ABSTRACT
So far I have explored some popular variants of achieving girl discourses, and considered how these mobilise both historical discourses of gendered achievement and some contemporary neoliberal and post-feminist tropes of optimism and self-management. I have shown how girls are aware of some of the limitations of the subject positions offered, and also how those positions themselves are unequally available even to girls formally identified as achieving in their schools. In this chapter, I look at the statements and narratives coalescing around success and gender which at first appear to exist in tension with discourses of the achieving, autonomous self-actualising individual and which express ambivalence toward taking up fully the ‘can-do girl’ subject position. However, this does not imply simple rejection; I have labelled the overarching narrative ‘girls hang back’ because girls within these accounts do not take up stances of assertive refusal of achieving subject positions; rather, they demonstrate difficulties in engaging with some of the contradictions of the discourse itself, in reconciling individualism and ambition with feminised ethics of care and cooperation. ‘Girls hang back’ narratives also reveal strategies by which girls attempt to navigate some of the complexities and pressures created by contemporary social and educational contexts, in which they are faced with apparently limitless possibilities but also dilemmas of choice and heightened competition. The narratives also reveal ways in which ‘cultural feminisation’ works to disadvantage girls.
