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IDENTITIES LECTURES 2006

The New Sexual Contract: Young Women's Identities Today

Prof. Angela McRobbie, Prof. Valerie Hey, Prof. Rachel Thomson
This event took place on 1st February 2006 at 5:30pm (17:30 GMT)
Berrill Lecture Theatre, The Open University, Walton Hall Campus, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom
Tea/Coffee 5.00 p.m.
Lecture 5.30 p.m.
Drinks Reception 7.00 p.m.

This lecture explores how putative equality for young women in the UK in regard to education and access to the labour market (along with control of fertility) constitute a new sexual contract, which in turn permits new modalities of constraint particularly in regard to political subjectivity. This positioning and the so-called feminisation of the labour market raise new questions about class polarisation and social mobility. The psychic consequences of success and failure defined in meritocratic terms will also be interrogated and considered as post-feminist masquerade.

Angela McRobbie is Professor of Communications at Goldsmiths College. Her most recent book is The Uses of Cultural Studies, Sage, 2005. She is currently completing a book titled Post-Feminist Disorders? Gender, Culture and Social Change.

Spaces are limited, to book a place and for more information contact:

Kerry Carter ESRC-Identities 01908 659667

The webcast was open to 400 users
Click below to play the event (60 minutes)