'the revolution will be led by a 12-year-old girl': girl power and global biopolitics

Author(s): Ofra Koffman and Rosalind Gill

Source: Feminist Review , 2013, No. 105 (2013), pp. 83-102
Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.

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105 lthe revolution will be led

by a 12-year-old girl1:1 1 Nike Foundation

(n.d.) 'The Girl Effect
website: The

girl power and global revolution poster',

http://www
.girleffect.org/

biopolitics
downloads/posters/
The_Revolution_
Poster.pdf, last
accessed
1 September 2011.

Ofra Koffman and Rosalind Gill

abstract

This paper presents a poststructuralist, postcolonial and feminist interrogation of the

'Girl Effect'. First coined by Nike inc, the 'Girl Effect' has become a key development
discourse taken up by a wide range of governmental organisations, charities and non
governmental organisations (NGOs). At its heart is the idea that 'girl power' is the best
way to lift the developing world out of poverty. As well as a policy discourse, the Girl
Effect entails an address to Western girls. Through a range of online and offline publicity

campaigns, Western girls are invited to take up the cause of girls in the developing world

and to lend their support through their use of social media, through fundraising and
consumption. Drawing on a wide range of policy documents, media outputs and offline
events, this paper explores the way in which the Girl Effect discourse articulates notions

of girlhood, empowerment, development and the Global North/South divide.

keywords
girl power; development; policy; empowerment; girlhood; virais

feminist review 105 2013

(83-102) © 2013 Feminist Review. 0141-7789/13 www.feminist-review.com

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 introduction: the girl effect
In 2009, in the midst of the Global Financial Crisis, the World Economic Forum
held its first ever plenary session on adolescent girls. An alliance of multi
national corporations, charity and non-governmental organisation (NGO) leaders
and government representatives put forward a bold claim: that girls hold the key to
ending world poverty and transforming health and life expectancy in the developing
world. Investment in girls, they argued, would unleash financial growth that would
put an end to the intergenerational cycle of poverty said to be crippling developing
nations. Girls who were healthy and well educated would marry later and have fewer
children. This in turn would improve their economic prospects and lead to better
health among their children. Family health and life expectancy would improve, and
with it the economic situation of developing nations would be transformed. This
sequence of transformations was termed 'the Girl Effect'. 2 World Economic Forum
(2009) 'World Economic
Forum Annual Meeting
The notion of the Girl Effect is fast becoming a prominent feature of global deve
2009: shaping the post
lopment discourse and practice, representing a shift in which key organisations
crisis world', http://
www.members
(including the United Nations (UN) and the World Health Organisation (WHO)). weforum.org/pdf/
change
AnnualReport/2009/
their investment strategies in order to target girls in developing countries. However,
sociaLbacklash
.htm, last accessed
the significance of the Girl Effect does not end here. It also entails an intensification
30 August 2011.
of the neo-liberalisation of development fused with neo-imperialist notions of
'saving' oppressed Southern women (Abu-Lughod, 2002), leading to a 'féminisation
of responsibility' (Chant, 2006). Moreover, it represents a new and distinctive form of
address to girls in the Global North and West. Via an extensive range of social media
campaigns, 'roadshows' and merchandising promotions, girls in affluent societies,
particularly the US, are hailed variously as the allies and saviours of their Southern
'sisters', using discourses of girl power and popular feminism. The Girl Effect, then, is
not a singular entity, but an assemblage of transnational policy discourses, novel
corporate investment priorities, biopolitical interventions, branding and marketing
campaigns, charitable events designed to produce a social movement for change,
and designer goods that invite young women in the North/West to express pride in
'being a girl'—an act that Girl Effect marketing suggests will contribute to efforts to
improve the lives of girls in other parts of the world.

Our aim in this paper is to sketch out the contours of the Girl Effect and explore its
key features. We understand the Girl Effect to be a discursive construction that
materialises across a range of sites, and perform a 'double reading' of the multiple
forms of address it entails to and about girls in the North and South. To do this, the
paper will move dynamically back and forth between the language of development
policies targeted at the Global South and discourses of the Girl Effect that are
3 The notions of the
designed to interpellate young women in the North/West.3
North or West are of
course highly problematic
We do not seek to evaluate the Girl Effect as a development strategy within a because of
—not least
the growing range and
framework concerned with the measurement of economic 'outcomes', norforce
do of
wediscourses of girl

84 feminist review 205 2013 'the revolution will be led by a 12-year-old girl'

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power in Asia and Latin
America. As with other
designations, for example
'developing' versus
'developed' and First/Third
World, the notions of
Global South and North
serve only to attempt to
speak of a world
characterised by massive
geographically patterned
injustice and inequality,
while failing to capture
complexity and specificity.
offer a contribution to the important body of feminist research that evaluates the
impact of interventions on women's lives (Johnson, 2009; Bee, 2011; Maclean,
2012). While these evaluations are important, they do not exhaustively address
feminist concerns, or indeed fully scrutinise the power dynamics at play. In this
paper we choose to focus on what we believe to be a crucial part of any critical
feminist interrogation: a consideration of the political ramifications of the dis
courses and practices being mobilised. Our theoretical approach can be described as
feminist, poststructural ist and postcolonial—an approach that recognises that
global inequalities that are gendered and racialised remain entrenched. We are
informed by the critique articulated by Marxist and postcolonial scholars who argue
that development policies, dominated by neo-liberal ideologies, frequently reinforce
rather than mitigate economic inequalities (Roy, 2002; Escobar, 2010). In addition,
we recognise the persistence of 'ways of seeing' the 'Third World woman' whose
origins are found in colonial times. Continued inequalities mean that much of the
critique raised by postcolonial feminism of those who claim to speak for 'third world
women' remains pertinent. The homogonisation of third world women, paternalistic
attitudes and notions of Southern women as oppressed by an essentialised 'culture'
continue to haunt development and humanitarian work (Narayan, 1995; Mohanty,
2003; Dogra, 2011; Wilson, 2011).
The current political moment, we argue, makes the need to critically consider the
Girl Effect discourse particularly evident. The Girl Effect's continued ascent into
public and policy prominence occurs against the backdrop of a global crisis of neo
liberalism that threatens to call into question the role of international institutions
such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank and the
economic policies they espouse (Chorev and Babb, 2009). In addition, the Girl
Effect emerged post-9/11, following the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Its
continued prominence is maintained as Western forces discuss their impending
withdrawal from Afghanistan (Traynor, 2012) and amid fears that any gains for
girls and women will be undone by the Taliban. The social transformations occurring
in the Middle East following the events of the 'Arab Spring' have also highlighted
the complex dynamics linking gender, religion and the relationship between the
Global North and South. Thus, the global shifts currently under way strongly
suggest that the discourse of the Girl Effect will become a focal point in the
relationship between the Global North and South in the years ahead.
The paper is organised around four themes and divided into corresponding sections.
First, we will examine the 'turn to girls' in policy and popular discourses,
highlighting the Girl Effect's contrasting constructions of girls in the Global North
or South as, respectively, empowered, postfeminist subjects and downtrodden
victims of patriarchal values. Second, we will discuss the depiction of girls in
developing countries as entrepreneurial 'subjects in waiting', in which extreme
poverty is regarded as having the potential to stimulate entrepreneurial capacities. If
this is how girls 'mean business' in the Global South, it will be juxtaposed with
Ofra Koffman and Rosalind Gill feminist review 205 2013 85
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 discussion of the iconic role played by successful global female entrepreneurs
involved in sponsoring the Girl Effect, whose stories are repeatedly mobilised in
promoting the initiative. In the third section of the paper, entitled 'i matter, and so
does she' we discuss the Girl Effect's address to North American young women and its
very particular form of 'commodity feminism' (Goldman, 1992). The feminist forms of
identification promoted will be examined, looking at how they erase difference and
power and questioning whether the Girl Effect is about global sisterhood and/or
cultural imperialism. The fourth section of the paper examines the Girl Effect as a
biopolitical strategy that makes an explicit link between 'empowerment', fertility
and the economic well-being of individuals and nations. It documents the way in
which a Northern-centric policy concern with 'teenage motherhood' is imposed
upon developing countries in a manner that occludes discussion of very different
situations and contexts. Finally, the conclusion pulls together the threads of the
argument, bringing a postcolonial feminist analysis to bear upon the Girl Effect
as a discursive object. We discuss its selective uptake of feminism and how it
yokes discourses of girl power, individualism, entrepreneurial subjectivity and
consumerism together with rhetorics of 'revolution' in a way that—perhaps
paradoxically—renders invisible the inequalities, uneven power relations and
structural features of neo-liberal capitalism that produce the very global injustices
that the Girl Effect purports to challenge.

the turn to girls and the 'girl-powering' of

development
The notion of the 'Girl Effect' was coined by the Nike Foundation in the mid-2000s,
and it is hard to exaggerate the impact it has had on development discourse and
policy. Within a few years, the majority of the key global players in the field
of health and development have signed up to this agenda. In 2007 the United
Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Development Fund for Women
(UNIFEM) and WHO established the UN Interagency Task Force on adolescent girls.4
4 UNESCO (2011) 'Gender
equality theme,
In 2008 the World Bank founded its Adolescent Girls Initiative, aimed atadolescent
improvinggirls webpage',
h ttp ://un esco.org/new/
girls and young women's economic opportunities. By 2009 girls' role in develop
en/unesco/themes/
ment was being discussed at Davos, and in 2010 the UK's Department for
gen der-equali ty/the mes/
adolescent-girls, last
International Development (DfID) launched 'Girl Hub', a collaboration with the
accessed 5 August 2013.
Nike Foundation whose declared aim is to scale up the implementation5 World
of the Girl
Bank (2008)
'Adolescent
Effect policy (independent Commission for Aid Impact, 2012).6 In October 2012, girl
theinitiative
launch', Press release,
first UN-designated International Day of the Girl Child was marked amid extensive
http://www. web
. worldbank. org/WBSITE/
public endorsement by NGOs and governmental bodies. This process EXTERNAL/NEWS/O,
constitutes a
'girl-powering' of development, the latest in a succession of 'waves'content
of develop
MDK-.21935449
ment policy that have included Women in Development (WID), pagePK:34370~
Women and
piPK:34424~
Development (WAD) and Gender and Development (GAD). This 'girl-powering',
theSitePK:4607,00
however, does not replace policy preoccupation with gender, but instead represents

86 fe minist review 10S 2013 'the revolution will be led by a 12-year-old girl'

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.html, last accessed 30
August 2011.
6 Girl Hub, the
collaboration between
DfID and Nike, has been
one in which DfID provided
the majority of financial
contribution (£12.8 million
while Nike contributed
£2.8). This fact as well as
inadequate regulatory and
implementation processes
came under criticism in a
report by the Independent
Commission for Aid
Impact
7 UNICEF, WHO and
UNFPA (2003)
'Adolescents: profiles in
empowerment', http://
www.unicef.org/
adolescence/files/
adolescent_profiles_eng
.pdf, last accessed
30 August 2011.
a prominent theme within it. To a certain extent the current focus on girls is
linked to long-standing concerns about the human rights of the girl child
(Burman, 1995; Bunting, 2005; Switzer, 2010). Attention to adolescent girls has
also been increasing within the work of the United Nations since the late 1990s7
(Croll, 2006). Nevertheless, it is only in recent years that these earlier themes have
come to constitute a broader policy 'turn' and to achieve a high level of public
prominence.
One of the things that makes the Girl Effect different from previous initiatives is its
explicit borrowing and mobilisation of discourses of 'girl power' that have been
circulating in the West (and now increasingly elsewhere) over the last two decades.
As has been well documented by gender and youth scholars, in the late twentieth
and early twenty-first centuries, girls have become increasingly visible in con
temporary popular culture and in governmental literature. Girls are depicted as
educationally successful, economically independent, and in control of their sexu
ality and their reproductive capacities (Walkerdine, Lucey and Melody, 2001;
Dricoll, 2002; Aapola, Gonick and Harris, 2005; McRobbie, 2007; Ringrose, 2007).
Notions of choice, agency, independence and empowerment have gained promi
nence in discussions of girlhood, and this is sometimes contrasted with construc
tions of young men, particularly in those media discourses that paint masculinity
as 'in crisis', young women have become 'luminous' (McRobbie, 2009), they are
depicted as 'can do girls' (Harris, 2004), and middle-class girls in particular are
often presented as the ideal subjects of neo-liberalism: hardworking, entrepre
neurial authors of their own 'choice biographies'.
However, alongside this depiction of girls as empowered and successful, another
significant construction has been the representation of girls as vulnerable. Harris
(2004) analyses the way in which discussions of girlhood are structured by
movement between discourses of 'can do' girls and 'at risk' girls. To some extent
these discourses might be said to map onto different girls—that is, girls who are
differently located in relation to class and race—but more than this an oscillation
between these constructions of girls constitutes the discursive field for talking
about all girls. Even the most privileged, the 'top girls' (McRobbie, 2007) who
succeed in becoming high-earning celebrities in the worlds of TV, fashion or pop
music, are often constructed as fragile and troubled, marked by struggles with
weight and eating disorders, alcoholism or drug addiction (see McRobbie (2009) for
a discussion of how these postfeminist disorders might be understood as 'illegible
rage'). Girlhood is thus an unstable category, marked both by 'trouble' and risk,
and by the suggestion of extraordinary capacity.
The promotion of the Girl Effect is striking for the way in which it draws on both
these discourses of girlhood, but with a particular, novel inflection. While girls in
the US are portrayed as active, empowered free agents, girls in the Global South
are depicted as inhabiting a patriarchal order, where their freedoms—such as
Ofra Koffman and Rosalind Gill feminist review 105 2013 87
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 the right to vote, and to own or inherit property—are constrained. In a familiar
neo-imperialist move, Girl Effect campaigns suggest that the barrier to girls is
constituted by 'cultural' beliefs and practices—such as the failure by families in
developing countries to view girls as future economic actors and therefore to
89
invest in their education. ' Girls, it is argued, are kept away from the public sphere 8 Levine, R., Lloyd, C.B.
and Grown, C. (2009) 'Girls
by the burden of domestic chores. They are often required by their families to be count: a global investment
"the water carrier, the wood gatherer and the caretaker of the young, old and I action agenda', http://
www. cgdev. org/content/
sick'.10 The cumulative effects of these practices, it is suggested, mean that girls' publications/detail/
15154, last accessed
life chances are more limited than those of boys. 30 August 2011.

9 Nike Foundation (2009)

It is this gender inequality that the Girl Effect aims to tackle—primarily by 'Girl Effect: your move',
http://www.girleffect.org/
exporting from North to South the very idea of girlhood or feminine adolescence,
media, last accessed 27
in ways that are redolent of the construction of 'childhood' as a cultural category September 2010.

(Aries, 1962; Castaneda, 2002; Burman and Stacey, 2010). At its core the Girl 10 ibid.

Effect seeks to promote in countries of the Global South a notion of female

adolescence as a time free from and prior to marriage and childbearing—to be
spent instead in education. This is captured by one of the initiative's most bold and
powerful claims: the notion that the 'revolution will be led by a 12-year-old
girl'11—a girl who has been 'reached' and 'helped' before 'the ticking clock' has 11 Nike Foundation
12 (n.d.), 'The Girl Effect
seen her married and pregnant and thus can go on to transform her life chances website: The revolution

and those of her community and nation. The Girl Effect website seeks to poster', http://www
.girleffect. org/downloads/
encapsulate this in (yet another) pithy definition: 'Girl Effect, noun. The unique posters/The_Revolution_
Poster.pdf, last accessed
potential of 600 million adolescent girls to end poverty for themselves and the 1 September 2011.
world'.13
12 'The girl effect: the
clock is ticking', http://
www.youtube. com/watch ?
The Giri Effect describes girls in the South as victims of patriarchal culture
v~le8xgFÔJtVg,
(a point we will return to in the conclusion), but it also, as the above quotes last accessed
5 August 2013.
make clear, describes them as subjects of extraordinary potential (Dogra, 2011).
13 Nike Foundation
Indeed, the contrast between girls' powerlessness and their exceptional capacity (2011) 'Girl Effect

is a rhetorical device infusing a range of 'Girl Effect' media outputs. The Nike website', http://www
.girleffect.org,
Foundation's media outputs repeatedly deploy the slogan 'invest in a girl and last accessed
27 September 2010.
she'll do the rest',14 while the UN Foundation purports that '[w]here there's
14 ibid.
a girl, there's a way'.15 Similarly, one of Nike's promotional animation clips
15 UN Foundation
employs an ironic tone (Chouliaraki, 2012) and asserts that the solution to the (2011a) 'Girl Up website',
world's problems is not to be found in 'money', 'science' or 'the government' but in http://www.girlup.org/,
, ■ I, 16 last accessed
a girl'. 30 August 2011.

