Podcasts about shani orgad

La confiance en soi, c'est une sorte d'incantation magique, un concept tout aussi nébuleux que gratifiant. Le remède qui nous permettrait de transformer positivement chaque expérience de notre parcours professionnel. Demander une augmentation, réussir un entretien d'embauche, mais aussi imposer ses idées en réunion ou ne pas se laisser miner par les échanges désagréables que l'on a eu avec un client ou un supérieur hiérarchique. A tout cela, une solution, la confiance en soi.Alors à quoi sert la confiance en soi au travail, et comment endosser cette posture ? Au Elle Active, un évènement organisé par le magazine Elle et L'Oréal Paris, Sara Forever, drag queen, explique comment son corps est devenu un outil pour convaincre, fasciner, et ne jamais manquer de confiance. La chanteuse Yseult, elle, nous explique quelles réactions elle a pu avoir dans le monde professionnel à cause de sa confiance en elle. Et enfin Danièle Linhart, sociologue, nous explique pourquoi il est de plus en plus compliqué d'avoir confiance en soi au travail. Pour aller plus loin : Le livre “La comédie humaine au travail” de Daniele Linhart aux éditions ErèsL'essai “Confidence Culture” de Shani Orgad et Rosalind Gill aux éditions Duke University PressLe TedTalk “Your body language may shape who you are” d'Amy CuddyEmotions (au travail) est un podcast produit par Louie Media. Raphaëlle Elkrief a écrit et tourné cet épisode. Le montage et la réalisation sonore sont de Louis Jaubart. Le mix a été fait par le studio La Fugitive. L'enregistrement a été fait à Sodasound. Louise Hemmerlé est la chargée de production de Travail (en cours), accompagnée d'Elsa Berthault.Cet épisode a été diffusé pour la première fois le 23 janvier 2024. Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.

Základní filozofická výzva „myslete za sebe sama“ by se dnes dala přeformulovat na tezi „čiňte informovaná rozhodnutí“. Na racionalitu, která má být našim nejjistějším průvodcem světem, se vůbec klade značný důraz, nejen ve filozofii. Škoda jen, namítá americká myslitelka L. A. Paulová, že v těch nejdůležitějších věcech, v těch, které opravdu rozhodují o našem životě, se racionálně rozhodovat nemůžeme. Vezměme si třeba rozhodnutí, zda se stát rodičem. Zvláště v případě ženy hraje roli tolik proměn, že nemůžeme vědět, kým se staneme, když na mateřství kývneme. Mění se toho příliš: psychika, tělo, to, jak vnímáme druhé i sebe. Navíc nevíme, jaké dítě se nám narodí; nevíme, jak se promění partner; nevíme, jak se promění náš vztah. Pakliže toto vše nevíme, nemůžeme učinit racionální rozhodnutí, které přece jen stojí na tom, že základní data máme k dispozici. L. A. Paulová proto označuje podobné zkušenosti jako transformační. Rodičovství je jen jedním, byť pro autorku, matku dvou dětí, archetypálním transformačním zážitkem. Podobnou zkušeností je volba zaměstnání, vstup do manželství nebo rozvod. Autorka na pozadí těchto zkušeností navíc ukazuje, jak pomýlená je filozofie, která vychází z toho, že lidé jsou jednou provždy týmiž. Během života může člověk prožít několik identit, které by si navíc mezi sebou mnohdy ani nerozuměly. A nejenže podceňujeme, jak moc se měníme my sami, podceňujeme i to, jak odlišní jsou v závislosti na svých jedinečných zkušenostech druzí lidé. Kdyby platilo, že se v těch nejdůležitějších věcech nemůžeme racionálně rozhodnout, máme tedy odevzdaně očekávat, co se s námi stane? Rozhodně ne. Jednak by už i toto bylo rozhodnutí, především však platí, že těmto úhelným okamžikům našeho života je spíše zapotřebí porozumět nově. Co to znamená? Neptat se, co je racionální. Ve světle dobrodružství, jakým je třeba rodičovství, si spíše máme položit otázku, zda chceme zjistit, jakým člověkem se staneme. Jinými slovy, se máme sami sebe tázat, jestli chceme zůstat týmiž, anebo zda se chceme měnit a z této změny učit. Transformační zkušenosti jsou spjaté se zjevením: vyjevují, kýmže také jsme anebo můžeme být, a jak jinak lze také vnímat svět.KapitolyI. Vrátit filozofii smysl [začátek až 16:40]II. Nahradit kauzalitu porody?! [16:40 až 23:10]III. Dobře si to rozmysli! [23:10 až 39:40]IV. Ne, vy mi nerozumíte. [39:40 až 50:30]V. Naše každodenní zjevení [50:30 až závěr]BibliografieJolanta Brach-Czaina, Škvíry existence, přel. Michael Alexa, Praha: Malvern, 2019.Alice Gregory, „The Philosopher L. A. Paul Wants Us to Think About Our Selves“, in: The New Yorker, 2. 12. 2024, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/12/09/the-philosopher-l-a-paul-wants-us-to-think-about-our-selves. Rebecca Chan, „Transformative Experience“, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2024, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2024/entries/transformative-experience.L. A. Paul, Transformative Experience, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.Shani Orgad, „The parenting happiness gap“, in: LSE, 9. 10. 2019, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/parenting4digitalfuture/2019/10/09/the-parenting-happiness-gap/.Celý podcast sledujte na http://www.Echoprime.cz X: http://twitter.com/echo24cz Facebook: http://twitter.com/echo24cz

La confiance en soi, c'est une sorte d'incantation magique, un concept tout aussi nébuleux que gratifiant. Le remède qui nous permettrait de transformer positivement chaque expérience de notre parcours professionnel. Demander une augmentation, réussir un entretien d'embauche, mais aussi imposer ses idées en réunion ou ne pas se laisser miner par les échanges désagréables que l'on a eu avec un client ou un supérieur hiérarchique. A tout cela, une solution, la confiance en soi.Alors à quoi sert la confiance en soi au travail, et comment endosser cette posture ? Dans cet épisode, Sara Forever, drag queen, explique comment son corps est devenu un outil pour convaincre, fasciner, et ne jamais manquer de confiance en elle. La chanteuse Yseult, elle, nous explique quelles réactions elle a pu avoir dans le monde professionnel à cause de sa confiance en elle. Et enfin Danièle Linhart, sociologue, nous explique pourquoi il est de plus en plus compliqué d'avoir confiance en soi au travail. Pour aller plus loin : Le livre “La comédie humaine au travail” de Daniele Linhart aux éditions ErèsL'essai “Confidence Culture” de Shani Orgad et Rosalind Gill aux éditions Duke University PressLe TedTalk “Your body language may shape who you are” d'Amy CuddyEmotions (au travail) est un podcast produit par Louie Media. Raphaëlle Elkrief a écrit et tourné cet épisode. Le montage et la réalisation sonore sont de Louis Jaubart. Le mix a été fait par le studio La Fugitive. L'enregistrement a été fait à Sodasound. Louise Hemmerlé est la chargée de production de Travail (en cours), accompagnée d'Elsa Berthault. Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.

La confiance en soi, c'est une sorte d'incantation magique, un concept tout aussi nébuleux que gratifiant. Le remède qui nous permettrait de transformer positivement chaque expérience de notre parcours professionnel. Demander une augmentation, réussir un entretien d'embauche, mais aussi imposer ses idées en réunion ou ne pas se laisser miner par les échanges désagréables que l'on a eu avec un client ou un supérieur hiérarchique. A tout cela, une solution, la confiance en soi.Alors à quoi sert la confiance en soi au travail, et comment endosser cette posture ? Au Elle Active, un évènement organisé par le magazine Elle et L'Oréal Paris, Sara Forever, drag queen, explique comment son corps est devenu un outil pour convaincre, fasciner, et ne jamais manquer de confiance. La chanteuse Yseult, elle, nous explique quelles réactions elle a pu avoir dans le monde professionnel à cause de sa confiance en elle. Et enfin Danièle Linhart, sociologue, nous explique pourquoi il est de plus en plus compliqué d'avoir confiance en soi au travail. Pour aller plus loin : Le livre “La comédie humaine au travail” de Daniele Linhart aux éditions ErèsL'essai “Confidence Culture” de Shani Orgad et Rosalind Gill aux éditions Duke University PressLe TedTalk “Your body language may shape who you are” d'Amy CuddyEmotions (au travail) est un podcast produit par Louie Media. Raphaëlle Elkrief a écrit et tourné cet épisode. Le montage et la réalisation sonore sont de Louis Jaubart. Le mix a été fait par le studio La Fugitive. L'enregistrement a été fait à Sodasound. Louise Hemmerlé est la chargée de production de Travail (en cours), accompagnée d'Elsa Berthault. Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.

