Commodifying feminism: Economic choice and agency in the context of lifestyle influencers and gender consultants

Magdalena Petersson McIntyre

Gender, Work and Organization, 2021, vol. 28, issue 3, 1059-1078

Abstract: Feminism has become a recurrent ingredient in many women's narratives of their selves and is regularly appearing as an important aspect of women's success, happiness and self‐realization. The development has been criticized for upholding a view in which structural inequalities are explained in terms of individual choices; choice feminism. This article examines two professional groups, lifestyle influencers and gender equality consultants. The purpose is to examine how questions of feminism, choice and entrepreneurship are made sense of in these contexts. The article situates the interviewees' explanations in fourth, or even fifth wave feminism to examine whether the embrace of choice still relies on a critique of gender structures and inequalities. Both the consultants and the influencers felt that entrepreneurial success had changed the way society viewed them. The appeal of ‘choice’ was an outcome of a perceived lack of choice, a matter of performing resistance to the culturally defined choices these individuals felt were presented to them. The article contributes to an understanding of the shifting meanings and forms feminism takes in social media and commercial market settings and what it is that these individuals find appealing in addressing individual success as a feminist victory.

Date: 2021
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