Neoliberal salvation through a gendered intervention: A critical analysis of vulnerable young women's talk.

Within the United Kingdom (UK) in recent years, disadvantaged young women have been documented as having unmet needs and experiencing inequalities resulting from their gender. Gendered social divisions are important because the structural inequalities that girls are born into influence their life chances. In response, UK policy-makers have funded intensive interventions for these ‘at-risk’ young women. This paper presents a post-structuralist, feminist analysis of young women’s talk about their journeys through a gendered support project. The project was specifically women-centred and aimed to promote early intervention and resilience working with relatively disadvantaged young women defined as being in risky life circumstances. The project used holistic, individually-focused, wrap-around support systems to engage vulnerable young women and meet their specific needs. Focus groups were carried out with the young women using creative methods of data collection. The young women were asked to make a storyboard illustrating their journey through the project and the impact it had had on them. They were then encouraged to reflect on, and talk about, their experiences. The young women took up various discourses in order to make sense of their life experiences and their involvement in the project. These include neoliberal discourses such as talk of self-improvement, reinvention and aspirations of self-control. The social and political implications of the analysis are discussed including a key argument that the young women’s discursive practices reinforce hegemonic gendered identities, neoliberal ideology and existing structural inequalities.

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