Copyright is owned by the Author of the thesis. Permission is given for a copy to be downloaded by an individual for the purpose of research and private study only. The thesis may not be reproduced elsewhere without the permission of the Author. #liveyourbestlife: Considering the Discursive Construction of Feminine Psychological Wellbeing within Instagram During the First COVID-19 Lockdown in Aotearoa, New Zealand A thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology, at Massey University, New Zealand. Jessica Stevens 2020 i Abstract Informed by post-feminist theory (Gill, 2017; McRobbie, 2007), which contends that there are societal expectations around how feminine subjects live their lives, I question how feminine psychological wellbeing is discursively constructed within Instagram during the first COVID-19 lockdown in Aotearoa New Zealand. There is currently a lack of research on how feminine psychological wellbeing is constituted within digital spaces. There is also an increasing social emphasis on the importance of psychological wellbeing, which has continued since the response to COVID-19. This project was an opportunity to consider and critique dominant understandings of psychological wellbeing. Based on a feminist post-structural epistemology, the project is qualitative, utilising a critical discourse analysis of public Instagram posts. My interest was in identifying and critiquing the discourses present in the postings and how they may contribute to expectations for feminine psychological wellbeing, at present, considering the unique experience of lockdown during COVID-19. The analysis of these public postings was informed by a reflexive consideration of my own Instagram consumption at this time, as this informed the analytical lens brought to the project. The analysis demonstrated that a feminine audience was being addressed in a direct and instructional manner. Dominant understandings of successful femininity that were reflective of neoliberal and post-feminist ideals, were drawn on to constitute feminine psychological wellbeing and white, middle-class, heteronormative, young feminine figures were presented as normative within this content. Traditional Eurocentric norms of femininity were evident as reformulated and reinstituted within this post-feminist context. Feminine psychological wellbeing was described as constant work upon the feminine self, with specific sites for control and discipline including feelings, thoughts, the body, and behaviour. During Aotearoa’s first COVID-19 lockdown, feminine subjects were encouraged to get through and stay resilient, by working on themselves, focusing on what they could control, and remaining productive. ii Acknowledgements Growing up I did not have a traditional education so to be in a position of completing this thesis is astonishing to me. I have learnt over my life though that the effort to reach an achievement is rarely solitary, something that has proved true here. I would never have been able to get through this year if it were not for some important people cheering me on, offering practical and emotional support. This is their thesis as much as it is mine. To Professor Mandy Morgan, my supervisor, thank you for keeping me on track and reminding me that the struggles are all part of the process. I have very much valued your teaching throughout my post-graduate studies at Massey, so I feel incredibly privileged to have had the experience of your input into my thesis. I have always looked forward to our meetings and have greatly appreciated your thorough, thought-provoking feedback. I really appreciate the support of my team at AUT, especially that of my manager Audrey Hutcheson. Thank you for seeing something in me, Audrey, providing me with some great opportunities and being such a big support to my career. It means a lot to be in a workplace with supportive management who value academic study and professional development. A big thanks to my family and friends who have waited this year out, listened, offered distraction and reminded me of my capabilities. I am looking forward to being able to spend quality time with you all again. In particular, Farah, I appreciated the calming cow videos and your very no-nonsense approach to my self-doubt. And Megan, your reaching out and constant encouragement has meant everything during this time, particularly in the hardest moments. I knew you got what I was going through and was always there for me. I appreciate having such a fantastic role model like you in my life. Finally, my biggest appreciation goes to my partner Robbie and our little menagerie of animals. What a year! Robbie, you know more than anyone what this thesis year was for me. Thank you for your patience, ability to make me laugh, feeding me (even if we did eat a lot of takeaways…), support and encouragement. I could not have done this without you. I love you lots. Table of Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................. i Acknowledgements........................................................................................................... ii Chapter One: Introduction ................................................................................................ 2 Accounting for COVID-19 .......................................................................................... 5 Chapter Two: Literature and Theoretical Review ............................................................. 9 Psychological Wellbeing: A Post-Structural Understanding ......................................... 9 Psychological Lives ...................................................................................................... 12 The Neoliberal Context ............................................................................................... 17 The Post-feminist Subject ........................................................................................... 19 Post-feminism and the Psychological ......................................................................... 22 The Social Media Landscape in the Digital Context .................................................... 25 The Neoliberal, Post-feminist Digital Context ......................................................... 27 #Psychologicalwellbeing ......................................................................................... 30 Subjectivity in Crisis .................................................................................................... 33 In Summary ................................................................................................................. 34 Chapter Three: Methodology ......................................................................................... 35 Epistemology ............................................................................................................... 35 The Instagram Context ................................................................................................ 36 Ethical Considerations................................................................................................. 37 Data collection ............................................................................................................ 38 Data Analysis ............................................................................................................... 39 Reflexivity .................................................................................................................... 41 Chapter Four: Analysis and Discussion ........................................................................... 42 Talking to and with Feminine Subjects ....................................................................... 42 A Feminine Audience ............................................................................................... 42 The Address - Talking to and With Feminine Subjects ............................................ 44 The Relationship with the Self .................................................................................... 46 This is how to think and feel ....................................................................................... 52 How to feel .............................................................................................................. 52 How to think ............................................................................................................ 57 Managing for others ............................................................................................... 59 The Self-Care Prescription .......................................................................................... 60 Self-care during COVID-19 ...................................................................................... 64 Housework as Self-Care .......................................................................................... 64 The Feminine Body ..................................................................................................... 66 Portraying feminine bodies ..................................................................................... 66 Disciplining the Physical Body ................................................................................. 67 Productivity ................................................................................................................. 71 How to be productive .............................................................................................. 71 1 Productivity rest productivity .................................................................................. 72 Productivity during the pandemic ........................................................................... 74 Getting Through a Pandemic ...................................................................................... 76 This is temporary ..................................................................................................... 76 This is hard and we will be okay .............................................................................. 77 The Pandemic Mindset ............................................................................................ 79 Getting through and getting better ........................................................................ 81 Looking for exceptions and Missing Stories ................................................................ 82 Resistance ............................................................................................................... 82 Some Feminine Subjects .......................................................................................... 85 Chapter Five: Conclusion ................................................................................................ 87 References ...................................................................................................................... 91 Appendix A .................................................................................................................... 