Telling Lies to Little Girls: the Sexual Politics of Mothering Girls

ResearchOnline@JCU This file is part of the following reference: Harrison, Ryl Julie (2013) Telling lies to little girls: the sexual politics of mothering girls. PhD thesis, James Cook University. Access to this file is available from: http://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/34419/ The author has certified to JCU that they have made a reasonable effort to gain permission and acknowledge the owner of any third party copyright material included in this document. If you believe that this is not the case, please contact [email protected] and quote http://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/34419/ Telling Lies to Little Girls: THE SEXUAL POLITICS OF MOTHERING GIRLS Thesis submitted by Ryl Julie Harrison, Bachelor of Arts (Hons) JCU in October 2013 for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Political Science & Women’s Studies School of Arts and Social Sciences James Cook University ii Declarations Statement of access I, the undersigned, author of this work, understand that James Cook University will make this thesis available for use within the University Library and via the Australian Digital Theses network, for use elsewhere. I understand that, as an unpublished work, a thesis has significant protection under the Copyright Act and I do not wish to place any further restriction on access to this work. Signature: Date: 26 September 2013 Statement of sources I declare that this thesis is my own work and has not been submitted in any form for another degree or diploma at any university or other institution of tertiary education. Information derived from the published or unpublished work of others has been acknowledged in the text and a list of references is given. Signature: Date: 26 September 2013 Statement on the contribution of others The thesis has been made possible through the support of an Australian Postgraduate Award. Principal Supervisor: Dr Nonie Harris Co-Supervisor: Dr Surin Maisrikrod Editorial Assistance: Sandra Sewell Critical Friend: Dr Joanne Baker Declaration of ethics The research presented and reported in this thesis was conducted in accordance with the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research. The proposed research study received human research ethics approval from the JCU Human Research Ethics Committee, Approval Number H3840. iii Acknowledgements My first thanks go to the twenty-four women who participated in this research. They generously shared stories, tears and smiles as they talked with me about their everyday experiences in bringing up their daughters. Listening to their fears, hopes, realities and dreams was deeply moving and a privilege. My thanks also go to my supervisors Dr Nonie Harris and Dr Surin Maisrikrod who have encouraged me to persevere. Nonie and Surin are deeply committed to social justice and they have supported this work through their theoretical and methodological expertise. I am the fortunate and grateful recipient of their experience and kindness. I also thank Dr Joanne Baker whose own research has been an inspiration for mine. Joanne has been a critical friend throughout my post-graduate studies, setting a high benchmark which continues to motivate me. Thank you Sandra Sewell, a fellow PhD journeywoman; your expert editorial eye in the final weeks of preparing this thesis has saved the reader from many a misplaced comma and much more. A research project of this scale, by necessity, requires a focus and commitment which can only be sustained within a community of support. I have been fortunate to have the collegiality of other candidates whose peer support has been essential to progress; thank you Tanya Doyle, Peta Salter, Christine Pam, Rhian Morgan, Tania Honey and Takashi Nakazawa. Dr Theresa Petray and Dr Meegan Kilcullen, who finished as I began, have also kept shining the light at the other end of the tunnel, thank you! The feminist roots of this project have been steadily nourished by the amazing women of the Townsville Feminist Collective over many years; thank you all. This project has also benefited from the input and discussion of staff and students enrolled in Australian Women’s Studies at James Cook University; I particularly acknowledge Angela Burrows’ commitment to making things better for women and girls. My dear friends and family have practically supported my focus on this research. Kayleen Crisafulli, Shari Kitchin and Lynn Hodgson have been endlessly encouraging. Dr Anne Swinbourne has made me laugh! To my family and friends who I’ve seen less of late, or who are spread further throughout the world, thank you for understanding. I especially acknowledge the love and support of my partner Dave Harrison who has helped me to be me. Finally, I dedicate this thesis with love to my children Artiqua and Patrick, who are mostly forgiving of my earnest attempts to be a ‘good mother’, and to my own ever-wise mother Jennifer Owen; a wonderful ‘Ya Ya’ to all. iv Abstract In this thesis I present feminist qualitative research that explored what it is like for women bringing up girls aged between nine and thirteen years. Young girls are the focus of intense scrutiny as a fierce debate continues unabated over the way their sexuality is embodied under the terms and conditions of the contemporary political economy. Practices and representations from the sex industry – pornography, in particular – are understood as becoming increasingly mainstream, but there is little agreement as to what this means in the everyday lives of girls and the women who mother them. Women who are mothering daughters in the harsh light of a male gaze, filtered through a commodified pornographic aesthetic, face particular challenges in meeting the needs of girls through what Sara Ruddick called ‘preservative love’, ‘nurturance’ and ‘training’. Within the ‘sexualisation’ debates, there is very little literature which critically explores women’s experiences of bringing up girls. If mothers are considered at all, it is usually only to point the finger of blame. Women are the target of ‘parenting’ advice, advice that often rests on unexamined assumptions about mothers’ culpability. The research reported in this thesis brings mothers’ voices in from the margins. To strategically step back and widen the deep concern that is felt for girls to include a concern for women, it is possible to consider issues of responsibility, powerlessness and relationships of dependency alongside the fashionable focus of much recent scholarly enquiry within the sexualisation debates – girls’ agency. This study captures the contradictory spaces between women’s and girls’ experiences in the present moment, as well as the differences over time through women’s reflection on their own girlhoods. The study, conducted between 2010 and 2012, involved semi-structured in-depth interviews with twenty-four women living in regional Australia. Eighteen of the women participated in a follow-up interview after twelve months. The study considered broad questions of present and future possibilities for women and girls in their personal relationships and in the public worlds of work and politics. The interviews happened in an interesting historical moment, just prior to former Prime Minister Gillard’s misogyny speech where, arguably, she opened up the possibility of naming the relentless sexism that thrives in modern Australia. The women’s stories led me to conclude that women and girls are yet to achieve equality in the private or public sphere. Women are excluded from the neoliberal subjectivity they are supposed to be engendering in their daughters. Yet, the discursively-produced, neoliberal ideal – ‘the woman who can do anything!’ – prevails to the extent that she is left unpoliticised, robbing v women and girls of a language to describe their oppression. This illusory subjectivity requires both the women who are excluded from it, and their daughters who are groomed for it, to draw on a range of psycho-social narratives which are intensely individualised in their explanatory powers. Women have been left with the psychological task of ‘putting our mind to things’ which, more frequently than not, is about seeing ‘the big picture’ where narratives of women’s struggle and sacrifice are valorised, and anger is laughed away. The key contribution and challenge that feminism makes is naming the ways male supremacy is disguised as being in the interests of all. I argue for an account of women’s and girls’ lives which puts individual material experiences within the context of the sexual political economy, an account which is able to ask ‘who benefits’ from the assumption of a post-feminist meritocracy when none actually exists. This research, then, seeks to contribute to a radical political project of feminist change. vi Table of contents Declarations ................................................................................................................................... ii Statement of access ............................................................................................................... ii Statement of sources ............................................................................................................. ii Statement on the contribution of others ................................................................................ ii Declaration of ethics ............................................................................................................. ii Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................................

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