Senses of the Subject: How Confidence Acts as a Sublime Object of Neoliberalism

Abstract

Confidence has become an important, almost ubiquitous, part of organisational parlance and practice. Prior postfeminist critiques identify confidence as a highly gendered discourse that retrenches inequality, inciting women to focus on changing themselves rather than dismantling unfair structures of the gendered organization. This paper makes a contribution to this discussion by theorising the reasons why, despite going against the interests of women, confidence holds such a grip in the contemporary workplace that idealises gender equality. Drawing on the psychoanalytic ideas of Slavoj Žižek, the paper argues that confidence functions as a ‘sublime object’ within the neoliberal fantasy. In our analysis, we show how women become invested in confidence as it functions to cover over the traumatic Real of capitalism by promising its subjects relief from the anxiety of conflict between neoliberal logics and those of equality. We show that confidence provides a form of enjoyment (jouissance): a sensual return that sustains the possibility of recognition for women as neoliberal subjects. In parallel, traumatic senses of fear and disgust are projected onto Others who are perceived to transgress the logic(s) of confidence, and who thus threaten to reveal the contingencies of neoliberalism. By suturing the Real, confidence disarms political critique of the structural dimension of gender inequality. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the sublime object of confidence for individual women, for gender equality, and for society and ethical modes of being.