Would you call yourself a powerful person? Do you trust yourself with power? Does owning your power feel a bit like holding a hot potato?The many ways we learn about power–often by having it taken away from us, seeing it taken away from others, or seeing people go to great lengths to take and keep power, no matter the cost or casualties–understandably influence our understanding of power for the worse. We have benefitted from many pioneering scholars and social justice leaders who deeply embraced their personal power in the face of systemic abuses. These leaders saw personal power as a birthright and generative, not as something to fear.Owning your power can feel liberating. It's liberating to no longer live from a burdened sense that we are flawed for doubting ourselves or that we are in deficit because we feel shut down and stuck in our pain and the pain around us..Today's guest has a lens on power that runs contrary to what many of us have been taught about. She believes that personal power is not something to gain but something you already have and intrinsic to who you are. She sees power itself as neutral. Dr. Cedar Barstow has a long-time devotion to helping people own and use their power wisely and well.  Her book, Right Use of Power: The Heart of Ethics and engaging courses are offered through the Right Use of Power Institute.  In addition to being founder of Right Use of Power Institute, Cedar's background includes being a Hakomi Mindful Somatic Therapy trainer and therapist, and an ethics consultant.  She lives with her husband, Dr. Reynold Feldman, in Boulder, Colorado.Listen to the full episode to hear: Why leaders need understand the overlap of ethics and power Breaking down the definitions of power and ethics and how they impact our relationships Why Dr. Barstow believes we need to focus on our own personal power The potential consequences of trying too hard to flatten role power and why we need to reconsider hierarchy as a neutral tool The impacts of status, collective, and systemic power What the 150% principle teaches us about managing conflicts and grievances How the spiral down process can help us productively reflect on conflict  Learn more about Dr. Cedar Barstow: Right Use of Power Institute Right Use of Power: The Heart of Ethics: A Guide and Resource for Professional Relationships Learn more about Rebecca: rebeccaching.com Work With Rebecca Sign up for the weekly Unburdened Leader Email Resources: Confidence Culture, Shani Orgad and Rosalind Gill See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love Valarie Kaur EP 70: Getting out of Shame and Into Power with Kelly Diels The Covenant of Water, Abraham Verghese Transatlantic Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.

"Confidence culture constantly directs the problem & solution onto the self" We explore how confidence culture has spread into every sector of society, from self-help to the workplace and beyond.  Shani Orgad and Rosalind 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 individualistic and neoliberal lines, Orgad and Gill explore alternative articulations of feminism that go beyond the confidence imperative: "Change the world not, not the women" References: The cult of being confident and why it doesn't help women: https://psyche.co/ideas/the-cult-of-being-confident-and-why-it-doesnt-help-women Confidence Culture [book]: https://www.dukeupress.edu/confidence-culture -- Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/itsnotjustinyourhead Email us with feedback, questions, suggestions at itsnotjustinyourhead@gmail.com. -- Harriet's other shows: WBAI Interpersonal Update (Wednesdays): https://wbai.org/program.php?program=431 Capitalism Hits Home: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPJpiw1WYdTNYvke-gNRdml1Z2lwz0iEH -- ATTENTION! This is a Boring Dystopia/Obligatory 'don't sue us' message: This podcast provides numerous different perspectives and criticisms of the mental health space, however, it should not be considered medical advice. Please consult your medical professional with regards to any health decisions or management. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/itsnotjustinyourhead/message

So much of our modern discourse around productivity, empowerment, entrepreneurship, and personal growth includes messages about our bodies. These messages might not be explicit, but the messages are there—and our brains pick them up loud and clear.Similarly, we might not realize that we're sharing messages that insert themselves into how others perceive their own bodies—but many of us are. It's impossible to talk about self-discipline, accountability, or efficiency without those concepts leaving their marks on our flesh.This episode covers a tiny sliver of all the ways that the medium of self-help acts on our bodies. But my hope is that it will encourage you to think critically about the messages you receive about your body and the messages you share that might impact others' bodies.You'll hear from independent beauty culture journalist Jessica DeFino, body confidence influencer Tiffany Ima, and Flaunt Your Fire founder India Jackson.This episode contains frank talk about bodies, weight, beauty, dieting, and related topics. I know that these subjects can trigger harmful thoughts and behaviors for me if I'm not careful. So please, take care while listening to this episode.This episode originally aired on October 18, 2022. It's been slightly updated for this rebroadcast.Footnotes: Subscribe to Jessica DeFino's newsletter about beauty culture and the beauty industry. Follow Tiffany Ima on Instagram. Listen to the Flaunt Your Fire podcast and learn more about India Jackson. Erica Courdae on reconsidering your normal, as well as “Normal is a Life with Michelle Kuei” on the Pause on the Play podcast. “Body acceptance stops at the skin. Why?” by Jessica DeFino “The Skin as an Antidote to Consumerism” by Jessica DeFino “How White Supremacy and Capitalism Influence Beauty Culture” by Jessica DeFino in TeenVogue What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat by Aubrey Gordon “Postscript on Societies of Control” by Gilles Deleuze Self-Help, INC by Micki McGee “Rachel Hollis Part 1: Hashtag Relatable” on Maintenance Phase “The Trouble with Calories” on Maintenance Phase “Bodybuilding vs Powerlifting vs Weightlifting” on Shape Confidence Culture by Shani Orgad and Rosalind Gill Let's Get Physical: How Women Discovered Exercise and Reshaped the World by Danielle Friedman 3 Books for Remembering “You Have a Body”: On disability, on chronic illness, and on our bodies in society You can find essay versions of every What Works episode at whatworks.fyi - where you can become a premium subscriber, support my work, and get bonus content for just $7 per month. Upgrade today! ★ Support this podcast ★

这期播客是#看见女性造浪者#系列内容之一。女性是卓越的创造者，在生活、艺术和思想上，女性都在不断创造着价值。 在2023年三八妇女节之际，英国驻华使馆发起"看见女性造浪者 Women Making Waves"系列活动。通过聚焦女性创作者的智识和感知，我们希望大家看见女性对当代文化思想的巨大影响，并一起支持这些用于挑战规则，促进社会进步的女性造浪者们。 欢迎在社交平台如微博和公众号上关注话题#看见女性造浪者#，获取这个系列的更多信息，并收听系列其他播客的精彩内容。 感谢理想国的牵线，我们（"没理想"和"别任性"两台）邀请到了英籍性别学者沙尼·奥加德（Shani Orgad），跟我们聊聊女性"回归家庭"这个看似自由自主的选择，背后有怎样复杂的脉络——这包括性别观念和社会结构性因素，也有更深层的新自由主义意识形态，以及资本主义工作伦理的影响。 本期是被Alex带飞的一期，我们以《回归家庭》这本书为切口，与作者沙尼·奥加德教授，进行了一次关于女权主义的进步与"退步"、自主选择的幻想等议题的采访：为什么社会对女性的要求越来越多了？"work-life balance"是怎样的规训？我们该如何戳穿"自主选择"的假象？婚姻里，真的有平权/女权主义老公吗？社会应该为解放女性做些什么？女性自己可以做什么？…… 如果你对《回归家庭》这本书还不太熟悉，可以按时间码收听，我们进行了要点概括。

SELF IMPROVEMENT: Laurie Taylor explores the 'wellness' and 'confidence' cultures that injunct us to be better versions of ourselves. He talks to Shani Orgad, a Professor in the Department of Media and Communications at the LSE and co-author of a new study arguing 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. Why is there now such an emphasis on confidence in contemporary discourse about body image, workplace, relationships, motherhood, and even international development? They're joined by Stephanie Alice Baker, a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at City, University of London, whose latest work traces the emergence of 'wellness culture' from a fringe countercultural pursuit to a trillion-dollar industry. Wellness has become synonymous with yoga, meditation, and other forms of self-care and is no longer simply an alternative to mainstream medicine. As it's coalesced with consumer culture, it's become synonymous with an industry of exclusive products and services. In addition, in the Covid moment, it's become associated with harmful conspiracy theories. So is 'wellness' culture delivering on its myriad promises, or does it have a darker side? Producer: Jayne Egerton

SELF IMPROVEMENT: Laurie Taylor explores the 'wellness' and 'confidence' cultures that injunct us to be better versions of ourselves. He talks to Shani Orgad, a Professor in the Department of Media and Communications at the LSE and co-author of a new study arguing 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. Why is there now such an emphasis on confidence in contemporary discourse about body image, workplace, relationships, motherhood, and even international development? They’re joined by Stephanie Alice Baker, a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at City, University of London, whose latest work traces the emergence of 'wellness culture' from a fringe countercultural pursuit to a trillion-dollar industry. Wellness has become synonymous with yoga, meditation, and other forms of self-care and is no longer simply an alternative to mainstream medicine. As it's coalesced with consumer culture, it's become synonymous with an industry of exclusive products and services. In addition, in the Covid moment, it's become associated with harmful conspiracy theories. So is 'wellness' culture delivering on its myriad promises, or does it have a darker side? Producer: Jayne Egerton

