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Confidence Culture
In Confidence Culture, Shani Orgad and Rosalind Gill argue that imperatives directed at women to “love your body” and “believe in yourself” imply that psychological blocks hold women back rather than entrenched social injustices. Interrogating the prominence of confidence in contemporary discourse about body image, workplace, relationships, motherhood, and international development, Orgad and Gill draw on Foucault’s notion of technologies of self to demonstrate how “confidence culture” demands of women near-constant introspection and vigilance in the service of self-improvement. They argue that while confidence messaging may feel good, it does not address structural and systemic oppression. Rather, confidence culture suggests that women—along with people of color, the disabled, and other marginalized groups—are responsible for their own conditions. Rejecting confidence culture’s remaking of feminism along individualistic and neoliberal lines, Orgad and Gill explore alternative articulations of feminism that go beyond the confidence imperative.
256 pages, Paperback
Published February 9, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
March 11, 2022
For a scholarly book, this was engaging and readable. The authors quite thoroughly lay out their argument that the cult(ure) of confidence asks women to take on the substantial labor of developing and maintaining confidence and self-acceptance (often through the purchase of more and more health and beauty products, books, and services) rather than questioning and challenging existing systems and how they were built and maintained to privilege and normalize male power and male confidence. If we can take this confidence they've got us working so hard at and use it to destroy the patriarchy, well now we're talking. Lizzo for President!
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October 10, 2022there is something nice about having a textbook that takes the time to say "yeah, Lizzo is a badass"
May 24, 2025
Excellent and enlightening analysis of the endlessly repeated platitudes around "confidence", "self-love" etc. in Western popular culture these days. The observation that somehow women/mothers have to work on themselves as well as societal issues while other parties (e.g. the government, fathers) are somehow left out of the equation is very thought-provoking.
However, I still don't know what to do with this knowledge as an individual beyond not actively performing shallow and vapid rituals and considering that all those societal pressures might well be ignored (both of those align with what I crave to do in the first place). Maybe it will come to me with time and maybe a re-read at a later point.
However, I still don't know what to do with this knowledge as an individual beyond not actively performing shallow and vapid rituals and considering that all those societal pressures might well be ignored (both of those align with what I crave to do in the first place). Maybe it will come to me with time and maybe a re-read at a later point.
June 10, 2022
"Despite its apparently warm and affirmative address to women to believe in themselves, to lean in, to love their bodies, to focus on what is most important to them, to embrace imperfection and vulnerability, and to be confident across all spheres of life, the confidence cult(ure) works by locating the blame and responsibility for all difficulties and challenges in women themselves."
Orgad's academic text acts successfully as a milestone in disseminating what confidence means--and how it affects us--in our culture. She argues that the confidence culture the past two decades have brought us are less of a culture and more of a cult--one that ignores the systemic problems which make existing as a woman so difficult (including racism, ableism, classism, and onward).
Orgad breaks down beauty culture, presenting various artifacts which argue that young girls learn confidence from their mothers (ergo, mothers need to be more confident!), despite the various billboards, advertisements, and magazines which put down women to better profit male CEOs. She breaks down Dove beauty campaigns and the ways they "miss the mark", not to mention the countless self help books that proffer confidence as an all-encompassing, all-healing personality trait.
Not paid enough at work? Be more confident and ask for a raise! Need to put your foot down with your kids? Be more confident! Afraid your husband isn't that into you anymore? Just pretend that you're a porn star and be confident! But confidence isn't a cure-all, not when there are larger things at work.
Even going so far as to look critically at Lizzo, someone whose body and black positivity has been long-standing even before such things were trendy, and how confidence and self-love are a continuous process even amid waves of anxiety. Certainly, this made for an interesting read, and definitely one worth looking into if you're tired of being inundated with corporate and trendy messages of self-worth.
Orgad's academic text acts successfully as a milestone in disseminating what confidence means--and how it affects us--in our culture. She argues that the confidence culture the past two decades have brought us are less of a culture and more of a cult--one that ignores the systemic problems which make existing as a woman so difficult (including racism, ableism, classism, and onward).
