Abstract
Hyper-femininity and the construction of the ‘girly girl’ label have been documented widely, but there has been less attention to their content (or any distinctions between these constructs). Indeed, it can be argued that the content of femininity remains a controversial and somewhat under-researched topic in feminist scholarship. This is also the case in relation to science, which has been widely characterised as a masculine terrain, but there has been less attention to why femininity is excluded from/by science. This article attempts to unpick some of these issues, with a particular focus on the construct of the ‘girly girl’, in relation to access to science. Drawing on qualitative data from the Economic and Social Research Council-funded ASPIRES 2 project, we analyse the discourses used by young people and parents in discussion of ‘girly girls’ and physics. We show the misogynist and excluding discourses projected onto the ‘girly girl’, and indeed that are used to interpolate femininity more broadly. We found that in discussions of science and (hyper-)femininity, even potentially positive feminine attributes were denigrated. Hyper-femininity was produced as ‘more than lack’: vacuous, but also a risible presence. In reflecting on our findings we consider whether femininity may be more derided in some discursive contexts (e.g. science discourse) than others, and whether femininity can or should be conceived as more than lack.
Highlights
Hyper-femininity and the ‘girly girl’Constructions of femininity in educational contexts have been a longstanding topic of interest in feminist educational research
This article attempts to unpick some of these issues, with a particular focus on the construct of the ‘girly girl’, in relation to access to science
As reported in other studies (Francis 2000a; Francis, Burke, and Read 2013), in responses to all our questions about gender we found a strong discourse of equality of opportunity animating responses that ‘anyone can do anything’ – in this case, that girls have equality of opportunity to partake in STEM
Summary
Our intention in this article is to explore further the notion and application of ‘girly’ femininity, and the relation (or otherwise) between ‘girlyness’ and uptake of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) This interest follows the hypothesis posited in the literature that STEM, as a symbolically masculine field and set of subject areas, is avoided by – or denied to – those girls who invest strongly in a feminine production of self (Gonsalves 2014). Inequalities in engagement, access and participation in STEM subjects and career paths continue to preoccupy policy-makers and other stakeholder organisations, both nationally (HM Treasury 2011; BIS 2008) and internationally (for example, Cook et al 2013; US President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology’s 2010; Danish EU Presidency 2012) This is frequently driven by human capital concerns around the needs of the present and future economy, and a perceived STEM skills gap (House of Lords 2012; CBI 2012; Smith 2010; Vorderman et al 2011). One of us has drawn on Michael Bakhtin’s (1981) concepts of monglossia and heteroglossia in application to both gender productions, and to the construct of gender itself; and this approach is applied here
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