SELF IMPROVEMENT: Laurie Taylor explores the 'wellness' and 'confidence' cultures that injunct us to be better versions of ourselves. He talks to Shani Orgad, a Professor in the Department of Media and Communications at the LSE and co-author of a new study arguing 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. Why is there now such an emphasis on confidence in contemporary discourse about body image, workplace, relationships, motherhood, and even international development? They’re joined by Stephanie Alice Baker, a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at City, University of London, whose latest work traces the emergence of 'wellness culture' from a fringe countercultural pursuit to a trillion-dollar industry. Wellness has become synonymous with yoga, meditation, and other forms of self-care and is no longer simply an alternative to mainstream medicine. As it's coalesced with consumer culture, it's become synonymous with an industry of exclusive products and services. In addition, in the Covid moment, it's become associated with harmful conspiracy theories. So is 'wellness' culture delivering on its myriad promises, or does it have a darker side? Producer: Jayne Egerton

Today I am bringing back my annual debrief to the podcast. Looking back on 2022 has been fruitful and offered a lot of data collecting. You know I love to collect data and review what choices, behaviors, and commitments were kept and which of them were not honored.  But looking back has not always been a practice or something I enjoyed. In fact, it felt counterintuitive to me. I know many business spaces normalize this practice but a trauma-informed lens, plus working with hundreds of people over the years, has taught me that practices which in theory should be filled with ease can really stir up whatever echoes of burdens we are carrying. I feel like for most of my life has been forging ahead with little reflection on looking back. As a result, my inner system felt like it was dangerous to look back. But when I shifted to looking back as data collection, and not connected to my identity, worthiness, or safety, looking back became a part of my practice of curiosity, noticing, and integration. In fact, I can't not look back now, as I want to reflect on patterns, habits, experiences, and changes.The deep change we want in our lives, in our business, in our relationships, and in our well-being comes with regular reflection and data collection so we can make the needed tweaks and adjustments over time.Taking time, even into the new year, to truly reflect can even lead to unburdening. Protect this time. And honor the dreams and desires you have for the upcoming year by taking the time to collect the much-needed data that will help download what is in your head and heart into a lived experience. Listen to the full episode to hear:The many reasons I worked to embrace “slow” in 2022Why “space” and “pace” are my words for 2023How committing to space and pace will encompass honoring boundaries and commitmentsMy favorite movies, TV shows, books, and experiences of 2022Learn more about Rebecca:rebeccaching.comWork With RebeccaSign up for the weekly Unburdened Leader EmailResources:The BearThe Good FightSeveranceShining GirlsMiss MarvelShe-HulkStranger ThingsThe Lord of the Rings: The Rings of PowerLootWednesdayTurning RedNopeElvisLicorice PizzaThe SandmanSpiritedJuliaThe WatcherFor All MankindFrom ScratchEssential Labor: Mothering as Social Change, Angela GarbesConfidence Culture,Shani Orgad and Rosalind GillJournal of Radical Permission: A Daily Guide for Following Your Soul's Calling, Sonya Renee Taylor and adrienne maree brownWhat Works: A Comprehensive Framework to Change the Way We Approach Goal Setting, Tara McMullinThe Pain We Carry: Healing from Complex Ptsd for People of Color, Natalie Y GutiérrezStart Finishing: How to Go from Idea to Done,Charlie GilkeyEasy Beauty: A Memoir, Chloé Cooper Jones

We all connect with the power of vulnerability in ourselves and in others. And vulnerability continues to be misunderstood and misappropriated in marketing businesses and services, political campaigns, legislative agendas, and leadership, to name a few. These days, discerning between true vulnerability and what today's guest calls #vulnerability can become a real challenge.When vulnerability is used with an agenda to acquire more community, brand awareness, or social capital, this agenda moves us away from the heart of this courageous state. Vulnerability is complicated because it RARELY feels good. But what leads us to vulnerability often is good, because it means we are following our integrity even when there's a lot to lose. Many of us struggle with vulnerability because we struggle with knowing ourselves. All too often, we know more about who we think we should be, than who we really are.This becomes extra challenging when the expectation to “just be vulnerable” as a tool to lead and to sell continues to increase. But if we do not have our own clarity of values, clarity of our identity, then vulnerability turns into a commodity to use.#vulnerability is so attractive–even seductive–because it draws us in with stories and experiences that evoke emotion. And it usually draws the likes, follows, shares that so many covet. And today's guest digs deep with me #hashtag vulnerability today.Tara McMullin is a writer, podcaster, and producer who's been making business make sense for small business owners for over 12 years. She's the host of What Works, a podcast about entrepreneurship for humans that's been downloaded over 4 million times. She's also the co-founder of Yellow House Media. Her new book, What Works: A Comprehensive Framework to Change the Way We Approach Goal Setting, was released in November 2022. Listen to the full episode to hear:How economic uncertainty plays into the way we leverage vulnerability for social capitalHow social media algorithms take advantage of vulnerability and heightened emotions to keep us scrollingHow privilege, marginalization and risk intersect with vulnerability onlineThe difference between self-disclosure and true vulnerabilityHow both performative confidence and performative vulnerability can lead to self-alienationWhy we need to account for emotional labor and capacity when we're considering our resourcesLearn more about Tara McMullin:What WorksYellow House MediaWhat Works: A Comprehensive Framework to Change the Way We Approach Goal SettingInstagram: @tara_mcmullinLearn more about Rebecca:rebeccaching.comWork With RebeccaSign up for the weekly Unburdened Leader EmailResources:Confidence Culture, Shani Orgad and Rosalind GillThe Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling, Arlie Russell HochschildExhalation, Ted ChiangHow to Read Now: Essays, Elaine CastilloDave Matthews BandThe Serpent QueenVikingsThe Princess Bride

I wanted to include an episode on bodies in the Self-Help, LLC series because so much of our modern discourse around productivity, empowerment, entrepreneurship, and personal growth includes messages about our bodies. These messages might not be explicit, but the messages are there—and our brains pick them up loud and clear.Similarly, we might not realize that we're sharing messages that insert themselves into how others perceive their own bodies—but many of us are. It's impossible to talk about self-discipline, accountability, or efficiency without those concepts leaving their marks on our flesh.This episode covers a tiny sliver of all the ways that the medium of self-help acts on our bodies. But my hope is that it will encourage you to think critically about the messages you receive about your body and the messages you share that might impact others' bodies.You'll hear from independent beauty culture journalist Jessica DeFino, body confidence influencer Tiffany Ima, and Flaunt Your Fire founder India Jackson.This episode contains frank talk about bodies, weight, beauty, dieting, and related topics. I know that these subjects can trigger harmful thoughts and behaviors for me if I'm not careful. So please, take care while listening to this episode.Footnotes: Subscribe to Jessica DeFino's newsletter about beauty culture and the beauty industry. Follow Tiffany Ima on Instagram. Listen to the Flaunt Your Fire podcast and learn more about India Jackson. Erica Courdae on reconsidering your normal, as well as “Normal is a Life with Michelle Kuei” on the Pause on the Play podcast. “Body acceptance stops at the skin. Why?” by Jessica DeFino “The Skin as an Antidote to Consumerism” by Jessica DeFino “How White Supremacy and Capitalism Influence Beauty Culture” by Jessica DeFino in TeenVogue What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat by Aubrey Gordon “Postscript on Societies of Control” by Gilles Deleuze Self-Help, INC by Micki McGee “Rachel Hollis Part 1: Hashtag Relatable” on Maintenance Phase “The Trouble with Calories” on Maintenance Phase “Bodybuilding vs Powerlifting vs Weightlifting” on Shape Confidence Culture by Shani Orgad and Rosalind Gill Let's Get Physical: How Women Discovered Exercise and Reshaped the World by Danielle Friedman 3 Books for Remembering “You Have a Body”: On disability, on chronic illness, and on our bodies in society Radically rethink how you set goals: pre-order Tara's new book, What Works: A Comprehensive Framework to Change the Way We Approach Goal-Setting. Find it anywhere books are sold or at explorewhatworks.com/book. ★ Support this podcast ★