Orgad breaks down beauty culture, presenting various artifacts which argue that young girls learn confidence from their mothers (ergo, mothers need to be more confident!), despite the various billboards, advertisements, and magazines which put down women to better profit male CEOs. She breaks down Dove beauty campaigns and the ways they "miss the mark", not to mention the countless self help books that proffer confidence as an all-encompassing, all-healing personality trait.
Not paid enough at work? Be more confident and ask for a raise! Need to put your foot down with your kids? Be more confident! Afraid your husband isn't that into you anymore? Just pretend that you're a porn star and be confident! But confidence isn't a cure-all, not when there are larger things at work.
Even going so far as to look critically at Lizzo, someone whose body and black positivity has been long-standing even before such things were trendy, and how confidence and self-love are a continuous process even amid waves of anxiety. Certainly, this made for an interesting read, and definitely one worth looking into if you're tired of being inundated with corporate and trendy messages of self-worth.
December 30, 2022
Shani Organ y Rosalind Gill (co-autora que a veces no aparece ni referenciada) nos relatan en este libro (en inglés, no parece que haya aún traducción al español) una de las consecuencias del neoliberalismo individualista en el que estamos inmersas: the confidence culture, que podríamos traducir como la cultura del trabajo personal, de la autoestima. Se trata de una corriente que podemos encontrar ahora promocionada en todas las esquinas de nuestro mundo, en todas las facetas de nuestra vida, que trata de estimular el tratamiento de nuestra persona como una "marca personal", en la que debemos invertir y trabajar para ofrecer "nuestra mejor versión. En este caso, relacionan estrechamente esta cultura con las mujeres y el feminismo, relatando cómo la combinación de ambas ha dado lugar a un posfeminismo que conmina a las mujeres a trabajar de manera individual la inequidades que pueden hallar en su día a día, obviando en el proceso la existencia de un sistema social opresor que limita las posibilidades de cada persona de conseguir aquello que se proponen, con el riesgo que supone el discurso constante de "querer es poder", cuando no, realmente no basta con querer y cada persona parte de un lugar diferente en la carrera del éxito (concepto capitalista), relegando a una gran mayoría a la imposibilidad de alcanzar jamás ni remotamente el "sueño capitalista".
No puedo recomendarlo más, qué falta nos hace ser conscientes de todo esto y desmontar todas las historias de éxito y felicidad que nos ha contado, que no son sino una forma de mantenernos produciendo y corriendo en la rueda de hámster, sin protestar, sin organizarnos, sin tratar de cambiar este injusto sistema.
No puedo recomendarlo más, qué falta nos hace ser conscientes de todo esto y desmontar todas las historias de éxito y felicidad que nos ha contado, que no son sino una forma de mantenernos produciendo y corriendo en la rueda de hámster, sin protestar, sin organizarnos, sin tratar de cambiar este injusto sistema.
March 21, 2022
An important read for women as it really questions the work we do on ourselves to become confident, successful women. The work required to be confident is time consuming and does not change the fact that our society is not structured to really support women, especially working mothers. No matter how confident you are, it does not change the fact that we do not have paid parental leave or sick leave policies, available and affordable child care, equal pay, etc... Maybe we need to stop working on ourselves and pushing away/burying all of the negative feelings we have and focus our attention outward to the structures in our society that keep us from thriving?
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May 14, 2024A book I read most of for class and then returned to and the end of the semester to finish.
Great extension of Banet-Weiser’s Empowered and a somewhat dizzying exploration of the way we are subsumed within the confidence cult.
Great extension of Banet-Weiser’s Empowered and a somewhat dizzying exploration of the way we are subsumed within the confidence cult.
July 30, 2022
understanding
I’ve always been uncomfortable around all the self-improvement apps and books. They never seem to ring true. This book goes a long way to explaining why.
I’ve always been uncomfortable around all the self-improvement apps and books. They never seem to ring true. This book goes a long way to explaining why.
August 21, 2022
De self-love cultuur doorprikt, of hoe "innocent injunctions to feel more confident are contributing to a politics in which emphasis is upon changing women, rather than changing an unjust world".
September 15, 2022
4.5 stars
February 7, 2024
Even though it’s an academic book, I read it before bed and I loved it, super interesting and just makes me want to do my masters on everything related to this book!
June 21, 2024
Read the introduction and chapter 1 to aid in a research project. Will finish the remaining chapters when I read leisurely.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews