Tween Girls' Dressing and Young Femininity in Singapore

This book provides an insight into girls' cultural identities and young femininities through an understanding of tween girls' dressing in Singapore. The book adopts a girl-centred approach to shed light on the narratives and experiences of young Singaporean girls that have often been overlooked. It draws on the conversations with young Singaporean girls aged 8 to 12 to understand how they wanted to dress, from where they gained their inspiration, and what the social factors were that influenced their dressing. Through understanding how girls want to fashion themselves, the book shows that it is imprecise to discuss issues based on the assumption that there is one dominant, 'correct' way to grow up as a young person in Singapore. This book unpacks how young Singaporean girls negotiate their cultural identities through clothing that do not simply conform to or reflect their roles as students. It also shows how girlhood in Singapore is multi-faceted and the values and meanings that tween girls' attach to their dressing intersect at the personal, social, and cultural level.

The book offers new ways of approaching and looking at girls' adult-like dressing that move beyond the discourse of sexualisation. In establishing a space for young Singaporean girls' voices in an area that has been dominated by studies from the West, this book also shows how the focus on tween girls in Asia can contribute to and advance the current state of girls' studies.

Auteur

Bernice is Postdoctoral Fellow at the National University of Singapore, Centre for Family and Population Research. She was awarded her Ph.D. from Monash University, Australia, in 2017. She has research experience in youth identities, girlhood and young femininities. Born and raised in Singapore, Bernice's work focuses specifically on tween-aged girls in Singapore and their cultural and fashioned identities. Her work speaks to the disciplines of the sociology and anthropology of children and youth, and gender and digital cultures. Bernice's other work on girls' young femininities in Singapore can be found on Girlhood Studies, Young and The Conversation (AU). She was also Recipient of the Postgraduate Publication Award from Monash University in 2017 and the Early Career Researcher Conference Funding from The Sociological Review (UK) in 2018. In her current position, Bernice works on a funded project that examines cross-national families and the children growing up in these homes.

Contenu

Introduction

Girls' dressing

Conceptual framework

Terminology

Research methodology

The minority group perspective A girl-centred approach

Focus groups

Table 1 (Research Sample)

Research position

Chapter outline

1 Understanding girls' dressing

Introduction

The discourse of sexualisation

Western popular culture

'Traditional' popular media

The raunchy celebrity culture

Tween consumer culture

The commodification of the tween girl

The 'unknowing' tween

A discourse of protection

Critiques of the sexualisation-of-girls discourse The definition of sexualisation

Sexualisation as a linear concept

Problems of a discourse of protection

Class and the discourse of sexualisation

Postfeminism and girls' dressing Conclusion

2 Girlhood in Singapore

Introduction

Western dominant accounts of childhood

Childhood in Singapore Population policies and childhood in Singapore

Education policies and childhood in Singapore

Consumption and adult-like clothing for girls in Singapore

Asian values and the culture of consumption in Singapore

Consumption and social class in Singapore

Femininity in Singapore

Contesting femininities

Conclusion

3 YouTube and girls' dressing

Introduction Girls' popular culture consumption in Singapore: a pastiche of East and West

Conceptualising girls' popular culture consumption in Singapore

The changing mediascapes in tween girls' lives

YouTube as an emergent popular media source

Tween girls' spectatorship

"I just look at the YouTubers": Popular YouTubers/YouTube channels

Local Singaporean YouTubers

Popular Western YouTubers

Rethinking YouTube and tween girls' dressing

The DIY ethos Conclusion

4 A cultural perspective of tween girls' dress

Introduction

Aspirations of style

Girls' definition of style Style as necessity

Style through boundary-making

Style as a youthful practice

Allowances

Girls and brands

Purchasing new clothing

Girls as reflexive and 'sensible' consumers

Affiliation

Class, social mobility and adult-like clothing

Conclusion

5 Girls' interpretive repertoires

Introduction

A confidence narrative

Effort in the production of self

Confidence and not contentment

Accoutrement Girls and nail polish

Hair and Heels - Diversity, complexity and contradiction

Makeup as accoutrement: "No, no. Just don't wear makeup"

Adultification as something extrinsic "They dress too old."

Critical readings of celebrities' dressing

Critical readings of other girls' dressing

Reframing adult-like dressing

Conclusion

6 Conclusion

'Slowing down' Existing inbetween

Asia as method

Girls' feminism and postfeminism in Singapore

References