Tween Girls’ Dressing and Young Femininity in Singapore: Too Much, Too Young, Too Fast?

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

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.