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00:00:14
girl boss feminism is dead
00:00:17
in 2023 the only mention of the word
00:00:20
girl boss you're still likely to find is
00:00:23
in an ironic Gaslight gatekeep girl boss
00:00:25
Tick Tock from 2020 finally making it to
00:00:27
YouTube shorts or in articles about how
00:00:29
nobody uses the word girl boss anymore
00:00:33
there aren't any girl bosses left not
00:00:36
really at least none who embraced that
00:00:38
word anymore and it's not hard to see
00:00:40
why if you had to trace a crude history
00:00:42
of the word it all starts in 2014 with
00:00:45
Sophia amoruso coining girl boss with
00:00:47
her book of the same name girl boss
00:00:49
immediately takes off it becomes a
00:00:51
Netflix show within just a few years and
00:00:53
an endless collection of mugs and
00:00:55
t-shirts labeled my favorite position
00:00:57
CEO
00:00:58
but it didn't take long for this initial
00:01:01
enthusiasm to be completely overshadowed
00:01:03
for nearly a decade following amaruso's
00:01:05
book women were forced to step down from
00:01:07
leadership positions in a ton of
00:01:08
companies like away refinery29 and
00:01:12
glossier including amaruso herself
00:01:14
stepping down from her role as CEO of
00:01:16
nastygal once it was revealed that these
00:01:19
workplaces were toxic breeding grounds
00:01:21
for racism and sexism it's fair to say
00:01:24
that this completely changed the general
00:01:25
Public's idea of girl bosses and the
00:01:28
word became a pejorative few people
00:01:29
still wanted to be associated with if I
00:01:32
had to guess the whole era probably
00:01:34
culminated with Elizabeth Holmes's trial
00:01:36
which really put the final nail in the
00:01:37
coffin for the word girl boss
00:01:40
so why make a video about Girl boss
00:01:42
feminism in 2023 if hardly anyone is
00:01:45
claiming that word anymore why am I
00:01:47
still talking about it two reasons one a
00:01:50
lot of the backlash against girl boss
00:01:52
feminism was really backlash against
00:01:53
individual women
00:01:55
what I mean is that the end of the girl
00:01:57
boss era was heavily driven by the idea
00:02:00
that what was wrong with it was the
00:02:01
existence of bad people specifically
00:02:04
hypocritical women women who would make
00:02:06
feminist statements but create sexist
00:02:08
environments in the workplaces they ran
00:02:10
this not only misses the point I think
00:02:12
but also usually gave way to
00:02:14
anti-feminist rhetoric and at times even
00:02:17
downright misogyny including here on the
00:02:19
left
00:02:20
two just because a girl boss is no
00:02:22
longer in the Zeitgeist doesn't mean the
00:02:24
political discourse it conveys what's
00:02:26
called neoliberal feminism has gone away
00:02:28
in this video what I'm hoping to do is
00:02:31
clear up what's actually wrong with girl
00:02:32
boss or neoliberal feminism
00:02:35
neoliberal feminism completely ignores
00:02:38
the importance of structural power it
00:02:40
diminishes the importance of class and
00:02:42
race tries to depict feminism as the
00:02:44
Standalone and individualistic political
00:02:46
idea and incorrectly equates individual
00:02:49
successes with Collective emancipation
00:02:51
as a result neoliberal feminism actually
00:02:54
reinforces gender depression and
00:02:57
promotes a vision of feminism that's
00:02:58
really only available to the one percent
00:03:00
in other words the root of the problem
00:03:03
lies not with individual girl bosses but
00:03:06
with neoliberal girl boss feminism
00:03:08
itself and just because the word girl
00:03:10
boss is mostly gone doesn't mean that
00:03:12
this political discourse is before I
00:03:15
start outlining this whole thing by the
00:03:17
way I should specify that I'm not an
00:03:19
expert in women's studies or feminist
00:03:20
Theory so I'm going to rely pretty
00:03:22
heavily on the work of feminist authors
00:03:23
that I've cited in the description if
00:03:25
anything I talk about sounds interesting
00:03:27
to you I definitely didn't come up with
00:03:28