109 2 Chapter One: Introduction “We are the girls with anxiety disorders, filled appointment books, five-year plans. We take ourselves very, very seriously. We are the peacemakers, the do-gooders, the givers, the savers. We are on time, overly prepared, well read, and witty, intellectually curious, always moving… We are on birth control, Prozac, and multivitamins… We are relentless, judgmental with ourselves, and forgiving to others...We are the daughters of the feminists who said, “You can be anything,” and we heard, “You have to be everything.” ―Courtney Martin (2007) Not long ago, I began to notice a familiar story in my work at a student counselling and mental health service within a New Zealand tertiary institution, a story that comes to my mind when I read the quote by Martin (2007) above. If I was to describe what I noticed about this story, I would say that the client that this story centred around, presented herself (and they often have been cis-gendered females), as highly self-reflective, intelligent, empathetic, compassionate and engaging. As a university student she has ambitions to achieve at a high standard and in the future, have a successful career that makes a positive impact in the world. She has grown up with the narrative that if she makes the right choices, lives her best life, and works very hard, she can become a success. This client is also highly critical of herself, concerned by the opinions of others and acutely aware of her personal shortcomings. She puts pressure on herself to do something of significance but also to not take up too much space or make too much noise. She engages in a high level of self-monitoring around many aspects of her existence and has the idea that she needs to work on herself in order to be successful. The narrative of the potential success available in making the right choices, sits alongside the very real possibility of making the wrong choices which lead to personal failure. Possibly she has been engaged with therapy at different points in her life, commonly to address the presence of anxious thoughts, perfectionism, burnout, or maybe eating concerns or low mood. She is aware of the idea that it is okay to not be okay, but feels the pressure to overcome vulnerability and manage herself to meet expectations of success. Working on her wellbeing is a significant concern for this client. Due to the therapeutic context I meet her in, she is often looking for an increased sense and experience of psychological wellbeing. She often is not solely looking for this via therapeutic support, the pursuit of psychological wellbeing seems to multi-faceted for this client, perhaps also found via reading self-help material, other forms of media, accessing fitness and nutritional expertise, consulting medical practitioners, making the right consumer choices and more. 3 In my counselling work, when I have questioned the definition of what psychological wellbeing would look like for the individuals I am working with, I have noticed that there are dominant ideas about what it means to be psychologically well. A concept that is commonly drawn upon is living one’s best life or being the best version of themselves. I have had clients explicitly tell me that their goal for coming to therapy is to gain the tools to live their best lives. As I have unpacked what that means for clients, I have found that not just the definition of psychological wellbeing is shared, the path to reach that version of psychological wellbeing is also shared. In my therapeutic work, which is informed by narrative therapy (Morgan, 2000), I try to work with clients to co-create interventions to problems, rather than having a one size fits all approach. In taking a narrative approach, I have noticed that the dominant path to increased psychological wellbeing and living one’s best life is a repeated script of increased self- monitoring, self-development, and self-management. Psychological wellbeing in this story seems to involve doing more and being more. This story is not reflective of any one individual but rather representative of a group of clients who come to my mind. Upon reflection there is a reason that this story was noticeable to me in my practice. This is a shared story, one that I have personal familiarity with. You see, in this client’s narrative, I often recognise the narrative of my peers and myself. I am her, or at least that is who I have shaped myself and have been shaped into being. I see the shared understandings and experiences I have described as familiar and interconnected with femininity. As I have recognised that this story is not the realm of individual experience but instead is shared, I have increasingly questioned the social conditions that are producing these gendered experiences and the shared understanding of what it means to be psychologically well as a feminine subject. My counselling work is not the only context I have noticed shared understandings of psychological wellbeing and the means to develop psychological wellbeing. Personally, I have a long-standing interest in the influence of popular culture on people’s experiences, sense of identity and the field of psychology itself. Considering the concept of psychological wellbeing, I question if the likes of popular Netflix TV shows, content produced by social media influencers, popular self-help books, “experts” on reality TV, music etc., are just as influential over what psychological wellbeing means as the material produced within the more traditional realms of the field of psychology such as research, psychological practice and the academy. As part of this interest and noting references to psychological wellbeing in popular culture, I have observed a focus on wellbeing, including psychological wellbeing, in the social media content I consume. Personal social media use has increased rapidly in my lifetime, to the extent that the online/offline experience has become increasingly blurred, particularly in the 4 West (Locke, Lawthom, & Lyons, 2018). The client I have described above, lives both in a real and online world. She gains a significant sense of the world and herself through a variety of digital media, both consuming and producing content in those spaces. Unsurprisingly, I have seen parallels in the ideas of how psychological wellbeing is defined by clients and in the references to psychological wellbeing in social media that I consume. I question how the popular culture I consume, such as social media, is shaping the meanings I associate with psychological wellbeing, as well as the meanings of my peers and my clients. I approached this thesis with that question, asking how is psychological wellbeing discursively constructed within the digital context? I suspect that as dominant ideologies within Western society, psy discourse (Hook, 2007; Rose, 1996), neo-liberalism (Springer, Birch, & MacLeavy, 2016) and post-feminism (Gill, 2017) are all implicated in shaping dominant understandings of what it means to be psychologically well and position subjects in relation to these normative understandings. I also suspect that dominant understandings of psychological wellbeing are gendered in particular ways (Rutherford, 2018). My curiosity guiding the research question is based on my experiences as a mental health practitioner who recognises that social context and popular culture has a role in shaping how psychological wellbeing is understood. I believe this extends to how psychological wellbeing and psychological issues are discussed in a therapeutic context. As a practitioner working within a university counselling service, primarily my clients are in or are entering their twenties. I recognise post-feminist ideals of working on oneself and living one’s “best life” in the ways my clients talk about themselves and their problems. I believe further understanding of how feminine subjects negotiate constructions of feminine psychological wellbeing is highly relevant to the therapeutic context. Broader social conditions also influence my interest in this research project. Psychological wellbeing is a social construct that is receiving significant attention in Aotearoa at present. Multiple campaigns are being carried out, which aim to normalise and de-stigmatise the experience of mental health issues, with an emphasis on recognising mild to moderate experiences of mental health issues and caring for psychological wellbeing (Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand, 2019). The 2019 release of planned government spending was called the “Wellbeing Budget” and much focus was on funds allocated to increased access to services to address mental health issues (Ardern, 2019). Internationally, there are calls to recognise psychological wellbeing as a human right in the same way that physical health is recognised (Asanbe, Gaba & Yang, 2018). I believe these public events are contributing to an increasing focus on psychological wellbeing in social rhetoric. 5 I am looking to the digital context for this research, partly due to my own engagement in social media spaces. I consume and at times produce social media content that simultaneously conforms with and resists post-feminist ideals in complex ways. The post-feminist ideal of working on oneself is very familiar to me. I recognise the presence of this discourse in relation to psychological wellbeing increasing in my daily consumption of social media. I am curious about how these discourses are shaping my own sense of psychological wellbeing and that of my peers. Throughout this project, when I have mentioned to others that the context of the research was Instagram, I have had varying responses which at times positioned social media as being inherently bad or good depending on the view of those I was speaking with. While I was writing up the analysis and discussion, a documentary called The Social Dilemma (Orlowski, 2020) was released on Netflix and received a great deal of attention due to the unflattering investigation made of social media. I wish to make it very clear at the outset of this project that I do not subscribe to a view that attributes social media as wholly positive or negative. My view is that the context is complicated, with enabling and constraining effects. I am more curious about the context, what happens in that context and the role it plays in shaping our subjectivities. I think that within critique we can draw attention to constraints and exclusion, while exploring the potential of the context which has the power to create space for change both online and offline. Accounting for COVID-19 As I embarked on this thesis project, the world was taken over by the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. COVID-19 is a virus that is part of the family of coronavirus and can impact the respiratory system (Ministry of Health, 2020). COVID-19 was a new illness that was believed to have originated in China and was first reported to the World Health Organisation in December 2019. COVID-19 is highly contagious and numbers of those infected spread rapidly around the world over a short period of time. A global pandemic was declared by the World Health Organisation on the 12th of March 2020 (World Health Organisation, 2020). All over the world in early 2020, governments were making decisions about whether to take steps to lockdown their countries, closing borders and mandating citizens to stay at home. The government in Aotearoa, New Zealand closed the country’s borders on the 19th of March 2020. Then on March 25th, with two days’ notice, Aotearoa officially went into the first full lockdown, at what was called Alert Level 4. While at Alert Level 4, people were mandated to stay at home in their ‘bubble’, a term that was used to refer to only those one lived with at home. New Zealanders were unable to leave their homes unless they had need to access an essential 6 service, they were working in essential services or were within walking distance from their homes. Leading up to this lockdown, there was a palpable sense of fear within the community. Supermarkets were inundated with people stockpiling essential supplies and there were nationwide shortages of particular products. In the urban environment I live and work in, I observed people leaving their offices with masses of computer and office equipment in an attempt to set themselves up for working at home. People were exhorted to wash their hands, shop normally, be kind to one another and to keep a two-metre distance from those not in their ‘bubble’ should they need to leave their home. As we went into the Level 4 lockdown, many businesses ground to a halt. Some businesses were able to survive by having employees work from home. School children had an extended holiday, until eventually there was an attempt for schools to operate via online methods, relying on the efforts of many parents in home-schooling. Many people tired of video calls and meetings, while some relied on them for their social contact. There was a hyper focus in the media on those who may be breaking lockdown rules (Roy, 2020a), with the implied message that