Hill girls, consumption practices, power, and city style: raced and classed production of femininities in a higher education setting

Abstract

This study investigated the ways a diverse group of university women in the USA utilised racialised and classed discourses of femininity in the creation of subjectivities. Interview and focus group data were collected over a two‐year time period and focused on how women navigated the higher education setting. Two forms of femininity, ‘Hill girl’ and ‘City style’, were salient. Hill girl femininity was based on markers such as white skin that had been tanned, and consumption practices. City style femininity was also defined through consumption practices and identification as a woman of colour. Material markers like race and class both limited and expanded the discourses available to women. New subjectivities were created with particular rights, while simultaneously making them subject to policing. The women in this study used contrasting and, at times, contradictory discourses to explore various forms of femininity that were connected to institutional power and privilege.