Young women's dismissal of the influence of gender upon their future life trajectory as played out in 'New Times'

Abstract

This paper investigates the ways in which young women come to view gender as being an influence upon their future lives—their aspirations and expectations for the future. In doing so, it draws upon 327 surveys completed by year 12 female students, typically 17 years of age, in a range of schools across the State of Queensland, Australia. The paper details key features of the young women's survey responses—the dominant storylines evident in the data—as a means of illustrating how they have come to dismiss gender as an influence. Further, the paper illuminates the power and pervasiveness of neoliberal discourse in ‘New Times’, the ways in which the young women surveyed embrace neoliberalism and its imperative of individualisation and do so in ways that locate gender as irrelevant in their imagining and enacting of their life biographies. Finally, the paper explores the implications of such research findings for these—and other—young women.