explaining youth subcultures (Gender)

Active Girls (1)

McRobbie (1991) accepts that girls have become more active in relation to consumer culture than she had previously given them credit for.

 

For example she consider’s the change in the focus of magazines for teenage girls, which shifted from the focus on romance (which she has noted in the 1970’s ) to a more self-confident sexuality.

 

She also recognises that girls are active in using magazines, critiquing or even laughing at them, rather than passively accepting their content.

 

Women where active consumers and played an active role in consumer culture, yet they where now resisting media

Girls and subcultures McRobbie and Garber (1979) (1)

Where critical of the CCCS for ignoring girls they looked at subcultures where girls were present for example the ‘mod girl’ who paid a lot of attention to appearance and smartness like her male counterparts.

 

They point out that girls in the 1950’s, where still restricted by expectations of early marriage, has less freedom than their male counterparts and experienced stricter social control.

 

They identified the ‘teenybopper’ subculture among girls in the early 1970’s and argued that this culture centred around girls bedrooms.

Girls and subcultures McRobbie and Garber (1979) (2)

Mc Robbie and Garber used the concept ‘bedroom culture’ to describe this, girls would get together and experiment with makeup hairstyles and fashion, gossiping with friends about boys.

 

They argued that this could also be seen as a form of resistance as the girls anxieties about teenage sexual interaction led them to forming very tight nit friendship groups giving them a private and inaccessible space that protected them from the scrutiny of parents but also of boys.

Reddington (2003) (1)

Argues that there have been very active female members of some of the ‘spectacular subcultures’ such as Vivienne Westwood who was very influential in the punk subculture.

 

She also points out that the punk subculture involved females from its very inception, being based on a very egalitarian ethos that anybody could do it.

Reddington (2003) (2)

Punk also offered an outlet, a form of resistance, for many young women who were appalled at the idea of secretarial college or getting married.

 

However, even within punk, female performers were often not taken seriously by reviewers being referred to for example as, ‘punkettes’ and judged on their physical appearance much more than male punk performers.