FMS 394: Lesson 12 BRAVE NEW GIRLS?: TEENS, GENDER, AND NEOLIBERALISM IN THE 1990S

 What are the major discourses of adolescent femininity that emerge in the 1990s?  How do images of and ideas about teen girls get put to use in the service of assuaging broader cultural anxieties?  How does this week's screening offer both a critique and affirmation of certain forms of femininity?  How does that same film use images of teen girls to critique and affirm society more broadly? GUIDING QUESTIONS

 Anxieties About Girls  Reviving Ophelia 1994  Schoolgirls 1994  AAUW Study 1995  Riot Grrl  DIY Subculture  Bikini Kill Bikini Kill GIRL TROUBLES IN THE 1990S

 Girl Power  Government Initiative starts in 1996  Pop culture refrainrefrain  What kind of femininity?  Assertive, confident, independent  Not necessarily rebellious GIRL POWER AND NEOLIBERAL IDEALS

 Contradictions and Ambivalence:  Privilege and Empowerment  Ignorance and Tolerance  “Traditional” and “Modern” Femininity CLUELESS? AS IF!

NEXT TIME ON FMS 394 American Teens and the Return of Raunch Culture