When: Tuesday, May 14, 2024, 3:00 PM - 4:30 PMWhere: David Sizer, Bancroft, Mile End
Speaker: Dr Maria Adamson Shani Orgad Rosalind Gill
The lack of confidence is typically presented as one of the main barriers that hold women back from achieving career success. Women are bombarded with various messages like "Lean in"! “Believe in yourself”, "Love your body" and so on. Career coaching industry and self-help advice market has expanded dramatically to help women become more confident. So is confidence a good thing? In this talk, Prof Shani Orgad (LSE) and Prof Rosalind Gill (Goldsmith) will discuss their book Confidence Culture (Duke University Press), which argues that confidence imperatives directed at women imply that psychological blocks are what constrain women's advancement, rather than entrenched social injustices. They advocate rejecting the confidence culture’s remaking of feminism along individualistic and neoliberal lines, and will explore alternative articulations of feminism that go beyond the confidence imperative.