these rule-breakers were possibly putting all our safety at risk. There was an eerie silence over cities, though the suburbs were full of people walking while trying to maintain an appropriate social distance, as for many of us this was one of the few ways to get out of the house. We were reminded continually that we were all in this together and there was an awareness that the situation was much worse in other countries around the world. This Level 4 stage of lockdown was put in place for four weeks and then extended for another five days. On the 28th of April, Aotearoa moved into a Level 3 response, which involved a slight reduction in the stringent expectations of Level 4. Businesses were able to reopen and some people were able to return to work, however social distancing measures needed to be implemented. Further reduction in restrictions was made by moving to a Level 2 response on 14th May and then Level 1 on 8th of June. Aotearoa had supposedly beat the virus, an idea that was picked up and celebrated within the media (Roy, 2020b), however globally the pandemic was devastating many countries (Adams, 2020a). As it turned out Aotearoa still would face ongoing restrictions, with Auckland having to return to Alert Level 3 and the rest of the country to Alert Level 2 on the 13th of August as a result of new cases in the community. An area that received considerable attention in the media (Adams, 2020b; Forbes, 2020) and social rhetoric at this time was how people’s mental health would be impacted. There were public health messages about the need for caring for one’s psychological wellbeing during the lockdown (Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand, 2020b). Within the context of Instagram, I had already observed discourses present around managing psychological wellbeing. However, with the COVID-19 crisis impacting on daily life, there seemed to be an emphasis on mental 7 health during the pandemic in the posts I was seeing at the time, or at least a tailoring of content to acknowledge the pandemic. The COVID-19 lockdowns represented a global crisis and was overtly acknowledged as psychologically difficult, though it was predominantly obscured that there were differences in how this crisis was experienced across the population, the impact of which was highly related to certain privileges. For example, essential workers such as supermarket staff, nurses and care workers, who are predominantly female and underpaid, endured additional stressors at work during this time compared to those who had the ability to work from home (Blake, 2020). One factor that made this event interesting in Aotearoa and many other places that went into lockdown, was that many of the supposedly free choices that some people had available to them in their daily lives became severely limited. In a society where there is emphasis on neoliberal values of autonomy and free choices, including in the discursive construction of psychological wellbeing, I questioned what would happen at a time where choice became more restricted. The COVID-19 pandemic presents a unique moment in history, the full impact of which is still unknown at time of writing. Due to the historical specificity COVID-19 presented at the time of my project, I reformulated my research question to take this event into account. The pandemic added another layer to the analysis, with the event characterised as a crisis that was assumed to present psychological difficulty. This presented the opportunity to consider how psychological wellbeing is constituted during crisis. Therefore, this research project questions how feminine psychological wellbeing was discursively constructed within Instagram during the first COVID-19 lockdown in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Moving into Chapter Two, I introduce the epistemological foundation for this project before considering the body of literature around how feminine psychological wellbeing is constructed, considering psy discourse, neoliberalism, and post-feminism. I then turn to a consideration of the digital context of social media and the research to date on psychological wellbeing within that context. I conclude this chapter with a turn to the context of crisis and arguments on how subjectivities are constituted within crisis. In Chapter Three I set out the methodology for the research project that was undertaken, explaining the epistemology, process of data collection and analysis. I then move into Chapter 4 sharing analysis and discussing the findings in the context of the literature, before making concluding arguments and identifying some directions for future research in Chapter 5. There are two caveats I would like to make before concluding this introduction. The research context, my analytical lens and much of the literature I will now go on to consider, is 8 located within a Westernised Eurocentric context. My findings and the concepts discussed are not universal, rather they are historically, culturally and location specific. A reader will notice that I refer throughout this thesis to feminine subjects. I take the position that femininity, while commonly associated with cis-gendered women, is not exclusively the realm of women. Femininity is one element of the performance of gender, relevant and familiar to multiple subjectivities. Some of the literature explicitly use the term women and where that is the case, I have used that terminology. My use of the term feminine subject is to recognise that femininity is a shared experience that is not exclusively determined by sex. 9 Chapter Two: Literature and Theoretical Review “There is a sense of the ethical paucity of the contemporary obligation to fulfil ourselves through the mundane achievements of our everyday lives, and to evaluate all aspects of our lives in terms of the extent to which they do or do not contribute to such an inexorable trajectory of self-improvement and personal happiness through lifestyle maximisation” - Nikolas Rose (1999) Psychological Wellbeing: A Post-Structural Understanding Why do so many of us engage in the pursuit of self-improvement, happiness, and fulfillment? Why is trying to make one’s life better taken for granted as a desirable goal for the contemporary subject? In the above quote, Rose (1999) draws attention to an obligatory nature to this preoccupation, a taken for granted inevitability that one will engage in these pursuits. It stands to question then, where does this obligation come from and what are the forces of power that mandate our engagement? A post-structural theoretical epistemology concerned with discourse, meaning and subjectivity informs my conceptualisation of psychological wellbeing within this project. The post-structural approach can be difficult to pin down and attempts to do so may in fact undermine the intention behind the approach (Gavey, 1989). However, broadly, post-structural approaches work to call into question what is taken for granted, considering the processes of power that shape our self-understandings. Discourse is a key concept for the post-structural approach. Discourse has been defined by Arribas-Ayllon and Walkerdine (2017) as “institutionalised patterns of knowledge that govern the formation of subjectivity” (p. 110). Our understandings of ourselves are mediated through discourse; ideas, concepts, knowledges, identities which are not impartial, accurate reflections of truth but rather are reflections of reality mediated discursively. A variety of discourses shape meaning, however certain discourses are imbued with institutionalised power which cause them to appear as natural, taken for granted facts (Gavey, 1989). Simultaneously power is distributed, maintained and produced within discourse (Henriques, Hollway, Urwin, Venn, & Walkerdine, 1998). Discourses enact power within our lives, by governing the ways which we understand ourselves, are understood, account for our experiences and relate to others (Weedon, 1987). Our experiences as people, how we understand ourselves and each other, are mediated through the discourses that are available to us within any given context. The mediation of experience through discourse is referred to as subjectivity. Henriques et al. (1998) state that their use of subjectivity references “individuality and self-awareness - the condition of being a subject - but understand in this usage that subjects are dynamic and multiple, always positioned 10 in relation to particular discourses and practices and produced by these” (p. 3). Discourse offers multiple subject positions, and it is within these subject positions that subjectivity is formulated. From a post-structural perspective, individual identity is not fixed, independent phenomena, but rather a reflection of a multiplicity of complex and contradictory subject positions within discourse, each associated with varying levels of power (Arribas-Ayllon & Walkerdine, 2017; Hollway, 1989). Subject positions are taken up by us as subjects, to the point that they are not seen as externally formed but as an authentic representation of our own creation (Gill, 2008). Regardless, Foucault (1979) argued that subjectivity is both made and regulated through normative systems of institutionalised power, external to the individual. The key to the success of this system of power relations is that individuals internalise norms of behaviour and thought by engaging in self-monitoring and self-management. Foucault conceptualised this process through Bentham’s illustration of the Panopticon. This concept centred on a watchtower that was positioned within a prison yard in such a way that the prisoners could not see if they were being watched, but they were of the knowledge that at any point they could be observed and potentially be at risk of sanctions for inappropriate behaviour. The potential observation results in prisoners managing their own behaviour as if they are being observed. Foucault used the Panopticon to argue that this is how technologies of power operate to discipline and regulate as individuals are positioned as subjects. Subjects engage in a variety of disciplinary practices to monitor and manage the self in accordance with norms of behaviour, made acceptable through power relations. Subjectivity may seem self-made and internalised, especially if the systems of power are obscured, but is nonetheless enacted through systems of disciplinary power. Sanctions are enacted on those who err against normative expectations, in the form of material effects within their lives. While Foucault’s Panopticon conceptualises a Eurocentric notion of power within specific discursive formations, my project draws upon this understanding of power in the consideration of how psychological wellbeing is constructed through discourse and related to subjectivity. Drawing on a post-structural theoretical understanding, I argue that what is accepted to be psychological wellbeing, as a term that is interchangeable with mental or emotional wellbeing, like all concepts considered meaningful (Gavey, 1989), is constituted through discourse. Therefore, psychological wellbeing has a multitude of possible meanings, constructed through the available discourses within a given context. As psychological wellbeing is constituted through discourse, certain subjectivities are addressed or excluded as the concept is utilised in language. There are a variety of subject positions to take up in relation to psychological wellbeing, such as those who are positioned as having a level of psychological 11 wellbeing or could potentially have a level of psychological wellbeing and those who are psychologically unwell. The way that psychological wellbeing is ascribed to subjects is complicated by other competing meanings. The individual contends with conflicting subjectivities, which impinge on one another, shaped through the social and historical context they are within (Weedon, 1987). Subject positions that are available to some, may not be available to others. Henriques et al. (1998) point out that there is not a uniform apparatus enacting power, but