Over the last decade, manifestation-based rhetorics to “love yourself,” “believe in yourself” and “feel good in your own skin” have become guiding social directives for people, and especially for women. We see these mantras in social media captions, advertising campaigns, and song lyrics that seem to promise that, through a confidence-based mindset, we will be able to transform our psychology, and therefore the material conditions of our lives. Though it may seem harmless, or even empowering, the tendency to emphasize individual agency over the structural conditions we exist within and through is perhaps the core component of a culture of neoliberalism that also permeates and drives almost every part of our society. We spoke with sociologists Shani Orgad and Rosalind Gill who are the minds behind "Confidence Culture," a new book that specifically examines how the entrenched social injustices of our time have been reframed as psychological blocks, and what this means for us. Shani Orgad is an associate professor in the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Rosalind Gill is a professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at City, University of London. Purchase "Confidence Culture" here: https://www.dukeupress.edu/confidence-culture

On this week's 51%, we speak with professors Shani Orgad and Rosalind Gill about their new book, Confidence Culture, examining the prominence of confidence and self-help discourse in modern-day marketing, workplaces, relationships — and well, everywhere else. We also discuss a bill in the New York legislature that would give adult survivors of sexual assault the opportunity to look back and sue their abusers. Guests: Dr. Shani Orgad and Dr. Rosalind Gill, authors of Confidence Culture 51% is a national production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. It's produced by Jesse King. Our executive producer is Dr. Alan Chartock, and our theme is "Lolita" by the Albany-based artist Girl Blue. Follow Along You're listening to 51%, a WAMC production dedicated to women's issues and experiences. Thanks for tuning in, I'm Jesse King. Next week, we're kicking off a series on women in business, which personally I'm pretty excited for — but before we do that, I want to talk about confidence. Oftentimes, when we talk about women in business, there's a lot of focus on how women can better advocate for themselves and step up to the plate. We're supposed to lean in, push ourselves into new territory, break the glass ceiling. To paraphrase some advice Kim Kardashian recently got a lot of heat for — because I can't say the actual quote on the radio — we're supposed to get up and work.  I feel that also applies to the way we look at ourselves in general, too. We're frequently told to love ourselves, work on ourselves, feel comfortable in the skin we're in — all great messages. But I have to be honest: it can be a lot of pressure, and sometimes I don't. Sometimes I look at other go-getters and I'm like, “Man, I wish I could be like that.” Sometimes I don't love the skin, or hair, or clothes that I'm in. It's a lot of work being confident.  Our guests today have spent years looking into this phenomenon, which they call “confidence culture.” Dr. Shani Orgad is a professor of media and communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science, while Dr. Rosalind Gill teaches cultural and social analysis at the City University of London. Their new book — called Confidence Culture — interrogates the way we talk about confidence, and how, in some ways, self-help culture might hold us back.  Why is confidence discourse so prevalent right now? Gill: Well, we talk about it in more depth in the book, and we kind of track it back through self-help literature and self-help culture and the expansion of that, and the way that that's kind of taken off on social media. But we also sort of track it in terms of the global financial crisis, the recession, austerity, the kinds of messages that were more and more individualistic and, at least, very noticeable in the UK – for women to be to be thrifty, to make do and mend, [to] work on themselves, to use what resources they have to kind of hustle, I guess, in culture, most broadly. But we also talk about how it's kind of related to the rise in visibility of feminism. From around sort of 2014, it's been documented that feminism has really become much more visible as a kind of popular movement, and as a discourse across media. And we very much feel that this visibility of feminism has kind of allowed a space for these discourses of confidence to flourish. But of course, it's a very specific kind of feminism. It's a very individualistic feminism, it's not a kind of collective, outward-facing, kind of “changing structures” kind of feminism. It's very much a sort of inward looking, working on yourself to improve your position, kind of an emphasis. How do you see confidence culture working? What are the different parts that come together to create this movement? Gill: I mean, one