it myself and you can probably find a
00:03:30
book or an article in there that
00:03:31
explains it in depth anyway neoliberal
00:03:34
feminism what is it
00:03:36
in short neoliberal feminism takes all
00:03:39
the collective action that feminist
00:03:41
politics has traditionally been built on
00:03:42
and just scraps it neo-liberal feminism
00:03:45
like neoliberalism more generally is
00:03:47
highly and myopically individualistic It
00:03:50
Centers the idea that politics is mainly
00:03:53
something happening at the individual
00:03:54
level something that people nurture
00:03:56
within themselves and apply to their own
00:03:58
lives not something that people engage
00:04:00
in collectively as such it doesn't
00:04:03
necessarily completely ignore structures
00:04:05
of power but for neo-liberals and
00:04:07
neoliberal feminists alike these only
00:04:09
exist insofar as they can be overcome
00:04:11
they're not really things that can be
00:04:13
abolished or changed they're more like
00:04:16
hurdles in the individual's Journey To
00:04:18
Success neoliberal Politics as you might
00:04:21
expect is heavily dependent on the idea
00:04:23
that things like self-reliance
00:04:24
efficiency and most importantly
00:04:27
entrepreneurship and hard work are moral
00:04:29
qualities and by contrast it paints
00:04:32
things like welfare or Universal Public
00:04:34
Services as handouts things that one
00:04:37
should be ashamed of and interpret as a
00:04:39
sign of personal failure a sign of not
00:04:41
being good enough to live without them
00:04:43
for example neoliberal politics depicts
00:04:46
something like being unemployed not as a
00:04:48
societal failure but as proof that an
00:04:50
individual did something wrong when in
00:04:53
reality unemployment is a natural
00:04:55
outcome of a capitalist economic system
00:04:57
even if everyone abides by and
00:05:00
internalizes neoliberal values even if
00:05:02
everyone is hardworking everyone is
00:05:04
entrepreneurial and everyone is
00:05:06
self-reliant unemployment will still
00:05:08
exist because the state and private
00:05:10
businesses have a mutual interest in
00:05:12
keeping the cost of Labor down and very
00:05:15
little incentive and means to create
00:05:17
full employment
00:05:18
but back to neoliberal feminism
00:05:20
neoliberal feminism takes all this
00:05:22
language and political baggage and
00:05:24
applies it to feminist themes what comes
00:05:26
out of it is this idea that if there is
00:05:28
still inequality between men and women
00:05:30
today now that equal rights have broadly
00:05:32
speaking been written into law it's
00:05:34
because women aren't working hard enough
00:05:36
and aren't occupying enough leadership
00:05:37
roles in government and business and to
00:05:40
understand how this neo-liberal feminism
00:05:42
Works a really good place to look is
00:05:44
Sheryl sandberg's book lean in
00:05:46
for a little background Sandberg used to
00:05:49
be Facebook CEO and in 2013 she released
00:05:52
this book that almost immediately became
00:05:54
a New York Times bestseller at first
00:05:56
glance lean in sort of looks like any
00:05:58
typical self-development book just one
00:06:00
that happens to be marketed towards
00:06:01
women but it's much more than that for
00:06:04
the feminist scholar Catherine
00:06:05
Rottenberg lean in is a great
00:06:07
representation of what neoliberal
00:06:09
feminism is and because the book is so
00:06:11
popular it actually had a big part in
00:06:14
defining this ideology in sandberg's own
00:06:17
words lean in is quote sort of a
00:06:19
feminist Manifesto and in it Sandberg
00:06:22
sketches out the main tenets of
00:06:23
neoliberal feminism its commitment to an
00:06:26
individual approach to politics its race
00:06:28
blindness and class blindness among
00:06:30
others and its specific definition of
00:06:32
inequality as being a lack of
00:06:34
representation very early in the book
00:06:37
Sandberg shares her intentions for
00:06:39
writing it saying quote more female
00:06:41
leadership will lead to fairer treatment
00:06:43