rather a complicated multiplicity of different practices and subject positions. One complicating component of subjectivity is gender, something that rather than being natural and obvious at birth, is ascribed to subjects over time through a series of regulatory acts (Butler, 2006). Levels of surveillance and expected normative behaviour differ based on gender. Bartky (1990) points out that Foucault’s conceptualisation of disciplinary power, failed to consider the enactment of power upon different subjectivities. Femininity, she argues, is ascribed to female subjects in specific ways that work to mark female subjectivity as inferior to men. Bartky considers the way female bodies are disciplined by the norms of femininity, pointing to body size norms, body language and bodily ornamentation. Those who fail to fully achieve these norms, experience significant sanctions. While Bartky does not consider the discipline of other gender identities, it is important to note that sanctions associated with femininity are experienced by others, for example, men who appear feminine are positioned as inferior to men who more closely meet norms of masculinity. It is clear from Bartky’s arguments however that discursive power is enacted in specific ways on the feminine body to produce an ideal, if unachievable, feminine subject. As with the feminine body norms that Bartky describes, there are particular ways that psychological wellbeing is ascribed to feminine subjectivities. Women are disproportionately exhorted to work on their psychological selves, to a much greater extent than men (Gill, 2008; Rutherford, 2018). Men who present psychological complaints that are considered more feminine in nature, such as mood disorders, are considered to be more disturbed due to the transgression of gender norms (Ussher, 2011). The physical body is not the sole focus of disciplinary power, as the psychological is positioned as very much a site for gendered surveillance and regulation. For example, we can see gendered tensions for psychological wellbeing in the portrayal of traditional gender roles in relation to feeling happy. Ahmed (2010) argues that traditional gender roles operate as sets of instructions of what men and women should do to be happy, as happiness is positioned in society as coming from natural and moral behaviour. She points out how happiness is attributed to the housewife role, and unhappiness attributed to those who take up feminist positions drawing on terms such as ‘feminist trouble- 12 maker’ and ‘feminist kill joy’. The unhappiness of feminists is attributed to their unnatural gender role, rather than the issues that feminists may be unhappy about, operating to obscure the societal issues feminists raise. The portrayal of the happiness of housewives, in turn, obscures the unequal division of labour under the guise of happiness. Appropriate adherence to gender roles appears to be interconnected with the behaviour that should lead to happiness and psychological wellbeing. The gendering of psychological wellbeing is an important consideration for feminist psychologists. We need to question the mechanisms of power that shape the discursive construction of feminine psychological wellbeing (Rutherford, 2018), asking what discursive resources are being utilised, who is addressed by these discourses and who is excluded, to what effect? These questions inform the following discussion of the theoretical foundations and literature informing the current research, with particular attention to psy discourse, neoliberalism, and post-feminism as contemporary discursive resources. I contend that, at present, these discourses have a dominant and interconnected role in the constitution of feminine psychological wellbeing and enact disciplinary power on feminine subjectivity. Psychological Lives Since its inception, the discipline of psychology has perpetuated a language of psychological terms, interventions and measurements for exploring, understanding and managing the self (Hook, 2007; Rose, 1999). The discursive language of psychology has become the system drawn upon for understanding the self and consequently, to talk about the self in this language is to understand oneself. Rose (1999) writes, “When our culture provides us with life narratives couched in psychological terms, our lives really do become psychological in their form” (p. 17). Within the cultural contexts that accept and understand psychological language, human experience is formed through the use of these psychological concepts. Simultaneously, narratives told through the language of psychology has become the means for understanding human experience. For example, the concept of stress is familiar in contemporary society and the language of stress, which locates this as an interior and individualised experience, shapes how stress is experienced (Becker, 2005). It is important to note that psy-discourses are not just the realm of the psychological assessment or therapy session, but rather have become taken up as regular vernacular within Western society (Rose, 1999), identifiable in the likes of popular culture and media. Drawing on the arguments of Foucault, (Hook, 2007) charts how the discourses of psychology have developed and become institutionalised. Hook points out that that the growth of psychology is inextricably connected with the regulation and discipline of subjects, developing 13 alongside a new apparatus of power. Historically, power was located within the body of a sovereign figure and disciplinary power was enacted with extreme violence. However, there have been several historical shifts which resulted in the dispersion of disciplinary power. Rather than a sovereign figure, modern power is contained within formal institutions and the dominant discursive structures of everyday life. Hook positions the development of psychology within this context, arguing that the individualised subjectivity constituted through psychology is also the disciplined, self-surveillant subjectivity constituted by disciplinary power. The rise of the language of psychology and therapeutic intervention is related to the government of inner life, connected with particular forms of behaviour and thought (Miller & Rose, 2008). Psychology operates a ‘technology of the self’, a means for individuals to intervene and transform the self in order to be better in some way (Foucault, 1988). As the discipline of psychology gained dominance, languages of inner life were generated that can be referred to as psy-discourses; complex and intertwined sets of ideologies and institutions which represent what it means to think and behave appropriately. Psy-discourses enact normative disciplinary power within people’s lives and continue to be represented and reinforced through a variety of social institutions including academia, professional expertise, and popular culture. Largely a positivist epistemological approach has traditionally been drawn on in the development of the body of psychological knowledge. Positivism maintains that scientific knowledge should be neutral, generalisable and objective drawing upon observable phenomena. Psychology has been dominated by research in this scientific tradition which has been criticised for not attending to epistemological assumptions or the complexity of the human experience (Breen & Darlaston-Jones, 2010). Regardless of these weaknesses, psy discourses formed within this tradition take on the appearance of objective, scientific knowledge that are imbued with acceptance and social value. Among many kinds of psy-discourses, there are several key forms that bear mentioning, due to their relevance to the constitution of the psychologically well subject. As a starting point, humanism is a philosophical understanding that influenced how the self is now understood and is central to many psychological understandings. Humanism posits a shared human nature, constituting a subject who has an interior consciousness, which supposedly at its core is unified and rational. Discipline shifted to accessing and influencing psychological interiority, which is a primary focus of psychology (Hook, 2007). Rather than a complex, unstable identity, psychology focuses on a stable individual human nature, that can be known and understood. Therapeutics, comprising of a broad development of therapeutic interventions and professionals expert in their use, is a powerful ideology which has positioned the self as a subject that can be known and referred to in discussion by oneself and others (Miller & Rose, 2008). 14 Therapeutic interventions work to construct subjectivities and has been shown to subtly work to incorporate vulnerability into the experience of particular subjectivities. This vulnerability can then be addressed through therapeutic intervention, by the self and expert professionals, in order to become self-disciplined, successful citizens (Brunila, 2014). Psychology has also been highly influential in constructing the normal individual, which in turn operates as taken for granted and normative common sense. Traditionally, psychological studies have intended to identify levels of deviation from the norm and then indicate what intervention is required to return an individual to a normative state. These studies rely on assumptions of what is considered normative and in the past rarely questioned the constitution of normal (Venn, 1998). While there is perhaps more critique as the discipline has matured, much of psychology continues to be informed by this tradition, reproducing the standards of what is normal, constructing and reconstructing normal subjectivities. However, the issue is that the ideal normal subject of psychology is simultaneously a reflection of idealised normative attributes of European, middle class, able-bodied men (Venn, 1998); who in contemporary times are also urbanised, employed, educated and heterosexual. As a result, those who fall outside these attributes are almost automatically marked as other (Braidotti, 2004). Initially psychology was dominated by the concern for those who clearly stepped outside the norm – the mad and the troublesome. However, over the time there has been a shift, where the concept of positive psychology began to become popular, expanding the concerns of psy discourse beyond those who are outside the norm. Within positive psychology, intervention with the psychological self is not solely for the restoration of the unwell, rather it has become seen as an important preventative measure against the possibility of becoming unwell and as a means to live well. The experience of living then becomes a problem that requires intervention and self-management. Positive psychology infuses psychological wellbeing with a level of precarity, by specifically focusing on the work one needs to undertake on oneself to maintain a positive affective experience, often named happiness. This work is located within the autonomous individual, whose well-made choices lead them towards happiness (Becker & Marecek, 2008). Positive psychology suggests that one can talk the self into this positive happiness, however the privilege and normatively valued moralistic life choices that are the markers of happiness are obscured (Ahmed, 2010). Furthermore by locating the locus of happiness and wellbeing within the individual, structural barriers that may prevent free choices are also obscured (Becker & Marecek, 2008). Modern psy discourses constitute an ideal subjectivity that is normal, unified, rational and engaging in self-management; traits that are synonymous with masculine, European attributes (Venn, 1998). Psychological wellbeing becomes the characteristic of the normative 15 system that psychology imposes and to be psychologically well one should emulate these normative ways of being. In the current context, psy discourses position psychological wellbeing as synonymous with having the capacity to self-manage, be responsible for oneself and exercise free choices (Becker & Marecek, 2008; Blackman, 1996). Psychological wellbeing is precarious, as it needs to be continually