On this week's 51%, we speak with professors Shani Orgad and Rosalind Gill about their new book, Confidence Culture, examining the prominence of confidence and self-help discourse in modern-day marketing, workplaces, relationships — and well, everywhere else. We also discuss a bill in the New York legislature that would give adult survivors of sexual assault the opportunity to look back and sue their abusers. Guests: Dr. Shani Orgad and Dr. Rosalind Gill, authors of Confidence Culture 51% is a national production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. It's produced by Jesse King. Our executive producer is Dr. Alan Chartock, and our theme is "Lolita" by the Albany-based artist Girl Blue. Follow Along You're listening to 51%, a WAMC production dedicated to women's issues and experiences. Thanks for tuning in, I'm Jesse King. Next week, we're kicking off a series on women in business, which personally I'm pretty excited for — but before we do that, I want to talk about confidence. Oftentimes, when we talk about women in business, there's a lot of focus on how women can better advocate for themselves and step up to the plate. We're supposed to lean in, push ourselves into new territory, break the glass ceiling. To paraphrase some advice Kim Kardashian recently got a lot of heat for — because I can't say the actual quote on the radio — we're supposed to get up and work.  I feel that also applies to the way we look at ourselves in general, too. We're frequently told to love ourselves, work on ourselves, feel comfortable in the skin we're in — all great messages. But I have to be honest: it can be a lot of pressure, and sometimes I don't. Sometimes I look at other go-getters and I'm like, “Man, I wish I could be like that.” Sometimes I don't love the skin, or hair, or clothes that I'm in. It's a lot of work being confident.  Our guests today have spent years looking into this phenomenon, which they call “confidence culture.” Dr. Shani Orgad is a professor of media and communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science, while Dr. Rosalind Gill teaches cultural and social analysis at the City University of London. Their new book — called Confidence Culture — interrogates the way we talk about confidence, and how, in some ways, self-help culture might hold us back.  Why is confidence discourse so prevalent right now? Gill: Well, we talk about it in more depth in the book, and we kind of track it back through self-help literature and self-help culture and the expansion of that, and the way that that's kind of taken off on social media. But we also sort of track it in terms of the global financial crisis, the recession, austerity, the kinds of messages that were more and more individualistic and, at least, very noticeable in the UK – for women to be to be thrifty, to make do and mend, [to] work on themselves, to use what resources they have to kind of hustle, I guess, in culture, most broadly. But we also talk about how it's kind of related to the rise in visibility of feminism. From around sort of 2014, it's been documented that feminism has really become much more visible as a kind of popular movement, and as a discourse across media. And we very much feel that this visibility of feminism has kind of allowed a space for these discourses of confidence to flourish. But of course, it's a very specific kind of feminism. It's a very individualistic feminism, it's not a kind of collective, outward-facing, kind of “changing structures” kind of feminism. It's very much a sort of inward looking, working on yourself to improve your position, kind of an emphasis. How do you see confidence culture working? What are the different parts that come together to create this movement? Gill: I mean, one of the things that was really, really striking to us was that we were working across different areas – like very different areas: the workplace, advertising, you know, “love your body” imagery, sex and relationships. In academic fields, these are spread quite widely, yet, what we're encountering was the same messages, again and again. And it wasn't just that they were the same broad messages, it's actually the same words and phrases that were being used, repeatedly. You know, the sort of “Strike a pose,” “Feel comfortable in your own skin,” “Love yourself,” “Believe in yourself.” And it really felt as if this wasn't just something that was happening in individual areas. It was kind of more than the sum of the parts. Orgad: And so it works through discourse – but we also know that it's very, very important as a visual regime. And again, as Ros mentioned, often through very similar visual imagery. So we identified what we call the “confidence pose,” which is, you know, the kind of Wonder Woman pose where you stand with your feet wide apart, hands on your hips, and so on. And this has been popularized by people like American social psychologist Amy Cuddy, who gave her most popular TED talk about power poses, where she literally shows Wonder Woman as the exemplar of this pose. What we noted is that, visually, this is was a really important signifier of confidence – across advertisements, we looked across women's magazines, business journals, and reports. Again, in different domains and context, you will see the very same visual appearances that signified confidence. We also realized that it's not only discourse and not only kind of a visual regime, but confidence also, importantly, works through emotions, through the affective level. In other words, it's not just about telling women certain things and encouraging them to change the way they think, or the way they look, crucially, but also fundamentally the way they feel. We identified particular aspects, particular emotions that are very much associated with confidence: resilience, positive thinking, gratitude. But crucially, it's also about certain emotions that confidence is not aligned with. For instance, we found how the particular type of confidence that confidence culture encourages, which is very individualized and positive, also often comes and goes hand in hand with prohibiting anger, or prohibiting those feelings that are deemed supposedly “ugly” or “negative.” So don't be bitter, don't be angry – be confident. And finally, we identify the way that confidence culture works also through practices – through not just things that you say, or not just even things that you feel, but also literally through things that you do. So again, it's about how you write emails. In this context. Google launched their “Sorry, Not Sorry” plugin a few years ago, which was addressed, particularly to women, interestingly, not starting your email with, “I'm just writing to…,” “No worries if not,” all these kinds of edits that are particularly, again, addressed to women – because of this assumption that there is some kind of a deficit and this internal defect almost, or these self-inflicted wounds that we should somehow overcome. And partly, were encouraged to overcome through changing our practices, even through changing the way we breathe. We found a range of texts, to our astonishment, that are about how you should retrain, reeducate yourself, how to breathe, in order to become more assertive, to love yourself, and so on. So it's ubiquitous, and that's why we call it “culture,” across very distinct domains, but also across very different realms: the visual, the textual, the emotional, and also the lived practices that we are all kind of engaging in an everyday basis. Your book mentions the popularity of confidence workshops or classes for women in the workplace – which surprised me, I don't think that I have personally come across that yet. It kind of seems strange to me to have it company-sponsored. But can you tell me a little bit more about that? Orgad: Yeah. And I think that is partly what we try to bring through the book, this kind of strangeness to it. To pause, to question things that have become so normalized and accepted. I'm really glad for you that you haven't encountered it, we have encountered them ourselves. But also, since the book has been published, we've been receiving numerous emails and messages on social media from women, who say, “I was sent to one of these courses! Now I understand!” And evidently and importantly, beyond the anecdotal, these are also commercially viable programs that lots of workplaces are signing into. And, you know, sometimes they might not be explicitly called “confidence” – they are sometimes, for instance, under the guise of “leadership.” But then when you look at what they contain, they would be, often in very troublingly gendered ways, directed to encouraging women and trying to help women to build their confidence and so on. And I think it's important for us to say that we do recognize that these are often well-meaning programs, in the same way that we recognize that the body positivity movement and “love your body” messages are and may be well meaning – and indeed may help women, individual women, to feel better about themselves, or to negotiate a pay raise, or to be more assertive in a meeting at work. We don't want to dismiss this. But we are troubled by the way that these programs, confidence coaching and similar kind of programs, are very much individualizing both the problem and the responsibility for fixing the problem. Workplaces invest a lot of money in initiatives that ultimately individualize it to employees, and particularly to women employees, to find the problem, or their internal issues and psychological obstacles, as it were. There are programs, for instance – and these are women-only programs, so in workplaces that are mixed workplaces, women-only programs are designed to help only those women in the work through a range of techniques that they're being taught – it can include things like mindfulness and yoga, things that are to do with your physical kind of confidence, how you project confidence physically, through more kind of psychological work on yourself. Changing the ways you communicate, for instance, in written communication, and so on. One of the interesting things that we noticed during the pandemic is that we were both, like many other people, spending hours on Zoom. And one of the interesting things that flourished during the pandemic is “virtually confident” workshops, which were about teaching people – but again, especially women – how to project confidence on screen. It was found that women, much more than men, tend to touch themselves on screen, and so there were entire programs that Ros and I attended about making yourself aware and, again, how you use your voice and how you project confidence, how you occupy space on the screen, how you position yourself, what background you choose, and so on and so forth. So commercially, they're viable, and they're successful, which also suggests that it's something that there isn't just appetite for it, but a purchase to it. I don't know, if you want to add, Ros. Gill: I think I just wanted to add something about our own ambivalence. And it goes back to something that you said right at the start Jesse, about feeling that you receive a lot of these messages – and just to really, really kind of highlight that we are not critical of confidence messaging, and we're not critical of women who find that messaging productive, helpful in their lives or, you know, beneficial for them to feel better. We confess to having cried at our fair share of Dove adverts and to having kind of adopted many of the confidence practices – both on ourselves, having done these courses, but also trying to encourage our students. We always encourage them, “Take up more space in the room, be bold when speaking at a conference, don't write apologetically,” and everything. So just to really emphasize that our target isn't confidence itself, and it isn't the women that adopt those programs, but it's what the culture does, and the way that it's kind of been placed beyond debate. And it's almost become like a cult in the sense that it's kind of an article of faith that is unquestionable. What would you say are the side effects of the culture? What does it mask over, and what is the effect on those in it? Gill: I think the main things that it does are, first of all, it kind of places all the responsibility and all the blame on women themselves. So it treats it as if this is some kind of pathology, this is some kind of defect, it's some kind of internal deficit. It's something that women lack, and that they have to work on making up for. So it's very blaming as a discourse. There's an example in the book, The Confidence Code, which is, you know, a New York Times bestseller, a very celebrated book – but they talk about women scratching themselves, scratching themselves like babies do, and say that we need to put on the mittens so that we don't scratch ourselves. Which we found to be so troubling, because it's such a infantilizing metaphor. So there's that whole kind of element of blame that is really problematic. And then there's the flip side of that, of like, what's that doing when you kind of put all the responsibility for a lack of confidence, and for gender inequality, on women's shoulders. It's as if we're doing this to ourselves, we put ourselves in this position, rather than looking at the structures and institutions and barriers that actually are in place that are preventing women and other oppressed and marginalized groups from actually making progress. You mentioned earlier the kind of imagery you were noticing in the ads and campaigns you were studying. Did you notice a particular demographic or kind of women who were being targeted to be more confident, or who were most showcased and represented as “confident” in these ads? Gill: We've tried to be really, really attentive to differences across the entire book, and we hope that the book offers a really intersectional feminist analysis of what we're seeing. So we've looked across age, we've looked across race and ethnicity, we've looked across disability and sexuality. I think what we've really tried to problematize, and it comes out most visibly in relation to the advertising, is a kind of faux diversity, in a way, a sort of hollowing out of diversity. At first, we were kind of hopeful that this kind of advertising was going to actually open up space for many more different kinds of women to be shown, who aren't usually the kind of white, middle class, cisgender, able-bodied, women that dominate the visual habitat that we all live in. We did see more diversity, but then we immediately saw that being somehow undercut or undermined with a kind of “one size fits all.” So this sort of sense that, “Well, whatever the problem, whoever the group, there's just one solution” – and it's to be more confident, confidence training programs, something like that. So it's a kind of double-move of recognizing diversity, only to then kind of say, “Well, it doesn't matter.” So what do we do? I mean, how can we help women feel more confident without making them feel like there's pressure on them? Or that there's something wrong with them? Orgad: Yeah, I think it's a really good question. And I would really just reiterate what was said earlier, that we are not against confidence, and we want women to thrive and feel safer and happier and more confident. But we feel really strongly that, at the same time, we need (and by we, we mean not just with women, but crucially as a society) to really think critically about how not just to invest in demanding and encouraging and exhorting women to be more confident and fix the problem as it were themselves, but to think and nourish structural thinking. And so we ended the book, in our conclusion, we call it “Beyond Confidence.” And we're trying to look at examples that perhaps are not entirely outside confidence or against confidence –because again, we are not ourselves against confidence – but that do introduce those things that, as you mentioned before, Jesse, that confidence culture masks and perhaps minimizes or marginalizes. And we talked about what we call “confidence climate” – how can we think about nurturing and building a climate that enables and allows women and everybody and other disempowered groups to feel safer and feel more confident, rather than putting again the onus on individuals to do that work? In this context we bring Lizzo as an interesting example, because she's kind of the self-confidence queen, but at the same time, Lizzo is a really interesting kind of person and persona to think through about what we can do differently. Because she foregrounds, for instance, interdependence, she foregrounds the ways in which she herself, to become confident, is dependent on her family, on her network of friends, on the community who travels with her on her tour. So one way, for instance, that we would want to think about building a climate of confidence is a climate that encourages our dependence on each other, and doesn't deem being dependent on somebody abhorrent or ugly or undesirable. The [current] confidence culture is not about needing help from anybody else, it's about you caring for yourself, because nobody else will. So these are kind of ways that we feel that should come, and we would hope would come, alongside the more kind of individual work that perhaps women can do, or do do – and we would have liked to see workplaces investing more in structural changes that create places and workplaces that are confident workplaces, where employees can thrive as confident beings, rather than sending them on these courses that keep telling them the problem is you, you fix it. Drs. Shani Orgad and Rosalind Gill are the authors of Confidence Culture, out now on Duke University Press. Shani and Rosalind, thanks so much for taking the time. We're gonna switch gears before we head out to recognize Sexual Assault Awareness Month - and a warning to those who may be sensitive to the subject. On Thursday, New York state lawmakers joined survivors in Westchester County to call attention to a bill that would give some adult survivors the opportunity to sue their abusers in court. The Adult Survivors Act is similar to the Child Victims Act passed by the legislature in 2019, which gave survivors of childhood sexual abuse a one-year lookback window to sue their abusers, in some cases long after the state's statute of limitations expired. The one-year window was ultimately extended another year due to the coronavirus pandemic. This time, the Adult Survivors Act would open up that opportunity to those who were 18 years or older at the time of their abuse. The bill was passed by the State Senate last year, but it has so far stalled in the Assembly.  It was a blustery Thursday in New York's Hudson Valley, but advocates with the victims assistance nonprofit Safe Horizon still gathered outside the Westchester County Court in White Plains to push for the bill's passage.   State Senator Shelly Mayer, a Democrat from the 37th District, is a co-sponsor of the bill. "This is so basic to our system of laws. We're not talking about criminal penalties here, we're talking about the opportunity to confront your accuser and make a civil claim for damages," says Mayer. "And that is what our systems of laws is based on. The equality of opportunity to assert your claim." Safe Horizon Vice President of Government Affairs Michael Polenberg says more than 10,000 lawsuits were filed as a result of the Child Victims Act by the time its lookback window closed last August. Four of the state's eight Roman Catholic dioceses filed for bankruptcy, as did the Boy Scouts of America, at least partly due to a large number of lawsuits regarding sexual abuse. In 2019, lawmakers also expanded the civil and criminal statute of limitations for several felony sex offenses in the state. The criminal statute of limitations for second and third-degree rape increased from five years to 20 and 10 years, respectively, and Polenburg says the civil statute now stands at 20 years for both — but he notes those changes were made proactively, not retroactively.   "Meaning certain survivors who were abused before 2019 still only have a few years to file a civil lawsuit," he adds.   Polenberg says that, as child victims have been given the chance to look back, so should adults. For many survivors, coming to terms with what they went through can take years, even decades. Donna Hylton, activist and author of the memoir, A Little Piece of Light, says she's been surviving trauma and sexual abuse for the majority of her life – something she didn't really come to terms with until after her incarceration at age 20. Hylton says she was incarcerated for 27 years, and that people often misunderstand the sheer number of adult survivors in state prisons alone. “That 85 percent that we've been told for so long, of women, young women, and gender-expansive people that are in the system, that have been abused, is wrong. It's more like 97 percent. Closer to 98 percent. Why? Because people still don't talk. Why? Because people still don't listen," says Hylton. Assemblymember Amy Paulin, a Democrat from the 88th District, says she became a survivor at age 14, and it took years for her to say it out loud.   “I buried it, it was something I was embarrassed about, it was something that I never told anyone about — and I don't know that that would have been different if I was four years older," says Paulin. "If you're 17, you're a minor, you're 18 and all of sudden you're not. And I don't know what shifts or changes in a young woman's mind…not that much. So we have not addressed the remedies for so many young women who likely have not or did not even come to grips with their own sexual assault. So this is a very important bill.” “For many years, it was the State Assembly that moved the Child Victims Act forward. We're now in the situation where it's the Senate who's moving on the Adult Survivors Act — they passed it last year unanimously, everyone voted in support. This year, the bill has already moved through the Judiciary Committee and the Finance Committee, and it's now heading to the floor, and it's the Assembly where the bill seems to be stuck," adds Polenberg. "So we're hopeful that, with the support of the assemblymembers here today, that we can finally move this bill forward this year." Fellow Democratic State Assemblymembers Chris Burdick and Tom Abinanti joined Paulin at the press conference Thursday. New York's legislative session wraps on June 2.   Safe Horizon has operated a network of New York City programs helping survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, human trafficking, homelessness and more since 1978. The nonprofit says it responds to roughly 250,000 New Yorkers a year who have experienced violence or abuse.  51% is a national production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. It's produced by Jesse King. Our executive producer is Dr. Alan Chartock, and our theme is "Lolita" by the Albany-based artist Girl Blue.

