The confidence trick: Competing constructions of confidence and self-esteem in young Australian women's discussions of the sexualisation of culture

SynopsisIn recent years, an explicitly sexualised style of femininity has become associated with the idea that women choose to self-sexualise to signify their empowerment. But alongside these celebratory interpretations, self-sexualisation among young women has been subject to more patronising readings; in particular, the view that women are duped into engaging in thinly disguised sexual self-exploitation, to which they are made vulnerable by low self-esteem. This paper presents a discursive analysis of focus groups with seventeen Australian undergraduate women, in which they discussed young women's engagements with sexualised culture. Participants saw sexualised self-presentations as providing benefits to women, most notably enjoyment and heightened confidence. However, they viewed some self-sexualisation as being motivated by low self-esteem, engaging women in a downward spiral of objectification and decreasing self esteem. These competing constructions of self-sexualisation as both promoting and threatening confidence and self-esteem highlight how young women's engagement in sexualised culture is simultaneously open to empowering and disempowering readings.