worked on and may at times require expert intervention (Brunila, 2014). As the psychologically well subject reflects masculine attributes, feminine psychological wellbeing has a further level of precarity, in that the female subject is already marked as failing to meet a normative standard. This is reflected in the history of psychology where women have been positioned as inherently psychologically vulnerable, by the likes of Freudian theory, which has continued to influence everyday understandings (Nicolson, 1992). Some women’s identities, for example the non-white or working class, are positioned as more deficient than others (Blackman, 1996). Women significantly outnumber men in diagnoses of psychological issues (Ussher, 2011), suggesting that that the conditions of femininity complicate psychological wellbeing. The female body has been continually used to explain the feminine psychological experience (Bayer & Malone, 1998) and is implicated in attempts to explain the prevalence of female diagnoses of psychological unwellness compared to that of men. The female body has long been positioned as unruly and problematic, particularly the female reproductive system (Weitz, 2010). Feminine hormonal processes are still utilised in explanations of feminine psychological unwellness, so that hormonal regulation is drawn upon in understandings of the management of feminine psychological wellbeing (Stoppard, 1997; Ussher, 2011). Feminine life experiences are also implicated in explanation of the feminine psychological experience. Gendered experiences of stress, such as expectations that women should take on primary caregiving roles and manage domestic tasks, pay inequality and more prevalent experiences of abuse, are all suggested to contribute to the increased prevalence of psychological illness for women (Stoppard, 1997). In modern times, feminine psychological wellbeing has a close relationship with the construction of stress. An experience of stress is referred to in everyday life, with the constant positioning of feminine subjects as experiencing stress mediated through gender. When women talk about their psychological experiences of stress, they draw on both the biological understandings and the experiences of the feminine life (Stoppard, 1997). This is unsurprising as both understandings are reproduced and sustained within popular media, which contribute to the discursive resources available to women to describe their experiences (Ussher, 2011). 16 Feminine psychological wellbeing also appears to be interconnected with the behaviour associated with normative femininity. Ussher (2011) suggests that the ways that femininity has been pathologised, works to construct and maintain the boundaries of the appropriate performance of femininity. Using a genealogical approach, Ussher shows how, historically, women have been marked as requiring psychological treatment and have been institutionalised for stepping outside their traditional feminine roles. She argues that these practices continue today, critiquing how certain disorders are constructed in gendered terms. For example, Ussher points out the over-diagnosis of depression in women, as women are perceived to be more susceptible to the disorder. Men who present with depressive symptoms are less likely to be diagnosed than women, and when men are diagnosed with depression their presentation is perceived as more alarming than that of women, as depression is associated with femininity. Likewise, women who present with concerns that are considered masculine in nature, such as alcohol dependence or anti-social personality traits, are marked as being especially mad. Taking up the argument that psychological wellbeing is constituted via a socially accepted performance of gender, Becker (2005) argues that feminine psychological wellbeing has become synonymous with feminine empowerment. She points out that traditionally feminine power resided in her maintaining her moral virtue. However today, feminine power resides in a women’s ability to care for herself, in order to care for others. Becker positions feminine psychological wellbeing as being synonymous with relational care skills, which she argues is often positioned in society as female empowerment. Feminine psychological wellbeing is not only constituted within the traditional realms of psychological practice. Ussher (2011) also argues that feminine psychological wellbeing and disorder is represented and regulated in forms of popular culture. Everyday representation encourages women to engage in constant monitoring of the self, locating complaints within the individual. In contemporary popular culture, feminine psychological wellbeing is achievable if women “could only manage their moods (or life) more effectively” (p. 99). Therefore, feminine psychological wellbeing is positioned as the result of intense self-monitoring and self- management. In summary, psy discourses constitute feminine psychological wellbeing with more precarity as the psychologically normal subject is an image of masculine European attributes. Feminine psychological wellbeing is interconnected with normative feminine behaviour and is formed through intensive self-management. Psy discourses are entangled with everyday life and are represented in multiple forms, including popular culture. 17 The Neoliberal Context As an ideology that presently holds hegemonic status, neoliberalism has a significant role in the shaping of subjectivity and what it means to be psychologically well. The neoliberal theoretical framework has been institutionalised within almost every aspect of modern life in the West, since the 1970s, to the point that the ideology is taken for granted and considered common sense (Harvey, 2005). Psy discourse and the constitution of psychological wellbeing have been influenced by the institutionalisation of neoliberalism. As Harvey (2005) states neoliberalism is “a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human wellbeing can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterised by strong private property rights, free markets and free trade” (p. 2). When wellbeing is understood as being interconnected to the free market, what does this mean for the constitution of psychological wellbeing? I now turn to a consideration of this neoliberal context. Neoliberalism constitutes ideal subjectivity as autonomous and individualised, subjects who are exhorted to shape themselves in specific ways to meet the needs of the market. Meeting the needs of the market is synonymous with being well. Scharff (2016a) explored how neoliberalism constitutes entrepreneurial subjects, with multiple implications for their “psychic life” under these conditions. Scharff draws on the term psychic life from Butler (1997) arguing that it “conveys the formation of subjectivities in and through power” (p. 111). Drawing on participant responses in interviews with women who are musicians, Scharff identified several different aspects of neoliberal subjectivity. The self was positioned as synonymous to a business that could be optimised and worked on. There were clear requirements for productivity and behaving competitively, as well as maintaining a positive mind-set and reframing adversity as a learning opportunity or as evidence of one’s identity as a survivor. Vulnerability was disavowed but at the same time the experience of managing anxiety, self-doubt and insecurity was acknowledged. Inequality was obscured and those who did not fit into neoliberal subjectivity were excluded and blamed for not measuring up. Under the dominance of neoliberalism, normative behaviour and psychological wellbeing are constituted within the ideal neoliberal subject. Engaging in work on the self is about producing an autonomous, individualised, productive self, maintaining the “right feelings” (Gill & Kanai, 2018, p. 321) that fit within the neoliberal economy. The means to do so is via consumption of products and services which supposedly assist in the pursuit of wellbeing, leading to a more fulfilled life. Within the neoliberal ideology, the path to psychological wellbeing is through consumerism and accruing material wealth (Esposito & Perez, 2014). 18 Despite the ideal neoliberal subject being constructed as exuding a positive mindset and working on the self, it has been argued that it is neo-liberalism that has had an increasingly detrimental effect on people’s mental health. The rise of neoliberalism has seen an increase in economic practices which have led to multiple issues, including job losses, economic instability, and a loss of community (Esposito & Perez, 2014). Neoliberal societal context exacerbates mental distress; however the cause of any distress is firmly located within the individual, rather than being attributed to the impact of societal conditions. Those who are classed as mentally unwell are constructed as suffering due to their own individual failing. This is problematic when the social environment is distressing for the lives of many, yet the neoliberal expectation is for individual to respond with resilience and positivity (Gill & Kanai, 2018). In terms of feminine subjects, academics have argued that women are ideal neoliberal subjects, who are disproportionately addressed by neoliberalism (Rutherford, 2018). Women especially are urged to work on themselves in order to meet expectations of autonomy, self- management and positive mindset. Rutherford (2018) terms the work women are expected to undertake as “ambitious and continuous projects of gendered self-transformation” (p. 621). She argues that neoliberalism and psy-disciplines interact in the creation of the requirements that women undertake this self-work. Feminine psychological wellbeing is constructed as being the product of these projects of self-transformation. There are also psychological expectations for the neoliberal feminine subject in the face of adversity. Gill & Orgad (2018) argue that in the context of a psychological turn within neoliberalism, women are exhorted to be resilient subjects that can bounce back from any negative experience. Using examples from women’s magazines, self-help books and smart- phone applications, they show how women are encouraged to maintain a perpetually positive mindset, treating any struggle as an opportunity for self-development and growth. These texts encourage economic and emotional investments which add up to extensive labour in the efforts to maintain positive resilience. They argue that these media make an address to middle class women who have the resources to work towards the ideal positive mindset and produce those who may not have access to these resources as ‘others’, outside normative discourse of resilience. The discourse of resilience appears to work to promote the neoliberal agenda of individualism, where structural issues are reframed as individual issues. Those women with the privileges to overcome struggles have the chance of maintaining a precarious positive mindset through intensive labour, while others are excluded altogether. Neoliberalism also exhorts women to exude confidence, despite insecurity simultaneously being associated with femininity. Considering texts from women’s magazines and interviews with staff working on these publications, Favaro (2017a) questioned the 19 promotion of female confidence, which she terms as confidence chic. She argued that neoliberal ideals from these texts encourage women to utilise approaches informed by positive psychology, to relentlessly work on themselves and exude a positive affect. Women are positioned to be ideally “autonomous, freely choosing, perpetually self-regulating, transformative and adaptive actors who are entirely self-reliant, responsible and accountable for their life, and whose value is largely measured by their capacity to self-care and self-improve” (pp. 288-289). Trespassing from this position and negative affect results in being silenced, along with impeding any collective action to address structural issues that impact on feminine subjects. Neoliberalism constructs feminine psychological