About this Event
You are cordially invited to join us for this insightful discussion hosted by the Centre for Research in Equality and Diversity at Queen Mary University of London.
The lack of confidence is typically presented as one of the main barriers that hold women back from achieving career success. Women are bombarded with various messages like "Lean in"! “Believe in yourself”, "Love your body" and so on. Career coaching industry and self-help advice market has expanded dramatically to help women become more confident. So is confidence a bad thing? In this talk, Prof Shani Orgad (LSE) and Prof Rosalind Gill (Goldsmith) will discuss their book Confidence Culture (Duke University Press), which argues that confidence imperatives directed at women imply that psychological blocks are what constrain women's advancement, rather than entrenched social injustices. They advocate rejecting the confidence culture’s remaking of feminism along individualistic and neoliberal lines, and will explore alternative articulations of feminism that go beyond the confidence imperative.
Discussant Dr Maria Adamson (CRED, Queen Mary University of London)
Shani Orgad is Professor of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. She is the author of numerous articles, book chapters, and five books, including Heading Home: Motherhood, Work, and the Failed Promise of Equality (2019) and Confidence Culture (with Rosalind Gill, 2022).
Rosalind Gill is Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK. She is author of several books including Gender and the Media (2007), Mediated Intimacy (with Meg John Barker and Laura Harvey, 2018), Confidence Culture (with Shani Orgad 2022), and most recently Perfect: Feeling Judged on Social Media (Polity, 2023).
THE BOOK:
Confidence Culture has been widely covered by international outlets including New York Times, Guardian, The Times, El Pais, Die Zeit , Vox and Financial Times and an essay based on the book was published in The Atlantic.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Queen Mary University of London, 327 Mile End Road, London, United Kingdom
GBP 0.00