Hopeful, Harmless, and Heroic

Bibliographic Data

ID12975355
AuthorsJessica K Taft (0000-0002-5267-8089, University of California, Santa Cruz, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume13
Issue2
Pages1-17
Publication date2020-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueGirlhood Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1938-8209 • E-ISSN: 1938-8322
PublisherBerghahn Books (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.3167/ghs.2020.130203
OpenAlexW3040474587
LanguageEN
Citations received36
References cited34

There has been a notable increase in the public visibility of girl activists in the past ten years. In this article, I analyze media narratives about several individual girl activists to highlight key components of the newly desirable figure of the girl activist. After tracing the expansion of girl power discourses from an emphasis on individual empowerment to the invocation of girls as global saviors, I argue that girls are particularly desirable figures for public consumption because the encoding of girls as symbols of hope helps to resolve public anxieties about the future, while their more radical political views are managed through girlhood’s association with harmlessness. Ultimately, the figure of the hopeful and harmless girl activist hero is simultaneously inspirational and demobilizing

Aesthetics · Art · Empowerment · Girl · HERO · Literature · Media studies · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Sociology · Gender Roles and Identity Studies · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Law · Psychology · Youth Education and Societal Dynamics

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