On this week's 51%, we speak with professors Shani Orgad and Rosalind Gill about their new book, Confidence Culture, examining the prominence of confidence and self-help discourse in modern-day marketing, workplaces, relationships — and well, everywhere else. We also discuss a bill in the New York legislature that would give adult survivors of sexual assault the opportunity to look back and sue their abusers. Guests: Dr. Shani Orgad and Dr. Rosalind Gill, authors of Confidence Culture 51% is a national production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. It's produced by Jesse King. Our executive producer is Dr. Alan Chartock, and our theme is "Lolita" by the Albany-based artist Girl Blue. Follow Along You're listening to 51%, a WAMC production dedicated to women's issues and experiences. Thanks for tuning in, I'm Jesse King. Next week, we're kicking off a series on women in business, which personally I'm pretty excited for — but before we do that, I want to talk about confidence. Oftentimes, when we talk about women in business, there's a lot of focus on how women can better advocate for themselves and step up to the plate. We're supposed to lean in, push ourselves into new territory, break the glass ceiling. To paraphrase some advice Kim Kardashian recently got a lot of heat for — because I can't say the actual quote on the radio — we're supposed to get up and work.  I feel that also applies to the way we look at ourselves in general, too. We're frequently told to love ourselves, work on ourselves, feel comfortable in the skin we're in — all great messages. But I have to be honest: it can be a lot of pressure, and sometimes I don't. Sometimes I look at other go-getters and I'm like, “Man, I wish I could be like that.” Sometimes I don't love the skin, or hair, or clothes that I'm in. It's a lot of work being confident.  Our guests today have spent years looking into this phenomenon, which they call “confidence culture.” Dr. Shani Orgad is a professor of media and communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science, while Dr. Rosalind Gill teaches cultural and social analysis at the City University of London. Their new book — called Confidence Culture — interrogates the way we talk about confidence, and how, in some ways, self-help culture might hold us back.  Why is confidence discourse so prevalent right now? Gill: Well, we talk about it in more depth in the book, and we kind of track it back through self-help literature and self-help culture and the expansion of that, and the way that that's kind of taken off on social media. But we also sort of track it in terms of the global financial crisis, the recession, austerity, the kinds of messages that were more and more individualistic and, at least, very noticeable in the UK – for women to be to be thrifty, to make do and mend, [to] work on themselves, to use what resources they have to kind of hustle, I guess, in culture, most broadly. But we also talk about how it's kind of related to the rise in visibility of feminism. From around sort of 2014, it's been documented that feminism has really become much more visible as a kind of popular movement, and as a discourse across media. And we very much feel that this visibility of feminism has kind of allowed a space for these discourses of confidence to flourish. But of course, it's a very specific kind of feminism. It's a very individualistic feminism, it's not a kind of collective, outward-facing, kind of “changing structures” kind of feminism. It's very much a sort of inward looking, working on yourself to improve your position, kind of an emphasis. How do you see confidence culture working? What are the different parts that come together to create this movement? Gill: I mean, one of the things that was really, really striking to us was that we were working across different areas – like very different areas: the workplace, advertising, you know, “love your body” imagery, sex and relationships. In academic fields, these are spread quite widely, yet, what we're encountering was the same messages, again and again. And it wasn't just that they were the same broad messages, it's actually the same words and phrases that were being used, repeatedly. You know, the sort of “Strike a pose,” “Feel comfortable in your own skin,” “Love yourself,” “Believe in yourself.” And it really felt as if this wasn't just something that was happening in individual areas. It was kind of more than the sum of the parts. Orgad: And so it works through discourse – but we also know that it's very, very important as a visual regime. And again, as Ros mentioned, often through very similar visual imagery. So we identified what we call the “confidence pose,” which is, you know, the kind of Wonder Woman pose where you stand with your feet wide apart, hands on your hips, and so on. And this has been popularized by people like American social psychologist Amy Cuddy, who gave her most popular TED talk about power poses, where she literally shows Wonder Woman as the exemplar of this pose. What we noted is that, visually, this is was a really important signifier of confidence – across advertisements, we looked across women's magazines, business journals, and reports. Again, in different domains and context, you will see the very same visual appearances that signified confidence. We also realized that it's not only discourse and not only kind of a visual regime, but confidence also, importantly, works through emotions, through the affective level. In other words, it's not just about telling women certain things and encouraging them to change the way they think, or the way they look, crucially, but also fundamentally the way they feel. We identified particular aspects, particular emotions that are very much associated with confidence: resilience, positive thinking, gratitude. But crucially, it's also about certain emotions that confidence is not aligned with. For instance, we found how the particular type of confidence that confidence culture encourages, which is very individualized and positive, also often comes and goes hand in hand with prohibiting anger, or prohibiting those feelings that are deemed supposedly “ugly” or “negative.” So don't be bitter, don't be angry – be confident. And finally, we identify the way that confidence culture works also through practices – through not just things that you say, or not just even things that you feel, but also literally through things that you do. So again, it's about how you write emails. In this context. Google launched their “Sorry, Not Sorry” plugin a few years ago, which was addressed, particularly to women, interestingly, not starting your email with, “I'm just writing to…,” “No worries if not,” all these kinds of edits that are particularly, again, addressed to women – because of this assumption that there is some kind of a deficit and this internal defect almost, or these self-inflicted wounds that we should somehow overcome. And partly, were encouraged to overcome through changing our practices, even through changing the way we breathe. We found a range of texts, to our astonishment, that are about how you should retrain, reeducate yourself, how to breathe, in order to become more assertive, to love yourself, and so on. So it's ubiquitous, and that's why we call it “culture,” across very distinct domains, but also across very different realms: the visual, the textual, the emotional, and also the lived practices that we are all kind of engaging in an everyday basis. Your book mentions the popularity of confidence workshops or classes for women in the workplace – which surprised me, I don't think that I have personally come across that yet. It kind of seems strange to me to have it company-sponsored. But can you tell me a little bit more about that? Orgad: Yeah. And I think that is partly what we try to bring through the book, this kind of strangeness to it. To pause, to question things that have become so normalized and accepted. I'm really glad for you that you haven't encountered it, we have encountered them ourselves. But also, since the book has been published, we've been receiving numerous emails and messages on social media from women, who say, “I was sent to one of these courses! Now I understand!” And evidently and importantly, beyond the anecdotal, these are also commercially viable programs that lots of workplaces are signing into. And, you know, sometimes they might not be explicitly called “confidence” – they are sometimes, for instance, under the guise of “leadership.” But then when you look at what they contain, they would be, often in very troublingly gendered ways, directed to encouraging women and trying to help women to build their confidence and so on. And I think it's important for us to say that we do recognize that these are often well-meaning programs, in the same way that we recognize that the body positivity movement and “love your body” messages are and may be well meaning – and indeed may help women, individual women, to feel better about themselves, or to negotiate a pay raise, or to be more assertive in a meeting at work. We don't want to dismiss this. But we are troubled by the way that these programs, confidence coaching and similar kind of programs, are very much individualizing both the problem and the responsibility for fixing the problem. Workplaces invest a lot of money in initiatives that ultimately individualize it to employees, and particularly to women employees, to find the problem, or their internal issues and psychological obstacles, as it were. There are programs, for instance – and these are women-only programs, so in workplaces that are mixed workplaces, women-only programs are designed to help only those women in the work through a range of techniques that they're being taught – it can include things like mindfulness and yoga, things that are to do with your physical kind of confidence, how you project confidence physically, through more kind of psychological work on yourself. Changing the ways you communicate, for instance, in written communication, and so on. One of the interesting things that we noticed during the pandemic is that we were both, like many other people, spending hours on Zoom. And one of the interesting things that flourished during the pandemic is “virtually confident” workshops, which were about teaching people – but again, especially women – how to project confidence on screen. It was found that women, much more than men, tend to touch themselves on screen, and so there were entire programs that Ros and I attended about making yourself aware and, again, how you use your voice and how you project confidence, how you occupy space on the screen, how you position yourself, what background you choose, and so on and so forth. So commercially, they're viable, and they're successful, which also suggests that it's something that there isn't just appetite for it, but a purchase to it. I don't know, if you want to add, Ros. Gill: I think I just wanted to add something about our own ambivalence. And it goes back to something that you said right at the start Jesse, about feeling that you receive a lot of these messages – and just to really, really kind of highlight that we are not critical of confidence messaging, and we're not critical of women who find that messaging productive, helpful in their lives or, you know, beneficial for them to feel better. We confess to having cried at our fair share of Dove adverts and to having kind of adopted many of the confidence practices – both on ourselves, having done these courses, but also trying to encourage our students. We always encourage them, “Take up more space in the room, be bold when speaking at a conference, don't write apologetically,” and everything. So just to really emphasize that our target isn't confidence itself, and it isn't the women that adopt those programs, but it's what the culture does, and the way that it's kind of been placed beyond debate. And it's almost become like a cult in the sense that it's kind of an article of faith that is unquestionable. What would you say are the side effects of the culture? What does it mask over, and what is the effect on those in it? Gill: I think the main things that it does are, first of all, it kind of places all the responsibility and all the blame on women themselves. So it treats it as if this is some kind of pathology, this is some kind of defect, it's some kind of internal deficit. It's something that women lack, and that they have to work on making up for. So it's very blaming as a discourse. There's an example in the book, The Confidence Code, which is, you know, a New York Times bestseller, a very celebrated book – but they talk about women scratching themselves, scratching themselves like babies do, and say that we need to put on the mittens so that we don't scratch ourselves. Which we found to be so troubling, because it's such a infantilizing metaphor. So there's that whole kind of element of blame that is really problematic. And then there's the flip side of that, of like, what's that doing when you kind of put all the responsibility for a lack of confidence, and for gender inequality, on women's shoulders. It's as if we're doing this to ourselves, we put ourselves in this position, rather than looking at the structures and institutions and barriers that actually are in place that are preventing women and other oppressed and marginalized groups from actually making progress. You mentioned earlier the kind of imagery you were noticing in the ads and campaigns you were studying. Did you notice a particular demographic or kind of women who were being targeted to be more confident, or who were most showcased and represented as “confident” in these ads? Gill: We've tried to be really, really attentive to differences across the entire book, and we hope that the book offers a really intersectional feminist analysis of what we're seeing. So we've looked across age, we've looked across race and ethnicity, we've looked across disability and sexuality. I think what we've really tried to problematize, and it comes out most visibly in relation to the advertising, is a kind of faux diversity, in a way, a sort of hollowing out of diversity. At first, we were kind of hopeful that this kind of advertising was going to actually open up space for many more different kinds of women to be shown, who aren't usually the kind of white, middle class, cisgender, able-bodied, women that dominate the visual habitat that we all live in. We did see more diversity, but then we immediately saw that being somehow undercut or undermined with a kind of “one size fits all.” So this sort of sense that, “Well, whatever the problem, whoever the group, there's just one solution” – and it's to be more confident, confidence training programs, something like that. So it's a kind of double-move of recognizing diversity, only to then kind of say, “Well, it doesn't matter.” So what do we do? I mean, how can we help women feel more confident without making them feel like there's pressure on them? Or that there's something wrong with them? Orgad: Yeah, I think it's a really good question. And I would really just reiterate what was said earlier, that we are not against confidence, and we want women to thrive and feel safer and happier and more confident. But we feel really strongly that, at the same time, we need (and by we, we mean not just with women, but crucially as a society) to really think critically about how not just to invest in demanding and encouraging and exhorting women to be more confident and fix the problem as it were themselves, but to think and nourish structural thinking. And so we ended the book, in our conclusion, we call it “Beyond Confidence.” And we're trying to look at examples that perhaps are not entirely outside confidence or against confidence –because again, we are not ourselves against confidence – but that do introduce those things that, as you mentioned before, Jesse, that confidence culture masks and perhaps minimizes or marginalizes. And we talked about what we call “confidence climate” – how can we think about nurturing and building a climate that enables and allows women and everybody and other disempowered groups to feel safer and feel more confident, rather than putting again the onus on individuals to do that work? In this context we bring Lizzo as an interesting example, because she's kind of the self-confidence queen, but at the same time, Lizzo is a really interesting kind of person and persona to think through about what we can do differently. Because she foregrounds, for instance, interdependence, she foregrounds the ways in which she herself, to become confident, is dependent on her family, on her network of friends, on the community who travels with her on her tour. So one way, for instance, that we would want to think about building a climate of confidence is a climate that encourages our dependence on each other, and doesn't deem being dependent on somebody abhorrent or ugly or undesirable. The [current] confidence culture is not about needing help from anybody else, it's about you caring for yourself, because nobody else will. So these are kind of ways that we feel that should come, and we would hope would come, alongside the more kind of individual work that perhaps women can do, or do do – and we would have liked to see workplaces investing more in structural changes that create places and workplaces that are confident workplaces, where employees can thrive as confident beings, rather than sending them on these courses that keep telling them the problem is you, you fix it. Drs. Shani Orgad and Rosalind Gill are the authors of Confidence Culture, out now on Duke University Press. Shani and Rosalind, thanks so much for taking the time. We're gonna switch gears before we head out to recognize Sexual Assault Awareness Month - and a warning to those who may be sensitive to the subject. On Thursday, New York state lawmakers joined survivors in Westchester County to call attention to a bill that would give some adult survivors the opportunity to sue their abusers in court. The Adult Survivors Act is similar to the Child Victims Act passed by the legislature in 2019, which gave survivors of childhood sexual abuse a one-year lookback window to sue their abusers, in some cases long after the state's statute of limitations expired. The one-year window was ultimately extended another year due to the coronavirus pandemic. This time, the Adult Survivors Act would open up that opportunity to those who were 18 years or older at the time of their abuse. The bill was passed by the State Senate last year, but it has so far stalled in the Assembly.  It was a blustery Thursday in New York's Hudson Valley, but advocates with the victims assistance nonprofit Safe Horizon still gathered outside the Westchester County Court in White Plains to push for the bill's passage.   State Senator Shelly Mayer, a Democrat from the 37th District, is a co-sponsor of the bill. "This is so basic to our system of laws. We're not talking about criminal penalties here, we're talking about the opportunity to confront your accuser and make a civil claim for damages," says Mayer. "And that is what our systems of laws is based on. The equality of opportunity to assert your claim." Safe Horizon Vice President of Government Affairs Michael Polenberg says more than 10,000 lawsuits were filed as a result of the Child Victims Act by the time its lookback window closed last August. Four of the state's eight Roman Catholic dioceses filed for bankruptcy, as did the Boy Scouts of America, at least partly due to a large number of lawsuits regarding sexual abuse. In 2019, lawmakers also expanded the civil and criminal statute of limitations for several felony sex offenses in the state. The criminal statute of limitations for second and third-degree rape increased from five years to 20 and 10 years, respectively, and Polenburg says the civil statute now stands at 20 years for both — but he notes those changes were made proactively, not retroactively.   "Meaning certain survivors who were abused before 2019 still only have a few years to file a civil lawsuit," he adds.   Polenberg says that, as child victims have been given the chance to look back, so should adults. For many survivors, coming to terms with what they went through can take years, even decades. Donna Hylton, activist and author of the memoir, A Little Piece of Light, says she's been surviving trauma and sexual abuse for the majority of her life – something she didn't really come to terms with until after her incarceration at age 20. Hylton says she was incarcerated for 27 years, and that people often misunderstand the sheer number of adult survivors in state prisons alone. “That 85 percent that we've been told for so long, of women, young women, and gender-expansive people that are in the system, that have been abused, is wrong. It's more like 97 percent. Closer to 98 percent. Why? Because people still don't talk. Why? Because people still don't listen," says Hylton. Assemblymember Amy Paulin, a Democrat from the 88th District, says she became a survivor at age 14, and it took years for her to say it out loud.   “I buried it, it was something I was embarrassed about, it was something that I never told anyone about — and I don't know that that would have been different if I was four years older," says Paulin. "If you're 17, you're a minor, you're 18 and all of sudden you're not. And I don't know what shifts or changes in a young woman's mind…not that much. So we have not addressed the remedies for so many young women who likely have not or did not even come to grips with their own sexual assault. So this is a very important bill.” “For many years, it was the State Assembly that moved the Child Victims Act forward. We're now in the situation where it's the Senate who's moving on the Adult Survivors Act — they passed it last year unanimously, everyone voted in support. This year, the bill has already moved through the Judiciary Committee and the Finance Committee, and it's now heading to the floor, and it's the Assembly where the bill seems to be stuck," adds Polenberg. "So we're hopeful that, with the support of the assemblymembers here today, that we can finally move this bill forward this year." Fellow Democratic State Assemblymembers Chris Burdick and Tom Abinanti joined Paulin at the press conference Thursday. New York's legislative session wraps on June 2.   Safe Horizon has operated a network of New York City programs helping survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, human trafficking, homelessness and more since 1978. The nonprofit says it responds to roughly 250,000 New Yorkers a year who have experienced violence or abuse.  51% is a national production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. It's produced by Jesse King. Our executive producer is Dr. Alan Chartock, and our theme is "Lolita" by the Albany-based artist Girl Blue.

