the intergenerational processes involved with organizing Girls Speak Out for the International Day of the Girl at the United Nations. I draw inspiration from Lauren J. Silver’s methodological remix of youth-centered activism, and in doing so, reassess the impact and experience of leveraging girls’ political voices in spaces of normative power.
The mass school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (MSD) in Parkland, Florida, whic... more The mass school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (MSD) in Parkland, Florida, which resulted in the deaths and injury of seventeen students and staff members, sparked national outrage over increasingly partisan Abstract: When young people took to the streets on 24 March 2018 as part of March for Our Lives (MFOL), they leveraged narratives of age and generation to inspire others to take action on preventing gun violence incidences across the United States. Despite the political precarity associated with their ages, student-activists claimed public space and voice as more than the victims of the so-called "mass shooting generation." This article explores how narratives of age and generation shape their political legibility and authority in the MFOL movement. Based on analyses of Parkland student speeches and reflections and MFOL protest signs, I consider the paradoxical manner in which youth-activists play with notions of age in order to mark themselves as essential political actors and vulnerable not-yet subjects in need of protection. It is my contention that MFOL illustrates the liminal borders of youth political (in)visibility and the transformative possibilities of age-based politics for youth-activists.
In this article I consider the ethical boundaries of intergenerational activism for the feminist ... more In this article I consider the ethical boundaries of intergenerational activism for the feminist researcher conducting research in pre-existing activist networks. Drawing on a decade of involvement with girl-activists at the United Nations, I revisit key moments that challenged me to rethink the ethical, discursive, and relational conditions of girls' political empowerment. Intergenerational activism creates relational messiness between adults and girls since effectively partnering with girls requires disruptions of generational power with practitioner-scholars learning to make it up as they go along. This article illustrates the complex and contested ways in which girls and adults build activist partnerships in adult-centered and sometimes politically hostile settings. In exploring the environment within which North American girls experience political (dis)empowerment, I question the ethics of empowering girls under current spectacular discursive conditions.
Over the last five years, scholars from a wide variety of disciplines have problematized the disc... more Over the last five years, scholars from a wide variety of disciplines have problematized the discourse of “adolescent female exceptionalism” (Switzer, 2013, p. 4) popularized by the NIKE Foundation’s Girl Effect. Arriving at similar conclusions, scholars point to the artificial neocolonial divisions between ‘the West’ and ‘the rest’ of the world animated by an ‘invest in girls’ logic. This paper endeavors to move beyond the “oppositional girlhoods” (Bent, 2013, p. 7) bind of girl effects discourse to propose that differentially positioned and experienced girlhoods might be better understood as transnational, relational cultural formations. Drawing from our empirical research with girls in North America and Sub-Saharan Africa, we consider the implications of girls’ increasing global visibility as the ‘saviors of humanity’ from different geopolitical contexts. We then go further to suggest the oppositional girlhoods frame assumes reductive, apolitical, and ahistorical claims of divergence between girlhoods in the Global North and Global South “with highly unequal effects” (Gonick, Renold, Ringrose, & Weems, 2009, p. 3). By countering the normative construction of global girlhoods as mutually exclusive forms of personhood and historical experience, our project authorizes a new understanding of girlhoods as mutually constituted and relationally contingent. It is from within this relational framework that we propose new directions for thinking about girlhoods transnationally.
Keywords: The Girl Effect, oppositional girlhoods, relationality, global girlhoods, neoliberal development
Youth Engagement: The Civic-Political Lives of Children and Youth, 2013
Purpose – This article critically (re)examines the Girl Effect narrative in order to problematize... more Purpose – This article critically (re)examines the Girl Effect narrative in order to problematize the ways that this discursive paradigm shapes the forms and possibilities for girls’ political subjectivity and agency.Approach – Based on a close, textual reading of the first Girl Effect video, the study adopts the tools of deconstruction to reveal the discursive (im)possibilities for differently situated girls. It draws from contemporary girls’ studies scholarship and postcolonial feminist theory to identify the production of oppositional girlhoods and neoliberal girl power, while further considering how these disciplinary effects inform girls’ political practices.Findings – The author suggests that the Girl Effect paradigm offers limited understandings of girls’ political subjectivity: prompting Western girls to become agents of missionary girl power and positioning Third World girls as perpetual victims waiting for rescue.Originality/value – By exploring the effects of the Girl Effect logic, this article troubles the political ideologies framing the “invest in girls” message and contributes original research to the growing field of girls’ studies.
This article examines the boundaries of girls' political participation at the United Nations ... more This article examines the boundaries of girls' political participation at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). It explores the structural and conceptual limits to girls' meaningful political participation, and brings critical attention to the problematic management of girls' political practices in formal ‘adult’ spaces. Based upon a series of qualitative interviews with 11 adolescent girl delegates attending the CSW in 2010, the study investigates how girls understand and challenge their political marginalization in order to actualize their participation rights. Using the tools of feminist standpoint theory, the author (re)imagines the forms and possibilities for girls' political participation by privileging their voices and experiences as current political actors.