for all women in the early chapters
00:06:45
gender inequality is consistently
00:06:48
associated with a lack of female
00:06:49
representation at the top to the point
00:06:51
where the two becomes synonymous for
00:06:53
Sandberg capital E equality becomes
00:06:56
defined as equal representation in
00:06:58
leadership and in practice taken to its
00:07:01
logical end this vision of feminism
00:07:03
leads to moments like this Hillary
00:07:05
Clinton calling the election of the
00:07:07
Italian fascist Georgia Maloney a step
00:07:09
forward because it's a case of a woman
00:07:11
achieving a high status
00:07:13
to be clear gender parity is a good
00:07:16
thing the problem with sandberg's
00:07:18
approach however is that it considers
00:07:19
that gender parity and Leadership is
00:07:21
both the ultimate measure or goal of
00:07:23
equality the means by which it should be
00:07:25
achieved and that it can be considered
00:07:27
in a vacuum
00:07:28
if you apply that to the Georgia Maloney
00:07:30
example despite leadership parody being
00:07:32
achieved by promoting a patriarchal
00:07:34
conservative racist discourse that
00:07:36
ultimately hurts 99 of women it is still
00:07:39
considered a step forward by neoliberal
00:07:42
feminists because leadership parody is
00:07:44
the central focus of neoliberal feminism
00:07:46
like trickle-down economics then
00:07:48
sandberg's political strategy for
00:07:50
feminism prioritizes a few women
00:07:53
achieving a high status on the
00:07:54
assumption that this will automatically
00:07:56
bring benefits to all the other women on
00:07:58
the lower rungs of the hierarchy this
00:08:01
philosophy is Justified on the basis
00:08:03
that since sexism is a barrier to women
00:08:05
achieving this status which is true that
00:08:07
therefore getting to the top is earned
00:08:10
but that also implies that if you're not
00:08:12
at the top then your status and whatever
00:08:14
oppression you might still face is
00:08:16
deserved if you're not at the top it's
00:08:19
because you didn't lean in hard enough
00:08:20
and you didn't work as much as you could
00:08:22
after all if she could do it so can you
00:08:26
it doesn't take much to see what this
00:08:28
produces it's a vision of feminism that
00:08:31
still holds 99 of women back because
00:08:34
even if all women were to apply
00:08:36
sandberg's advice to their own life the
00:08:38
benefits would still only apply to a
00:08:40
handful of them there are only so many
00:08:42
spots at the top
00:08:43
and this is made particularly regressive
00:08:45
given that sandberg's explanation for
00:08:47
what's missing for women to reach the
00:08:49
top is self-assurance and that economic
00:08:52
and social pressures ultimately play a
00:08:54
small role the majority of sandberg's
00:08:56
book is dedicated to internalizing the
00:08:59
revolution for Sandberg this turns out
00:09:01
to mean that it's on women to look
00:09:03
Inward and overcome their fears of being
00:09:05
too outspoken or quote unquote
00:09:07
aggressive and essentially conform to
00:09:09
the Norms of the market in order to
00:09:11
close the leadership Gap since
00:09:13
sandberg's book and neoliberal feminism
00:09:15
more generally makes very little mention
00:09:17
of how structuralized racism classism
00:09:20
ableism homophobia and transphobia might
00:09:23
play a role in holding women back from
00:09:25
this career trajectory it ends up
00:09:27
excusing the fact that it's mainly white
00:09:29
CIS hat upper-class women who close the
00:09:31
leadership Gap in practice often while
00:09:34
benefiting from the labor of racialized
00:09:36
working class and migrant women who are
00:09:39
hired at a lower rate to take on
00:09:41
domestic work because this version of
00:09:43
feminism measures equality by the
00:09:45
ability of individuals to achieve
00:09:46
success independently other people
00:09:48
become in rottenberg's words mere means
00:09:51
to that end
00:09:53
the result is particularly important
00:09:54
when we focus on care work or
00:09:57
reproductive labor reproductive labor
00:09:59
broadly speaking is work associated with