wellbeing as an individual responsibility which requires intensive management. The means to psychological wellbeing is through consumption and acquiring material wealth. These features of feminine psychological wellbeing are also very much associated with the post-feminist sensibility (Gill, 2007). We have seen in the preceding section that feminine psychological wellbeing is highly connected to the performance of ideal femininity which at this point in time, is constructed largely within the post-feminist sensibility. The Post-feminist Subject Feminist psychologists and other feminist researchers have argued that, in the present context of the West, a post-feminist sensibility holds dominance in the construction of ideal femininity (Gill, 2017; McRobbie, 2007). The female subject is positioned in the post-feminist context as a neoliberal individual who has the capability and aspirations to meet ideals of self- empowerment, confidence, and success (McRobbie, 2007). The scholarship of post-feminism is broad, having been taken up in the last decade by many different areas of study, including but not limited to critical media studies, education, political science and psychology (Gill, 2017) Post-feminism is described as a sensibility by Gill (2007; 2017), something that is so normative and taken for granted to the extent that it is now difficult to recognise. Aspects of the post-feminist sensibility overlap and are related to the dominance of neo-liberal ideology (Gill, 2017). The female subject is positioned as an important subject of the neoliberal capitalist system, primed to work towards ideals of affluence, individualism, and self-management. Much like the ideal neoliberal subject, for the post-feminist subject, values of autonomy and individualism are emphasised, with women being exhorted to focus on themselves and their personal advancement. Drawing on the post-feminist sensibility Harris (2004) describes the ‘can- do girl’, who is determined to succeed in being exceptional by making the right choices. Rather than meeting normative expectations, women are positioned as making the right choices for their own satisfaction and fulfilment (Gill, 2008). 20 Initially the post-feminist sensibility rested on the assumption that the goals of feminism had been achieved and therefore feminist critique was no longer necessary. It could be argued that some women, in general those women who are cis-gendered, white, able-bodied, have access to disposable income, meet norms of heteronormativity and live in the West, have more access to opportunities than ever before. This is not to say that traditional gender norms and expectations of femininity do not persist. In more recent years there has been a shift which has seen a resurgence in feminist movement and calls to action. Critics suggest that this resurgence in feminism is mediated through post-feminism and neoliberalism, which means the post- feminist sensibility still works to maintain existing power relations. McRobbie (2015) posits a reinvigorated focus on individualism and self-control as the markers of female success, what she terms as ‘the perfect,’ has been a barrier to the full possibility of a resurgence of the feminist movement. Post-feminist expectations allow for a little failure in the endeavour to be excellent and some interest in feminist concerns, permissible only if this is on the path to feminine success. Ultimately feminine success is still defined by traditional gender expectations, such as marriage, children, and neoliberal values, such as financial and career success. Traditional gender norms and neoliberalism are incorporated within the ideals of post- feminism, as women work towards achieving a perfect self, constrained by specific expectations under the guise of choice and self-fulfilment (McRobbie, 2007). These ideals extend to multiple aspects of feminine life including consumption, bodily disciplines, sexualisation, education, career success, emotional management, domesticity, etc. (Gill, 2007; Negra, 2009; McRobbie 2007). Achievement in these life domains by meeting post-feminist ideals promises the best (neo-liberal) life for feminine subjects. Post-feminist ideals have come to inform the understandings associated with femininity and how feminine subjects should be. Post-feminist ideology holds social power and in turn has significant material effects on how women are seen, see themselves and each other. Surveillance both from the self and the other, contributes to the ongoing acceptance of post- feminist understandings as the norm (Bartky, 1997). Gill (2007) points out that self-surveillance has been long been accepted as a part of idealised femininity, however, argues that the post- feminist demand for this behaviour is distinctive. She describes a significant rise in the intensity of self-surveillance, which reflects the rise in the control of women, despite the obscurement of the forces of power that act within female lives. She points out that women’s private and intimate experiences are more than ever open for surveillance. Rather than a requirement for femininity, working towards these ideals in a post- feminist context is seen as something that women freely choose to participate in and are doing for themselves (Gill, 2008). The normative power of these ideals and the potential sanctions for 21 non-conformity are not acknowledged, instead participating in post-feminist self-discipline becomes something that women are doing for themselves (Gill, 2008; McRobbie, 2007). It is odd that despite the narrative of the freely chosen performance of femininity, there is limited open critique of how certain choices are normative and acceptable (Gill, 2008; Rutherford, 2018). Feminist researchers have argued this to be one of the main issues of post-feminism, as choice works to reinforce traditional gender norms, while at same time suggesting that gender barriers no longer exist, as women make free choices. Thus, the need for feminist critique of prevailing power imbalances is obscured (McRobbie, 2007). The discipline of the feminine body is a key focus of the post-feminist sensibility. The female body is subjected to strict feminine beauty norms, while being structured as being in need of constant management, which is considered the means to empowerment and feminine identity (Gill, 2007). The ideal female body is still sexualised and beautiful under the conditions of post-feminism, but these norms are not situated in the context of a requirement for male attention. Rather women are exhorted to attain this body for themselves and their own satisfaction. This of course still works to satisfy traditional standards of feminine beauty, but instead is framed within the rhetoric of self-empowerment and choice rather than obligatory beauty standards or the pleasure of men (Gill, 2008). Self-management and consumerism are the primary means for working toward these ideals of post-feminism. Women are positioned as needing to engage in intense self-management, which requires a variety of products and services. Entire self-care industries have developed from the commodification of individual wellbeing and working on oneself, particularly one’s body, ranging from day spas and nail salons (Negra, 2009), to sensory deprivation tanks and mindfulness gyms. As embodiments of ideal neoliberal subjectivity (Scharff, 2016b), post-feminism addresses women as knowing consumers, with the acknowledgement that they are not taken in by advertisements. Rather consumption is situated as being driven by the act of being an autonomous, empowered individual (Gill, 2008). The post-feminist subject is still an integral figure in the capitalist system, but the address is more complex. For example, women are encouraged to pursue beauty and sexual ideals for themselves, not for the purpose of male objectification. However, despite the ‘do it for yourself’ message, in the pursuit of post-feminist beauty and sexual standards, traditional standards are reinscribed with normative status. The post-feminist sensibility addresses subjects in a way that does not enact power hierarchically but rather invites a woman to engage in the pursuit of post-feminist ideals as a way to exercise her personal freedoms (Gill, 2008). 22 Post-feminism and the Psychological While not giving as much attention in the literature as the physical body, post-feminist ideals extend to the meanings associated with and the construction of feminine psychological experience. The physical and psychological are not necessarily exclusive categories, as within the post-feminist sensibility, there is a view that the physical body is closely intertwined with the feminine psychological condition. Gill (2007) points out that failure to perfect the female body is positioned in post-feminist texts as an outward reflection of how one feels, with this failure being indicative of emotional vulnerability. Simultaneously, there may be more of a priority on perfecting the body, as post-feminist culture acknowledges that one can parade the perfect body despite feeling emotionally vulnerable on the inside. Gill points to media texts where there is a celebration of the success of those who can manage the feat of appearing well on the outside, while being in distress internally. Self-surveillance is also implicated in post-feminist expectations for the psychological. The post-feminist sensibility encourages a similar level of vigilance and work over the mind as it does the physical body. In describing how feminine self-surveillance has intensified under the conditions of post-feminism, Gill (2007) notes that there is a turn to intervening with the feminine psychological experience. Much like the physical, the psychological is framed up as unruly and requiring management. In a later review of research and theoretical discussion on post-feminism, Gill (2017) revisits how the expectations within post-feminism extend to the feminine psychological experience. Broadly she argues that the feminine subject is expected to work towards a mental and emotional state that projects “self-esteem, body positivity and confidence” (p. 621). Gratitude, positive thinking, rejecting any kind of vulnerability or insecurity and living one’s best life are expectations for the post-feminist subject and she is also expected to engage in high levels of self-surveillance around her thoughts and feelings. Gill argues that these expectations construct feminine emotional experience, as well as how women present their psychological condition to others. There seems to be specific requirements around what kind of mood post-feminist subjects are expected to maintain and specified means for doing so. Drawing on multiple texts within pop culture, including chick flicks and magazines, Negra (2009) points to an “affective tyranny” (p. 140) operating within post-feminism. The female subject is expected to work on their emotions, in order to maintain a kind of serene passivity, while being able to attend to others needs over their own. Negra suggests that the self-care industry of the likes of “candles, day spas, manicures, and massages” (p. 141) is the expected means for feminine subjects to maintain this desired affect. Negra argues that affective tyranny is a very important aspect of 23 the post-feminist system, both to manage the feminine subject’s mood, but also to prevent the expression of dissatisfaction with wider social conditions. Self-help literature is another industry that perpetuates a post-feminist sensibility on emotional self-management. Like Negra (2009), Riley, Evans, Anderson, & Robson (2019) argue that feminine subjects are expected to work on their emotions and mental state. They point to self-help literature as a vehicle for this understanding, which also reinforces an individual focus rather than addressing social conditions or power imbalances that have an impact on the feminine experience. Riley, Evans, & Robson suggest that there are key aspects to the post- feminist sensibility that underpin this position within media texts. They point to how the