Greta Thunberg's prominence in the climate justice movement symbolically positions girls at the e... more Greta Thunberg's prominence in the climate justice movement symbolically positions girls at the epicenter of geopolitical resistance, but, while she is given immediate authority across media outlets, other girls' visions of a more equitable future are often disregarded; this demands our careful attention. We discuss the work of five New York City-based girl activists of color engaged in this movement. We explore the ways in which their intersectional identities and social positions shape their mobilization strategies and draw connections to other popular social justice movements; their activist playbook reveals the transformative potential of intersectional feminist politics in the hands of Generation Z. These girl activists of color generate sophisticated, relational platforms for climate justice informed by the interconnected issues of racial and economic injustice.
This research studies how Latinas have been characterized in Hollywood movies and television in t... more This research studies how Latinas have been characterized in Hollywood movies and television in the past twenty years, questioning who is able to portray Hispanic women, who gets to be considered a Hispanic woman in Hollywood, and what productions look for when casting a “ Latina ” character. Data analysis includes analysis of films with Latinas as the central characters and the roles Hispanic women play in films. I aim to trace how the perception of Latinas has changed over the past twenty years in film and television in order to highlight the lack of diversity in films and television and to turn the spotlight onto the need for the creation of more realistic stories for Hispanic women.
Stories about girl activism circulate as exceptional narratives of individual girl power causing ... more Stories about girl activism circulate as exceptional narratives of individual girl power causing intergenerational partnerships and community collaborations to become invisible and apparently unnecessary to girl activist efforts. At the same time, practitioner-scholars attest that sharing authentic stories about intergenerational feminist praxis is difficult to do since it requires us to write with intentional vulnerability exposing the failures and tensions inherent to girl activism networks. In this article, I provide an autoethnographic exploration of the intergenerational processes involved with organizing Girls Speak Out for the International Day of the Girl at the United Nations. I draw inspiration from Lauren J. Silver’s methodological remix of youth-centered activism, and in doing so, reassess the impact and experience of leveraging girls’ political voices in spaces of normative power.
The mass school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (MSD) in Parkland, Florida, whic... more The mass school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (MSD) in Parkland, Florida, which resulted in the deaths and injury of seventeen students and staff members, sparked national outrage over increasingly partisan Abstract: When young people took to the streets on 24 March 2018 as part of March for Our Lives (MFOL), they leveraged narratives of age and generation to inspire others to take action on preventing gun violence incidences across the United States. Despite the political precarity associated with their ages, student-activists claimed public space and voice as more than the victims of the so-called "mass shooting generation." This article explores how narratives of age and generation shape their political legibility and authority in the MFOL movement. Based on analyses of Parkland student speeches and reflections and MFOL protest signs, I consider the paradoxical manner in which youth-activists play with notions of age in order to mark themselves as essential political actors and vulnerable not-yet subjects in need of protection. It is my contention that MFOL illustrates the liminal borders of youth political (in)visibility and the transformative possibilities of age-based politics for youth-activists.
In this article I consider the ethical boundaries of intergenerational activism for the feminist ... more In this article I consider the ethical boundaries of intergenerational activism for the feminist researcher conducting research in pre-existing activist networks. Drawing on a decade of involvement with girl-activists at the United Nations, I revisit key moments that challenged me to rethink the ethical, discursive, and relational conditions of girls' political empowerment. Intergenerational activism creates relational messiness between adults and girls since effectively partnering with girls requires disruptions of generational power with practitioner-scholars learning to make it up as they go along. This article illustrates the complex and contested ways in which girls and adults build activist partnerships in adult-centered and sometimes politically hostile settings. In exploring the environment within which North American girls experience political (dis)empowerment, I question the ethics of empowering girls under current spectacular discursive conditions.
Over the last five years, scholars from a wide variety of disciplines have problematized the disc... more Over the last five years, scholars from a wide variety of disciplines have problematized the discourse of “adolescent female exceptionalism” (Switzer, 2013, p. 4) popularized by the NIKE Foundation’s Girl Effect. Arriving at similar conclusions, scholars point to the artificial neocolonial divisions between ‘the West’ and ‘the rest’ of the world animated by an ‘invest in girls’ logic. This paper endeavors to move beyond the “oppositional girlhoods” (Bent, 2013, p. 7) bind of girl effects discourse to propose that differentially positioned and experienced girlhoods might be better understood as transnational, relational cultural formations. Drawing from our empirical research with girls in North America and Sub-Saharan Africa, we consider the implications of girls’ increasing global visibility as the ‘saviors of humanity’ from different geopolitical contexts. We then go further to suggest the oppositional girlhoods frame assumes reductive, apolitical, and ahistorical claims of divergence between girlhoods in the Global North and Global South “with highly unequal effects” (Gonick, Renold, Ringrose, & Weems, 2009, p. 3). By countering the normative construction of global girlhoods as mutually exclusive forms of personhood and historical experience, our project authorizes a new understanding of girlhoods as mutually constituted and relationally contingent. It is from within this relational framework that we propose new directions for thinking about girlhoods transnationally.
Keywords: The Girl Effect, oppositional girlhoods, relationality, global girlhoods, neoliberal development
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Papers by Emily Bent
Keywords: The Girl Effect, oppositional girlhoods, relationality, global girlhoods, neoliberal development
Keywords: The Girl Effect, oppositional girlhoods, relationality, global girlhoods, neoliberal development