00:10:02
raising children and the domestic labor
00:10:04
that prepares humans for waged work
00:10:05
since the transition from feudalism to
00:10:08
capitalism and the separation of
00:10:10
productive labor from reproductive labor
00:10:12
the former creating profit and earning a
00:10:14
wage and the latter being mostly unpaid
00:10:16
reproductive labor has largely fallen on
00:10:18
women's shoulders based on the myth that
00:10:20
women are naturally more caring and
00:10:22
therefore intrinsically better suited to
00:10:23
this labor that even when it is paid
00:10:25
should be paid very little this has been
00:10:28
around for a couple hundred years now
00:10:30
but where it once used to be a formal
00:10:32
part of the capitalist economy it
00:10:34
started to become a bit of a problem for
00:10:36
its justification there is attention in
00:10:38
neoliberalism because reproductive labor
00:10:41
is absolutely necessary to the proper
00:10:43
functioning of the economy at the end of
00:10:45
the day you need workers to work and
00:10:47
someone has to give birth to them and
00:10:49
raise them but there is no Market
00:10:51
mechanism for this labor to generate
00:10:52
profit and earn those who perform it a
00:10:54
wage
00:10:56
for an economic system that benefits
00:10:58
from bringing as much as possible into
00:11:00
Market terms and Market relations this
00:11:02
is a problem how do you justify all this
00:11:05
necessary labor going unpaid well it
00:11:08
turns out that neoliberal feminism
00:11:10
resolves this tension at least
00:11:12
temporarily and it does so by including
00:11:14
reproductive labor into what it means to
00:11:17
be a successful woman with the idea of
00:11:19
balance the economic distinction between
00:11:22
labor that reproduces and labor that
00:11:24
produces is foundational to gender
00:11:26
depression under capitalism and
00:11:28
neoliberal feminism doesn't really
00:11:30
challenge this idea instead in lean in
00:11:33
Sandberg extols the value of women who
00:11:36
are committed to both their careers and
00:11:38
their families quote women are
00:11:40
surrounded by headlines and stories
00:11:42
warning them that they cannot be
00:11:43
committed to both their families and
00:11:45
careers they are told over and over
00:11:47
again that they have to choose because
00:11:49
if they try to do too much they'll be
00:11:51
harried and unhappy the good news is
00:11:54
that not only can women have both
00:11:55
families and career careers they can
00:11:57
Thrive while doing so I hope you find
00:12:00
whatever balance you seek with your eyes
00:12:01
wide open and I hope that you yes you
00:12:04
have the ambition to lean into your
00:12:06
career and Run the World in a neoliberal
00:12:09
world where Child Care is privatized and
00:12:11
unaffordable neoliberal feminism squares
00:12:14
the circle on what to do with all the
00:12:16
reproductive labor that still needs to
00:12:18
be done and it does so by relying on
00:12:20
individual women finding balance instead
00:12:24
of a social Collective approach with
00:12:26
nationalized universal child care and
00:12:28
mandated shorter work days so that
00:12:30
everyone can have time set aside to be
00:12:32
used on reproductive labor neoliberal
00:12:34
feminism places the burden of figuring
00:12:36
all this out on individual women carving
00:12:39
out their successful journey in a
00:12:40
competitive environment neoliberal
00:12:43
feminism maintains the discourse of care
00:12:45
work being separate from productive work
00:12:46
maintains the idea that it must be an
00:12:49
individual task and then delegates to
00:12:51
women the responsibility of figuring out
00:12:53
how it must be conducted on the idea
00:12:55
that achieving balance makes them more
00:12:57
successful
00:12:59
it does not state that women must do
00:13:01
this labor themselves and even
00:13:02
encourages women to split this labor
00:13:04
with men or hire someone else to do it
00:13:06
however it still places on women the
00:13:09
responsibility to figure out who will do
00:13:11
this labor women are made to be entirely