outwardly successful post-feminist woman is commonly acknowledged as privately failing in their efforts to work on themselves. Inwardly experiencing doubts, requiring expert intervention or slipping at different points in time in the effort to exude the ‘can-do girl’ (Harris, 2004) subjectivity are all examples of these failings. The idea that the feminine self is positioned to need constant work, is further cemented by the assumption that women have the capacity to live their best or most perfect lives. It is of course impossible for most women to achieve this level of perfection, so they are left always striving, always with room for more work on themselves. Riley, Evans, & Robson also tentatively suggest that self-help texts interact with the post-feminist sensibility to maintain a feminine experience of anxiety. The psychological expectations for the feminine subject within post-feminism are influenced and complicated by another prevailing discourse, that women are prone to mental instability. McRobbie (2009) writes about a “gender melancholia” associated with femininity, that has reached a peak in recent years due to popular culture’s emphasis on individual female psychopathology, which obscures the need for debate about prevailing feminist concerns. McRobbie, while noting the differences in experience women depending on class, points out that a number of disorders are largely positioned as linked to femininity, including eating disorders, low self-esteem, depression, and self-harm. In developing these arguments, McRobbie draws on a report by the British Medical Association which acknowledges that working towards a feminine identity compromises female mental health. However, simultaneously, McRobbie argues that suffering from mental health struggles has become part of the collective feminine identity. When referring to mental health struggles, McRobbie writes: Being, as Butler would have it, ‘culturally intelligible’ as a girl makes one ill. But by today’s standards that is almost acceptable…She who suffers (along with her fellow- sufferers) is no longer passive, indeed she is expected to be highly active in her struggle 24 to overcome her afflictions. But these pathologies remain part of her make-up, her personal reminders about what it is to be a woman (pp. 87-88). According to McRobbie’s analysis, psychological illness has become part of the feminine experience and therefore women are expected to work on themselves to manage their potential for becoming unwell. She goes on to argue that there are standards in place as to how much psychological unwellness a girl should demonstrate, differentiating “a touch of” a disorder from full-blown unwellness. McRobbie (2015) further reflects on this gender melancholia in her discussion of post-feminist preoccupation with the perfect, mentioned earlier in this discussion, as a reinvigorated focus on individualism and self-control marking female success. McRobbie argues that a great deal of suffering, has become a taken for granted as part of the experience of femininity. This suffering is linked to the emphasis on perfecting the self, the constant mental calculations women are performing in the process of self-surveillance and a kind of self- competition, to always be doing better than one is at this point in time. Research into the experiences of young women suggest that stress and anxiety is a cost of striving to meet expectations of feminine success. Strömbäck, Formark, Wiklund, & Malmgren-Olsson (2014) explored the experiences of young Swedish women in relation to their experience of stress. They found that the young women interviewed had a shared understanding of what successful femininity looked like, something that involved extensive doing, while balancing relational demands and presenting the self as a nice person. They argued that their findings demonstrated how navigating requirements for successful femininity presented a tiring and detrimental impact on the young women’s experience of their bodies. They suggested that experiences of anxiety and stress were incorporated into the performance of intelligible femininity, though not without some hints at possible resistance to normativity in that there was an expressed need to “disconnect and detach” (p. 286). This suggests that there is some potential reprieve from gendered expectations of managing the feminine self in the expression of anxiety and stress. Could the gender melancholia associated with femininity offer some reprieve from post- feminist expectations of the can-do girl, who exudes constant confidence and a lack of vulnerability? Dobson & Kanai (2019) analysed several recently popular US television shows, which have portrayed women managing anger, anxiety, over-confidence, and insecurity. They suggest that these portrayals may problematise the post-feminist ideal of the can-do girl, making space for alternative positions that perhaps recognise structural inequality. They acknowledge that these portrayals could also be analysed in terms of post-feminist expectations, pointing to 25 what they describe as a “normative, self-deprecating youthful post-feminist masquerade (p. 783)” as an acceptable brief foray away from ideal femininity before meeting the expectations of post-feminism. They argued that both readings should be considered in the analysis of media texts. Other research has found that psychological vulnerability is reformulated within post- feminist expectations, so vulnerability is permissible if feminine subjects are still striving to meet the unrealistic expectations of femininity. Chowdhury (2020) analysed interviews with young women professionals in New Zealand who identified that they were depressed. Chowdhury found that there was an expectation operating for these women to be their “ideal depressed self” (p. 1349). These expectations involved intervening with the self to attempt to overcome depression and always striving do their best, especially while in the workplace. Chowdhury argued that the “ideal depressed self” positioned women in an impossible situation which possibly made their moods worse, as not only do they need to struggle to overcome psychological unwellness but also confront their failure to do so while maintaining the ideal self. The literature I have considered highlights to me some tension in how feminine psychological wellbeing is portrayed. Dominant discourses simultaneously expect women to be prone to psychological unwellness (McRobbie, 2009), while also striving for a psychological state that surpasses psychological vulnerability (Gill, 2017). It is also problematic that in the mass of self-help and positive psychological interventions, women are the primary focus of intervention. This re-entrenches ideas about the inferior female psyche (Ussher, 2011), suggesting some level of inferiority compared to those who are not addressed. The impact of the exhortation to the feminine subject to be constantly work on herself should be considered and critiqued across multiple contexts (McRobbie, 2015). The Social Media Landscape in the Digital Context As discussed, the dominant ideals within psy discourse, neo-liberalism and post- feminism are relevant to the meanings and experience of femininity at present, contributing to the construction of feminine psychological wellbeing. These discourses owe their ideological dominance to multiple social conditions. One area that has received ongoing attention from feminist scholars is popular culture. Gill (2008) contends that representations within media and popular culture are significant in the constitution of subjectivity and require ongoing critical attention. Social media, in particular the currently popular Instagram platform, present opportunities to consider the complexities in the construction of the feminine psychological state, as women are both subjectified and position themselves within this particularly neoliberal, 26 post-feminist digital context. Within the contemporary period that neoliberalism and post- feminism have maintained dominance, personal social media use has increased rapidly to the extent that the online/offline experience has become increasingly blurred, particularly in the West (Locke et al., 2018). There are new generations growing up having always had access to the online world and cannot imagine social interactions without the presence of social media platforms (van Dijck, 2013). In 2018, the most popular of these platforms was Facebook with 2.26 billion users, followed by YouTube with 1.9 billion users, then Instagram and WeChat with 1 billion users (Ortiz-Ospina, 2019). Each of these platforms have different capacity for self- expression and it is important to note their unique capabilities. There are however some unifying features of popular social media platforms, which contribute to the general landscape that social media present, which I will briefly consider. Social media can be accessed through a variety of technologies; however, smartphones are the dominant means for access. This is mainly due to most social media platforms being designed to be easily accessible in digital application form. Some of the functionality of certain social media platforms are only accessible via the digital application. For those with access to the technology, smartphones have an omnipresence in daily life, as devices that people take with them everywhere and have an intimate relationship with (Elias & Gill, 2018). Social media platforms, mediated via digital applications accessed through the smartphone, take on this every day, intimate character. Algorithms, digital rules for organising content, are now commonly built into social media platforms. These are generally based on content that users have searched or engaged with previously. Rather than organising content chronologically, algorithms work to organise content based on the viewers preferences. While they are computer generated, these algorithms have a role in marking the content with value, as they manage how much exposure content receives (Carah, 2014). Algorithms certainly mean that people are exposed to more of what is in line with their preferences, creating a kind of bubble of more of the same content. Commonly, participation in social media space involves posting digital content and consuming content posted by others. Content can include photos, videos, memes, links to other places within the web, articles, and short form statements of a set amount of characters. Another common feature of social media platforms is the ability for the audience to provide feedback. The audience can like, share, or comment on content, and this feedback operates as a disciplinary gaze within the social media context. Those who produce content are more likely to post content that receives a level of positive feedback. Even the presence of an audience is a kind of feedback, as most platforms offer a mechanism to see how many views a piece of content has had. 27 Compared to traditional media sources, social media presents a unique interaction between producer and consumer. These positions are not mutually exclusive, as many who consume the content also produce their own content. Many social media platforms have a dual function within them where popular culture is disseminated, and a space for users to creatively produce their own content is available (Banet-Weiser, 2011). It has been suggested that these platforms are taken up predominantly by women, who are called upon within Western societal expectations to narrate themselves (Banet-Weiser & Arzumanova, 2013). Primarily the internet is a space that is purposely designed and utilised for commercial gain (Pruchniewska, 2018). Social media is not immune to the commercialism that characterises the internet and has been recognised as a powerful marketing tool. The rise of social media has seen the rise of social media influencers, people who amass a large number of followers and are believed to have some level of influence over them. Social media influencers are commonly recruited by marketing companies for a fee to tout products