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The Politics of Being a Woman pp 154–174Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Girls and Cultural Consumption: ‘Typical Girls’, ‘Fangirls’ and the Value of Femininity

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Abstract

In recent years feminist commentators, girls’ studies scholars, parents and guardians have discussed the choices offered to girls with both hope and despair. It seems it is either a great time or a dire time to be a girl. Following the success of twitter campaigns such as #lettoysbetoys, toy aisles across Britain are being ‘de-gendered’, and the success of girls’ engineering toys such as GoldieBlox show the increasing range of roles girls now have access to. However, despite these successes writers such as Orenstein (2012) (amongst countless other online commentators) have expressed dismay at the increased ‘pinkification’ of girls’ cultural lives (even GoldieBlox foregrounds pink and princesses for example). From this perspective, the chasm between what boys can be and what girls can be is as wide as ever.

I’m a feminist if … I believe that young people should have the same chances, whatever their gender.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of East Anglia, UK

    Victoria Cann (Lecturer in the Humanities)

Authors
  1. Victoria Cann
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Media School, Bournemouth University, UK

    Heather Savigny (Senior Lecturer in Politics) (Senior Lecturer in Politics)

  2. University of East Anglia, UK

    Helen Warner (Lecturer in Cultural Politics, Communications and Media Studies) (Lecturer in Cultural Politics, Communications and Media Studies)

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© 2015 Victoria Cann

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Cann, V. (2015). Girls and Cultural Consumption: ‘Typical Girls’, ‘Fangirls’ and the Value of Femininity. In: Savigny, H., Warner, H. (eds) The Politics of Being a Woman. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137384669_8

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