Skip to main content

Advertisement

Log in

Living in Metaphors, Trapped in a Matrix: The Ramifications of Neoliberal Ideology for Young Women’s Sexuality

  • Feminist Forum Review Article
  • Published:
Sex Roles Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

By proposing that gendered sexual norms dictating young women’s sexuality (i.e., the Virgin-Slut Continuum) are now joined by neoliberal scripts for sexual agency (i.e., the Agency Line), my hope was to prompt new conversations about the ideological context in which young women in the U.S. forge their sexualities. The responses to my original commentary indicate that there are many such conversations to be had. Before pursuing those, I wish to clarify some of the tenets of my proposal, most importantly that I do not advocate for the Agency Line and the matrix created by its intersection with the Virgin-Slut Continuum to be a fair or apt characterization of young women’s lived experiences. To the contrary, I see neoliberal sexual agency as a prescribed and prescriptive normative force that works in tandem with enduring gendered prohibitions to constrain young women’s sexual expression and to reinforce the sexual stigmatization of minority girls and women.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Abramovitz, M. (2006). Welfare reform in the United States: Gender, race and class matter. Critical Social Policy, 26, 336–364. doi:10.1177/0261018306062589.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • American Psychological Association, Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls (2007). Report of the APA task force on the sexualization of girls. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

    Google Scholar 

  • Armstrong, E. A., Hamilton, L. T., Armstrong, E. M., & Seeley, J. L. (2014). “Good girls”: Gender, social class, and slut discourse on campus. Social Psychology Quarterly, 77, 100–122. doi:10.1177/0190272514521220.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Attwood, F. (2007). Sluts and riot grrrls: Female identity and sexual agency. Journal of Gender Studies, 16, 233–247. doi:10.1080/09589230701562921.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bay-Cheng, L. Y. (2015). The agency line: A neoliberal metric for appraising young women’s sexuality. Sex Roles, this issue. doi:10.1007/s11199-015-0452-6.

  • Bay-Cheng, L. Y. (2013). Ethical parenting of sexually active youth: Ensuring safety while enabling development. Sex Education, 13, 133–145. doi:10.1080/14681811.2012.700280.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bay-Cheng, L. Y. (2012). Recovering empowerment: De-personalizing and re-politicizing adolescent female sexuality. Sex Roles, 66, 713–717. doi:10.1007/s11199-011-0070-x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bay-Cheng, L. Y. (2005). Left to their own devices: Disciplining youth discourse on sexuality education electronic bulletin boards. Sexuality Research & Social Policy, 2, 37–50. doi:10.1525/srsp.2005.2.1.37.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bay-Cheng, L. Y., & Eliseo-Arras, R. K. (2008). The making of unwanted sex: Gendered and neoliberal norms in college women’s unwanted sexual experiences. Journal of Sex Research, 45, 386–397. doi:10.1080/00224490802398381.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bay-Cheng, L. Y., & Fava, N. M. (2014). What puts “at-risk girls” at risk? Sexual vulnerability and social inequality in the lives of girls in the child welfare system. Sexuality Research & Social Policy, 11, 116–125. doi:10.1007/s13178-013-0142-5.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bay-Cheng, L. Y., Fitz, C. C., Alizaga, N. M., & Zucker, A. N. (2015). Tracking homo oeconomicus: Development of the neoliberal beliefs inventory. Journal of Social & Political Psychology, 3, 71–88. doi:10.5964/jspp.v3i1.366.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bay-Cheng, L. Y., Livingston, J. A., & Fava, N. M. (2012). “Not always a clear path”: Making space for peers, adults, and complexity in adolescent girls’ sexual development. In E. L. Zurbriggen & T. Roberts (Eds.), The sexualization of girls and girlhood: Causes, consequences, & resistance (pp. 257–277). New York: Oxford University Press.