on their personal profiles and provide links for purchase (Archer, 2019). Often the strategy is for these influencers to mention the products while displaying how they live their ordinary everyday lives, subtly encouraging others to make similar consumption choices. While some disclaimers are presented about paid promotion, it is not always clear if a product is being mentioned in passing or because of direct marketing. Influencers are often paid and/or gifted free products in exchange for this kind of promotion and some can make a living from engaging in this work. Simultaneously, there is an emphasis on authenticity within the social media space (Favaro, 2017b). As content becomes more highly curated, audiences hold a suspicion of promoted content. Recently in NZ, complaints have been made to regulatory bodies about how influencers have used their platforms to advertise products (Akoorie, 2020) and a move to impose more regulations on the industry has arisen (Advertising Standards Authority, 2020). These changes reflect the suspicion audiences have of advertisements and a preference for more genuine content that does not explicitly promote products (Hu, Chen, Chen, & He, 2020). There is a tension here for influencers to manage, as there is pressure for content to be genuine, a reflection of themselves, while meeting economic demands and the need to self-brand. The Neoliberal, Post-feminist Digital Context There have been suggestions that digital spaces, including social media, have potential for new freedoms in self-expression. For example feminist academics have suggested that social media is a key tool for advancing feminist ideas and engaging young women as feminists (Jackson, 2018). The #MeToo movement, a digital response to sexual violence which became 28 rapidly popular and influential in 2017, is an example of how the digital context can be useful in feminist action (Soucie, Parry, & Cousineau, 2019). However, the online context is not impervious to the cultural discourses that are dominant in the offline world. Pruchniewska (2018) interviewed a group of freelance feminist writers who produced written digital content. Interview responses certainly reflected a resurgence in feminism online, with the writers pointing out that feminism was popular right now. The writers used a variety of strategies to bring their feminism into the content that they produced, both overtly and covertly. Pruchniewska found though that much of the content being produced was intricately connected with post-feminist sensibilities, partly because of demands on freelance writers made by the field of producing content online. These findings echo the thoughts of Gill (2017) who argued that the resurgence of feminism recently, has a particular quality which is reflective of the post-feminist sensibility. If the online context is not impervious to the offline cultural context, while social media technologies may be new, there will be persistent discourses that are drawn on and reinforced within these spaces. While there is potential for imagining new possibilities around gender, research to date suggests that contemporary gendered ideals are perpetuated rather than challenged in this space. The ideals are perpetuated through the content itself and the feedback from those who are judging and consuming the content. Research to date suggests that despite potential for feminist resistance, neoliberal ideology and the post-feminist sensibility hold a level of ideological dominance in social media spaces. For example, Duffy & Hund (2015) analysed data from fashion blog, Instagram content and interviews with fashion bloggers themselves. Following themes of effortless pursuit of passionate work, glamourous lifestyles, and carefully curated disclosure of personal lives, they identified a prevailing notion of “having it all” in this content, consistent with the post-feminist sensibility. The emotional labour, discipline, and capital necessary to project this aesthetic was obscured. A balance between a glamourous lifestyle and the carefully curated disclosure of the personal was utilised to promote an authentic identity. Banet-Weiser & Arzumanova (2013) describe a “post-feminist authorship” (p. 165) that is supported within the supposed liberty of the digital context. They argue that the digital context provides a platform for women to shape and perform their identities in a post- feminist environment, which becomes intertwined with their personal consumption. Drawing on an analysis of “haul” videos that are popular on YouTube, self-made videos where predominantly women display their purchases, they identify several key tropes of post- feminism. Post-feminist expectations of the female body are evident, in the display of how the body is disciplined through obligatory consumption of fashion and beauty products. These 29 videos are characterised by a display of what Banet-Weiser and Arzumanova term a “nice…girl next door” (p. 172) femininity, the avoidance of making any overt criticism and an emphasis on authenticity and sincerity. The popular use of social media for women entrepreneurs is also implicated in the ideological dominance of post-feminism within this context. An ethnographic study by Naudin & Patel (2019) of women entrepreneurs’ Twitter accounts suggested that the performance of successful entrepreneurship within the digital context and the performance of ideal femininity are entangled. Performing professional expertise in this space was found to be relentless relational labour, drawing on neo-liberal and post-feminist discourse around female empowerment, an attitude reminiscent of the ‘can-do girl’ described by Harris (2004), while also blending a negotiation of vulnerability and personal affect management. Research also suggests that the female body is subjected to increased surveillance in the social media context and subjected to post-feminist expectations. Marshall, Chamberlain, & Hodgetts (2019) analysed Instagram posts that were produced by popular female bodybuilders, considering the gaze that was directed at these female bodies. They described how these Instagram posts enable the female body to be objectified and subjected to surveillance. This appeared to be done in ways that resisted the concept that women were weak, promoted female empowerment, but simultaneously perpetuated norms of disciplined, sexualised feminine bodies. The women producing this content, engaged with these ideas with simultaneous conformity and resistance. While not specifically situating their findings within the post-feminist sensibility, the arguments are reminiscent of the post-feminist analysis. The female body is positioned as empowered but there are strict requirements for disciplining this body based on heteronormative, sexualised expectations. Certainly, the surveillance associated with post-feminism seems to reach new heights as social media involves the overt subjection to public scrutiny. Similarly, Camacho-Miñano, MacIsaac, & Rich (2019) conducted a study where they considered how teenage girls learn about physical health and fitness via Instagram. They identified what they termed a “postfeminist biopedagogies” (p. 653) operating within Instagram; normative ideas about female bodies which promoted restrictive body discipline in order to achieve a successful female body, under the guise of choice and empowerment. Amongst the girls who participated in the research, Instagram was found to be highly influential in how they learnt about the body. These studies indicate maintenance of the dominant neo-liberal, post-feminist sensibility within the social media context. As with other research considering the post-feminist sensibility, research on social media to date has had an emphasis on how feminine physical 30 health and the feminine body is understood in this context. This includes representations of alcohol consumption on Facebook (Hutton, Griffin, Lyons, Niland, & McCreanor, 2016), messages of vulva-positivity on Tumblr (Mowat, McDonald, Fisher, Kirkman, & Dobson, 2018) and eating disorder recovery on Instagram (LaMarre & Rice, 2017). Post-feminist and neo-liberal ideals are considered throughout this research, particularly the feminine task of working on one’s body and self-representation. I now turn the discussion towards the literature on how psychological wellbeing is formulated within this post-feminist digital context. #Psychologicalwellbeing While there has been a focus on representations of the body within social media, feminine psychology has received limited attention in the research to date. It is likely that the physical and psychological are interconnected, however, as Camacho-Miñano et al. (2019), whose study is discussed in the preceding section identified, participants saw Instagram content which depicted working on the female physical body as being connected to happiness, confidence and empowerment. Despite the general focus on the physical within the literature, neoliberal and post- feminist expectations for emotional management have also been identified in social media content. Kanai (2019a) considers the gratifying sense of belonging that develops through young women producing and sharing social media texts on Tumblr. She analyses Tumblr texts which describe similar or shared feminine emotional experiences in humorous ways. A relatable femininity is produced through these texts, where the collective can recognise themselves within the shared participation in the post-feminist obligations for young feminine subjects and the emotional rules within this context. Kanai argued that this recognition brings up a pleasing affective response for young women. However, underlying this relatability and conformity is a system of power relations that Kanai argued further establishes the dominant norms of a post- feminist, neoliberal femininity. While not explicitly considering psychological wellbeing, some researchers have pointed out how feminine emotional labour is popularly portrayed in the social media context. Toffoletti & Thorpe (2018) considered the representation of female athletes on social media. They point to how these representations draw on neo-liberal and post-feminist ideals. While not explicitly considering how psychological wellbeing is represented, they do however identify several representation strategies as tropes of the post-feminist sensibility. They categorise these as self- love, self-disclosure and self-empowerment, all strategies that involve mobilising the feminine self. Toffoletti and Thorpe note that these strategies inform the discourse around what is accepted femininity. Notably self-love, self-disclosure, and self-empowerment, imply inner self 31 work and involve a level of emotional labour. I would suggest within social media and other contexts these ideas are implicitly reference working on feminine psychological wellbeing. When considering emotional labour, one of the fascinating aspects of social media, is how the context has been utilised in the crafting of identity and self-creation. Self-branding is a concept that has entered popular vernacular in recent years and has escalated within the context of social media. Banet-Weiser (2012) defines self-branding as an ongoing process of self- development to cultivate an authentic self-image which impacts how one is perceived by others, as well as how one sees themselves. Social media platforms lend themselves well to the process of curating content online to represent an individual’s brand. Positive feedback from others determines the success of this process of self-branding. The process of self-branding is inextricably linked to neo-liberal values, with the self as a marketable product. Banet-Weiser argues that the process of branding the self within this online context draws on gendered ideas and is entangled with post-feminist sensibility, as the ideal post-feminist subject is reflected with similar ideals that underpin the self-branded subject; self-definition, consumption and visibility. Given this similarity, the ideal post-feminist subject finds recog