Nowadays, media often celebrate the “girlboss” – the entrepreneur who works 80-hour weeks to build her brand and success – while corporate campaigns show women who “lean in” in the boardroom and maintain flawless family lives. These cultural ideals create the illusion that women in leadership are more empowered than ever. However, our research shows that some of them feel exhausted, constrained by expectations, and pressured to embody an ideal that leaves little space for vulnerability. This tension is linked to a relatively new form of feminism that may not be as empowering as it purports to be.
Neoliberal feminism
The term neoliberal feminism was first introduced by media and cultural studies scholar Catherine Rottenberg in 2013. Rottenberg used it to describe the growing fusion between a form of feminism focused on individual empowerment and the logic of neoliberal rationality, which holds, according to political theorist Wendy Brown, that “all aspects of life should be understood in economic terms”.
