IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/gender/v28y2021i3p1059-1078.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Commodifying feminism: Economic choice and agency in the context of lifestyle influencers and gender consultants

Author

Listed:
  • Magdalena Petersson McIntyre

Abstract

Feminism has become a recurrent ingredient in many women's narratives of their selves and is regularly appearing as an important aspect of women's success, happiness and self‐realization. The development has been criticized for upholding a view in which structural inequalities are explained in terms of individual choices; choice feminism. This article examines two professional groups, lifestyle influencers and gender equality consultants. The purpose is to examine how questions of feminism, choice and entrepreneurship are made sense of in these contexts. The article situates the interviewees' explanations in fourth, or even fifth wave feminism to examine whether the embrace of choice still relies on a critique of gender structures and inequalities. Both the consultants and the influencers felt that entrepreneurial success had changed the way society viewed them. The appeal of ‘choice’ was an outcome of a perceived lack of choice, a matter of performing resistance to the culturally defined choices these individuals felt were presented to them. The article contributes to an understanding of the shifting meanings and forms feminism takes in social media and commercial market settings and what it is that these individuals find appealing in addressing individual success as a feminist victory.

Suggested Citation

  • Magdalena Petersson McIntyre, 2021. "Commodifying feminism: Economic choice and agency in the context of lifestyle influencers and gender consultants," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(3), pages 1059-1078, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:gender:v:28:y:2021:i:3:p:1059-1078
    DOI: 10.1111/gwao.12627
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12627
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/gwao.12627?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Karin Berglund & Helene Ahl & Katarina Pettersson & Malin Tillmar, 2018. "Women's entrepreneurship, neoliberalism and economic justice in the postfeminist era: A discourse analysis of policy change in Sweden," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(5), pages 531-556, September.
    2. Yvonne Benschop & Patricia Lewis & Ruth Simpson & Patricia Lewis & Yvonne Benschop & Ruth Simpson, 2017. "Postfeminism, Gender and Organization," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(3), pages 213-225, May.
    3. Magdalena Petersson McIntyre, 2015. "Queering all aboard: challenging the maleness of the leisure boat industry," International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 24(1), pages 4-22.
    4. Magdalena Petersson McIntyre, 2020. "Agencing femininity: digital Mrs. Consumer in intra-action," Journal of Cultural Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(1), pages 54-72, January.
    5. Helene Ahl & Karin Berglund & Katarina Pettersson & Malin Tillmar, 2016. "From feminism to FemInc.ism: On the uneasy relationship between feminism, entrepreneurship and the Nordic welfare state," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 12(2), pages 369-392, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Francesco Paolo Lagrasta & Barbara Scozzi & Pierpaolo Pontrandolfo, 2024. "Feminisms and entrepreneurship: a systematic literature review investigating a troubled connection," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 20(4), pages 3081-3112, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Anna Alexandersson & Viktorija Kalonaityte, 2021. "Girl bosses, punk poodles, and pink smoothies: Girlhood as Enterprising Femininity," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 416-438, January.
    2. Vijayta Doshi, 2022. "Experiencing liminality: At the crossroads of neoliberal and gendered experiences," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 1132-1148, July.
    3. Karin Berglund & Helene Ahl & Katarina Pettersson & Malin Tillmar, 2018. "Women's entrepreneurship, neoliberalism and economic justice in the postfeminist era: A discourse analysis of policy change in Sweden," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(5), pages 531-556, September.
    4. Feng Guo & Bo Zou & Jinyu Guo & Yan Shi & Qingwen Bo & Liangxing Shi, 2019. "What determines academic entrepreneurship success? A social identity perspective," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 929-952, September.
    5. Johansson, Kristina & Johansson, Maria & Andersson, Elias, 2023. "All talk and no action? Making change and negotiating gender equality in Swedish forestry," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    6. Ea Høg Utoft, 2021. "Maneuvering within postfeminism: A study of gender equality practitioners in Danish academia," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 301-317, January.
    7. Pettersson, Katarina & Ahl, Helene & Berglund, Karin & Tillmar, Malin, 2017. "In the name of women? Feminist readings of policies for women’s entrepreneurship in Scandinavia," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 50-63.
    8. Larissa Petrucci, 2020. "Theorizing postfeminist communities: How gender‐inclusive meetups address gender inequity in high‐tech industries," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(4), pages 545-564, July.
    9. Manuel Carlos Nogueira & Mara Madaleno, 2021. "Is the Aurora Borealis an Inspiration to the Performance of Nordic Economic Sustainability?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(17), pages 1-22, September.
    10. Janna Besamusca, 2020. "The short or long end of the stick? Mothers’ social position and self‐employment status from a comparative perspective," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(6), pages 1285-1307, November.
    11. Karen Jones & Jonathan Clifton, 2018. "Rendering sexism invisible in workplace narratives. A narrative analysis of female entrepreneurs’ stories of not being talked to by men," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(5), pages 557-574, September.
    12. Camilla Quental & Yuliya Shymko, 2021. "What life in favelas can teach us about the COVID‐19 pandemic and beyond: Lessons from Dona Josefa," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 768-782, March.
    13. Ruth Weatherall, 2020. "Even when those struggles are not our own: Storytelling and solidarity in a feminist social justice organization," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(4), pages 471-486, July.
    14. Kokot-Blamey, Patrizia, 2021. "Mothering in accounting: Feminism, motherhood, and making partnership in accountancy in Germany and the UK," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    15. Julia Gruson‐Wood & Carla Rice & Jess Haines & Gwen E. Chapman, 2022. "The emotional toll of postfeminist fatherhood," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(1), pages 256-272, January.
    16. Maria Medina-Vicent, 2020. "A Tendency to Essentialism? Discourses about Women’s Leadership," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 9(8), pages 1-15, July.
    17. Lucia Naldi & Massimo Baù & Helene Ahl & Magdalena Markowska, 2021. "Gender (in)equality within the household and business start-up among mothers," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 56(2), pages 903-918, February.
    18. Alison Edgley, 2021. "Maternal presenteeism: Theorizing the importance for working mothers of “being there” for their children beyond infancy," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(3), pages 1023-1039, May.
    19. Georgia‐Zozeta Miliopoulou & Ilias Kapareliotis, 2021. "The toll of success: Female leaders in the “women‐friendly” Greek advertising agencies," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(5), pages 1741-1765, September.
    20. Claudia Balan & Marieke van den Brink & Yvonne Benschop, 2023. "New fathers, ideal workers? New players in the field of father‐friendly work organizations," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(3), pages 957-981, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:gender:v:28:y:2021:i:3:p:1059-1078. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0968-6673 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.