Have you ever considered the consequences of focusing so heavily on women and girls' confidence, or lack thereof? If women and girls are excluded from certain spaces and careers, or don't negotiate salaries, or struggle to ask for what they want in a relationship, the solution is often: “She just needs more confidence…She needs to believe in herself more!” On this week's pod, Shaunna and Lisa discuss their views on the harm created by an over-emphasis on women and girls' confidence and how it obscures the systemic nature of their inequality. In a culture so dedicated to individualism, “leaning-in,” and working hard, it is all too easy to focus on the need for women and girls to change something internally rather than on the traps inherent in the various systems they encounter. Whether employment, family, or sport, it isn't always a lack of confidence that holds women and girls back. This episode was inspired by the article https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2022/03/limits-women-confidence-workplace-inequality/626562/ (How Women's  Confidence Became a Cult) in The Atlantic, published March 7, 2022 by https://www.theatlantic.com/author/shani-orgad/ (Shani Orgad) and https://www.theatlantic.com/author/rosalind-gill/ (Rosalind Gill). Hell Yeah: Check out Turning Point, a 3-day journey to disrupt imposter syndrome and unleash your leader voice: http://www.christinesachscoaching.com/turning-point (http://www.christinesachscoaching.com/turning-point)  Support the podcast and use our sponsor codes! InsideTracker: 25% off at http://insidetracker.com/feisty (insidetracker.com/feisty)  Nuun Hydration: 30% off with code StayFeisty at https://nuunlife.com (nuunlife.com) Orca Sportswear: 15% off with code livefeisty15 athttps://www.orca.com/us-en/ ( https://www.orca.com/us-en/)