00:13:14
personally responsible for the
00:13:16
organization of Economic and
00:13:17
reproductive labor otherwise they fail
00:13:19
to embody the neoliberal feminist ideal
00:13:22
of a successful woman who thrives at
00:13:23
home and at work
00:13:25
but the clearest example of the
00:13:27
limitations of individualistic
00:13:28
neoliberal feminism can probably be seen
00:13:31
in how it approaches reproductive
00:13:32
Freedom when it comes to reproductive
00:13:34
Freedom neoliberal feminism is almost
00:13:37
exclusively concerned with securing the
00:13:38
right to abortion
00:13:40
in a post-dobbs world where that right
00:13:42
is no longer guaranteed and even during
00:13:45
the row era where it was constantly
00:13:47
being undermined all across the country
00:13:48
this is obviously a central part of
00:13:51
reproductive Freedom the right to safe
00:13:53
and accessible abortion is obviously a
00:13:56
massively important part of reproductive
00:13:57
freedom but it's pretty clearly not the
00:14:00
whole story neoliberal feminism doesn't
00:14:03
consider something like the fight for
00:14:04
living wages to be a feminist issue it
00:14:06
believes that it's up to every woman to
00:14:08
carve her own path in the workplace
00:14:10
however if we take a more structural
00:14:12
approach to feminism and reproductive
00:14:14
Freedom it's obvious that full
00:14:16
reproductive Freedom includes the right
00:14:17
to choose to have a child and that
00:14:20
economic structures outside our
00:14:21
individual control have a deep impact on
00:14:24
that right if someone can't afford to
00:14:26
raise a kid if they can't feed their kid
00:14:28
how's their kid have time to take care
00:14:31
of them then the freedom to have a child
00:14:33
only extends to those who have the money
00:14:35
to abortion rights cover the right to
00:14:38
not have a child but not the other side
00:14:40
of reproductive of Freedom which is the
00:14:41
right to choose to have one as well in
00:14:44
other words reproductive freedom is
00:14:46
embedded in society-wide structures
00:14:48
structures that ensure there's always
00:14:49
some amount of poverty and that means
00:14:52
that even with the best self-discipline
00:14:54
someone will always be excluded from
00:14:56
some freedoms until these society-wide
00:14:58
structures are changed or abolished
00:15:01
there will always be someone too poor to
00:15:03
have a child someone without full
00:15:05
reproductive freedoms as long as
00:15:07
capitalist structures go unchallenged
00:15:09
and Collective action isn't taken to
00:15:11
elevate everyone's wages to a livable
00:15:13
floor
00:15:14
in short feminism can't meaningfully be
00:15:17
considered in a vacuum it can't be
00:15:19
understood as a uniquely individual
00:15:21
project nor can it be seen as something
00:15:23
wholly separate from societal structures
00:15:25
of power but this is what neoliberal
00:15:27
feminism does neoliberal feminism takes
00:15:30
the approach that feminism's goal is to
00:15:32
subtract the Discrimination of women
00:15:33
from the equation and that this will
00:15:35
improve the lives of all women but
00:15:37
gender is too intimately related to and
00:15:40
mutually co-constituted by class race
00:15:43
sexuality and ability to ever be fully
00:15:46
divorced from them and so this kind of
00:15:48
feminism ends up leaving 99 of women
00:15:51
behind and only making things better for
00:15:54
a handful of senators and CEOs it's not
00:15:57
emancipation when a minority of people
00:15:59
find a place in the racial
00:16:00
heteronormative and patriarchal
00:16:02
capitalism we live under emancipation
00:16:05
can only happen when this system is
00:16:07
dismantled and replaced with something
00:16:09
better something that encourages genuine
00:16:11
solidarity and equality a proletariat
00:16:14
and feminism that encompasses more than
00:16:16
just the individual
00:16:18
[Music]
00:16:21
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00:16:23
video that my channel is only possible
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