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This research is a feminist analysis of young women´s experience in the current neo-liberal climate where the popularised notion of girlpower´ suggests that a new freedom is being enjoyed by all women. It finds that young women do not experience a simple or unproblematic liberation from previous constraint, but that inequalities which continue to be generated socially are obscured because they are understood through an individualised politics of choice´. The research offers an important corrective to the upbeat and celebratory view of young women´s position today, concluding instead that they are located in a changed context of power where subordination occurs covertly through a superficial commitment to equality and the over-valuing of choice and individual responsibility.

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Joanne Baker is currently a Lecturer in Social Policy at Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia. She is also an Adjunct Senior Lecturer in the School of Arts and Social Sciences at James Cook University in North Queensland, Australia.

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