In Confidence Culture (Duke UP, 2022), 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 individualistic and neoliberal lines, Orgad and Gill explore alternative articulations of feminism that go beyond the confidence imperative. Louisa Hann recently attained a PhD in English and American studies from the University of Manchester, specialising in the political economy of HIV/AIDS theatres. She has published work on the memorialisation of HIV/AIDS on the contemporary stage and the use of documentary theatre as a neoliberal harm reduction tool. She is currently working on a monograph based on her doctoral thesis. You can get in touch with her at louisahann92@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/communications

In Confidence Culture (Duke UP, 2022), 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 individualistic and neoliberal lines, Orgad and Gill explore alternative articulations of feminism that go beyond the confidence imperative. Louisa Hann recently attained a PhD in English and American studies from the University of Manchester, specialising in the political economy of HIV/AIDS theatres. She has published work on the memorialisation of HIV/AIDS on the contemporary stage and the use of documentary theatre as a neoliberal harm reduction tool. She is currently working on a monograph based on her doctoral thesis. You can get in touch with her at louisahann92@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

In Confidence Culture (Duke UP, 2022), 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 individualistic and neoliberal lines, Orgad and Gill explore alternative articulations of feminism that go beyond the confidence imperative. Louisa Hann recently attained a PhD in English and American studies from the University of Manchester, specialising in the political economy of HIV/AIDS theatres. She has published work on the memorialisation of HIV/AIDS on the contemporary stage and the use of documentary theatre as a neoliberal harm reduction tool. She is currently working on a monograph based on her doctoral thesis. You can get in touch with her at louisahann92@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Confidence Culture (Duke UP, 2022), 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 individualistic and neoliberal lines, Orgad and Gill explore alternative articulations of feminism that go beyond the confidence imperative. Louisa Hann recently attained a PhD in English and American studies from the University of Manchester, specialising in the political economy of HIV/AIDS theatres. She has published work on the memorialisation of HIV/AIDS on the contemporary stage and the use of documentary theatre as a neoliberal harm reduction tool. She is currently working on a monograph based on her doctoral thesis. You can get in touch with her at louisahann92@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology

In Confidence Culture (Duke UP, 2022), 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 individualistic and neoliberal lines, Orgad and Gill explore alternative articulations of feminism that go beyond the confidence imperative. Louisa Hann recently attained a PhD in English and American studies from the University of Manchester, specialising in the political economy of HIV/AIDS theatres. She has published work on the memorialisation of HIV/AIDS on the contemporary stage and the use of documentary theatre as a neoliberal harm reduction tool. She is currently working on a monograph based on her doctoral thesis. You can get in touch with her at louisahann92@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

In Confidence Culture (Duke UP, 2022), 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 individualistic and neoliberal lines, Orgad and Gill explore alternative articulations of feminism that go beyond the confidence imperative. Louisa Hann recently attained a PhD in English and American studies from the University of Manchester, specialising in the political economy of HIV/AIDS theatres. She has published work on the memorialisation of HIV/AIDS on the contemporary stage and the use of documentary theatre as a neoliberal harm reduction tool. She is currently working on a monograph based on her doctoral thesis. You can get in touch with her at louisahann92@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies

In Confidence Culture (Duke UP, 2022), 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 individualistic and neoliberal lines, Orgad and Gill explore alternative articulations of feminism that go beyond the confidence imperative. Louisa Hann recently attained a PhD in English and American studies from the University of Manchester, specialising in the political economy of HIV/AIDS theatres. She has published work on the memorialisation of HIV/AIDS on the contemporary stage and the use of documentary theatre as a neoliberal harm reduction tool. She is currently working on a monograph based on her doctoral thesis. You can get in touch with her at louisahann92@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

In Confidence Culture (Duke UP, 2022), 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 individualistic and neoliberal lines, Orgad and Gill explore alternative articulations of feminism that go beyond the confidence imperative. Louisa Hann recently attained a PhD in English and American studies from the University of Manchester, specialising in the political economy of HIV/AIDS theatres. She has published work on the memorialisation of HIV/AIDS on the contemporary stage and the use of documentary theatre as a neoliberal harm reduction tool. She is currently working on a monograph based on her doctoral thesis. You can get in touch with her at louisahann92@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network