  • Bay-Cheng, L. Y., Livingston, J. A., & Fava, N. M. (2011). Adolescent girls’ assessment and management of sexual risks: Insights from focus group research. Youth & Society, 43, 1167–1193. doi:10.1177/0044118X10384475.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bettie, J. (2003). Women without class: Girls, race, and identity. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Charles, C. E. (2010). Complicating hetero-femininities: Young women, sexualities and “girl power” at school. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 23, 33–47. doi:10.1080/09518390903447135.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Córdova Jr., D., & Cervantes, R. C. (2010). Intergroup and within-group perceived discrimination among U.S.-born and foreign-born Latino youth. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 32, 259–274. doi:10.1177/0739986310362371.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Deal, M. (2003). Disabled people’s attitudes toward other impairment groups: A hierarchy of impairments. Disability & Society, 18, 897–910. doi:10.1080/0968759032000127317.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • DuBois, W. E. B. (1998). Black reconstruction. New York: Free Press (Original work published 1935).

  • Duggan, L. (2003). The twilight of equality?: Neoliberalism, cultural politics, and the attack on democracy. Boston: Beacon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fasula, A. M., Carry, M., & Miller, K. S. (2014). A multidimensional framework for the meanings of the sexual double standard and its application for the sexual health of young black women in the U.S. Journal of Sex Research, 51, 170–183. doi:10.1080/00224499.2012.716874.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Fiske, S. T. (2010). Envy up, scorn down: How comparison divides us. American Psychologist, 65, 698–706. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.65.8.698.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Fortenberry, J. D. (2014). Sexual learning, sexual experience, and healthy adolescent sex. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 144, 71–86. doi:10.1002/cad.20061.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Froyum, C. M. (2010). Making “good girls”: Sexual agency in the sexuality education of low-income black girls. Culture, Health & Sexuality, 12, 59–72. doi:10.1080/13691050903272583.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gavey, N. (2005). Just sex?: The cultural scaffolding of rape. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gill, R. (2008). Culture and subjectivity in neoliberal and postfeminist times. Subjectivity, 25, 432–445. doi:10.1057/sub.2008.28.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goodkind, S. (2009). “You can be anything you want, but you have to believe it”: Commercialized feminism in gender-specific programs for girls. Signs, 34, 397–422. doi:10.1086/591086.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hayfield, N., Clarke, V., & Halliwell, E. (2014). Bisexual women’s understandings of social marginalisation: “The heterosexuals don’t understand us but nor do the lesbians”. Feminism & Psychology, 24, 352–372. doi:10.1177/0959353514539651.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hills, R. (2015). When your sex life doesn’t follow the script. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/31/when-your-sex-life-doesnt-follow-the-script.

  • Holland, J., Ramazanoglu, C., Sharpe, S., & Thomson, R. (1998). The male in the head: Young people, heterosexuality and power. London: Tufnell Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hurtado, A. (1989). Relating to privilege: Seduction and rejection in the subordination of white women and women of color. Signs, 14, 833–855. doi:10.1086/494546.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jackson, S. M., & Cram, F. (2003). Disrupting the sexual double standard: Young women’s talk about heterosexuality. British Journal of Social Psychology, 42, 113–127. doi:10.1348/014466603763276153.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Jost, J. T., Banaji, M. R., & Nosek, B. A. (2004). A decade of system justification theory: Accumulated evidence of conscious and unconscious bolstering of the status quo. Political Psychology, 25, 881–919. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9221.2004.00402.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Katz, J., & Tirone, V. (2015). From the agency line to the picket line: Neoliberal ideals, sexual realities, and arguments about abortion in the U.S. Sex Roles, this issue. doi:10.1007/s11199-015-0475-z.

  • Kelly, P. (2001). Youth at risk: Processes of individualisation and responsibilisation in the risk society. Discourse, 22, 23–33. doi:10.1080/01596300120039731.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lamb, S. (2015). Revisiting choice and victimization: A commentary on Bay-Cheng’s agency matrix. Sex Roles, this issue. doi:10.1007/s11199-015-0508-7.

  • Lamb, S. (2010). Toward a sexual ethics curriculum: Bringing philosophy and society to bear on individual development. Harvard Educational Review, 80, 81–106. doi:10.17763/haer.80.1.c104834k00552457.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lerum, K., & Dworkin, S. L. (2015). Sexual agency is not a problem of neoliberalism: Feminism, sexual justice, & the carceral turn. Sex Roles, this issue. doi:10.1007/s11199-015-0525-6.

  • McRobbie, A. (2008). Young women and consumer culture. Cultural Studies, 22, 531–550. doi:10.1080/09502380802245803.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meier, A., & Allen, G. (2008). Intimate relationship development during the transition to adulthood: Differences by social class. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 119, 25–39. doi:10.1002/cd.207.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Payne, E. (2010). Sluts: Heteronormative policing in the stories of lesbian youth. Educational Studies, 46, 317–336. doi:10.1080/00131941003614911.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Phillips, N. L., Adams, G., & Salter, P. S. (2015). Beyond adaptation: Decolonizing approaches to coping with oppression. Journal of Social & Political Psychology, 3, 365–387. doi:10.5964/jspp.v3i1.310.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Purdie-Vaughns, V., & Eibach, R. P. (2008). Intersectional invisibility: The distinctive advantages and disadvantages of multiple subordinate-group identities. Sex Roles, 59, 377–391. doi:10.1007/s11199-008-9424-4.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Riger, S. (1993). What’s wrong with empowerment. American Journal of Community Psychology, 21, 279–292. doi:10.1007/BF00941504.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schalet, A. T. (2011). Not under my roof: Parents, teens, and the culture of sex. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Silva, J. M. (2012). Constructing adulthood in an age of uncertainty. American Sociological Review, 77, 505–522. doi:10.1177/0003122412449014.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Steinberg, L. (2007). Risk taking in adolescence: New perspectives from brain and behavioral science. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16, 55–59. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8721.2007.00475.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stephens, D. P., & Phillips, L. D. (2003). Freaks, gold diggers, divas, and dykes: The sociohistorical development of adolescent African American women’s sexual scripts. Sexuality and Culture, 7(1), 3–49. doi:10.1007/BF03159848.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Suls, J., Martin, R., & Wheeler, L. (2002). Social comparison: Why, with whom, and with what effect? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11, 159–163. doi:10.1111/1467-8721.00191.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Taft, J. K. (2011). Rebel girls: Youth activism and social change across the Americas. New York: NYU Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tanenbaum, L. (2015). I am not a slut: Slut-shaming in the age of the internet. New York: Harper Perennial.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tanenbaum, L. (2000). Slut! Growing up female with a bad reputation. New York: Harper Perennial.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tolman, D. L. (2006). In a different position: Conceptualizing female adolescent sexuality development within compulsory heterosexuality. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 112, 71–89. doi:10.1002/cd.163.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Tolman, D. L. (2003). Improving women’s sexual assertiveness. Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 35, 48. doi: 10.1111/j.1931-2393.2003.tb00087.x

  • Tolman, D. L. (2002). Dilemmas of desire: Teenage girls talk about sexuality. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tolman, D. L., Anderson, S. M., & Belmonte, K. (2015). Mobilizing metaphor: Considering complexities, contradictions, and contexts in adolescent girls’ and young women’s sexual agency. Sex Roles, this issue. doi:10.1007/s11199-015-0510-0.

  • Uzogara, E. E., Abdou, C. M., Lee, H., & Jackson, J. S. (2014). A comparison of skin tone discrimination among African American men: 1995 and 2003. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 15, 201–212. doi:10.1037/a0033479.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weiss, J. T. (2003). GL vs. BT. Journal of Bisexuality, 3, 25–55. doi:10.1300/J159v03n03_02.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wilder, J., & Cain, C. (2011). Teaching and learning color consciousness in Black families: Exploring family processes and women’s experiences with colorism. Journal of Family Issues, 32, 577–604. doi:10.1177/0192513X10390858.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Conflict of Interest

The author is unaware of any potential conflicts of interest.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Laina Y. Bay-Cheng.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Bay-Cheng, L.Y. Living in Metaphors, Trapped in a Matrix: The Ramifications of Neoliberal Ideology for Young Women’s Sexuality. Sex Roles 73, 332–339 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-015-0541-6

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-015-0541-6

Keywords

Navigation