16 'The girl effect',

It is important to note that this rhetoric is not reserved for the media outputs http://www.youtube. com/
watch?v=WlvmE4_KMNw,
aimed at popular consumption, but can be found throughout the policy and last accessed
5 August 2013.
political interventions too. Indeed, the rhetoric of the Girl Effect is strikingly
different from the usual discursive register of policy documents, characterised by
linguistic styles that are much more familiar from advertising and marketing—bold
claims, hyperbole, rhetorical contrasts, emotional appeals, etc—indicating what
Andrew Wernick (Wernick, 1991) has called the spread of 'promotional culture'

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17 We would argue that throughout the polity.17 For example, normally sober and cautious UN bodies call to
this is particularly and
distinctively a reflection
"Unleash the Power of Girls'18 and claim that deprived adolescent girls are 'the
19
of the pivotal role Nike unexpected solution to many of the world's most pressing problems'. Thus, claims
plays in the initiative, with
its commitment to girls regarding the extraordinary capacity and potency of adolescent girls permeate the
now forming a central part
of its global brand
policy literature. This is not simply the 'girling' of development but its 'girl
image—something that powering', seeking to export the particular fusion of agency, independence,
would merit extensive
further analysis. consumerism and entrepreneurialism that has become the hallmark of Western
18 UN Interagency discourses of girlhood.
Taskforce on Adolescent
Girls (n.d.) 'Girl power and
One aspect of this celebration of girls' potential is that they are portrayed as a
potential' leaflet,
[online], http://www more worthwhile 'investment' than older women. As the World Bank managing
m nicef.org/adolescence/
files/UNJATF_ director phrased it, '[investing in women is smart economics, and investing in
20
Girls^postcardFINAL
girls, catching them upstream, is even smarter economics'. Because of their
.pdf, last accessed
2 February 2012. youth, girls represent a more lucrative opportunity, an investment that, in the
19 UNFPA (2011) economically orientated rhetoric, is likely to yield 'higher returns'. Girls, however,
'Unleashing the power and
potential of adolescent
are also depicted as more vulnerable than older women, for example through the
girls' Press release, emphasis on practices such as child marriage, and therefore in greater need of
2 March, http://www
. unfpa. org/public/cache/ protection. Somewhat paradoxically, girls 'outdo' older women by being both at
offonce/home/news/pid/
greater risk and representing superior productive potential. This conceptualisation
7324;jsessionid=
1C6B7A464ACBAB2
has several implications. It establishes a dichotomous distinction between younger
26818F4498AE587DA, last
accessed 30 August 2011. and older women at the expense of other social divisions that impact on women's
20 World Bank (2009) lives including those relating to class, sexuality and ethnicity. The emphasis on girls
'Adolescent girls in focus
at the World Economic
as being more 'at risk' undermines the recognition of girls and women's shared
Forum', http://www.go vulnerabilities and the need to protect older women from gender discrimination.
.worldbank.org/
QHPUUOPVyO, last
Finally, by highlighting greater utility of investment in girls, this policy narrative
accessed 30 August 2011. could reinforce a shift of resources away from the adult population that
constitutes the majority of women in the developing world.

'girls mean business1

A striking feature of the Girl Effect is the way it creates novel alliances between
large transnational corporations, national development agencies, charities, and
bodies such as the United Nations and the World Bank. As mentioned earlier, the
term 'Girl Effect' was coined by the Nike Foundation, and it can be seen not simply
as a development initiative (and way to channel tax dollars) but also a significant
part of Nike's global branding and corporate strategy—designed to extend its
markets (particularly in Africa) and to rehabilitate a US/European image tarnished
by accusations of sweatshops and other unfair labour practices (Hayhurst, 2011).
Much could be said about this—both the new alliance of development actors and
Nike's distinctive role within this—but here we seek to focus on two other elements

of the Girl Effect discourse: the construction of girls in developing countries as

'entrepreneurial subjects' hindered by an oppressive culture, and the way in which
'success stories' from 'global' female entrepreneurs are mobilised.

Ofra Koffman and Rosalind Gill feminist review 10S 2013 89

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 A key feature of these constructions is the notion that 'girls mean business'—as
the international NGO Plan put it.21 In terms that echo the portrayal of US and 21 Plan (2009) 'Because
I am a girl: the state of
European girls, the Girl Effect describes young women in the Global South as the world's girls 2009; girls
in the global economy',
competent neo-liberal subjects who, while oppressed by their 'culture', have
137, http://www.plan
the capacity, with help, to throw off its shackles and to become suc international.org/about
plan/resources/
cessful entrepreneurs. In the original Girl Effect video, the viewer is asked to publications/campaigns/
imagine a girl in poverty, and then to replace the image of 'hunger', 'HIV' and because-i-am-a-girl
girls-in-the-global
'babies' that it assumes will characterise this with a girl who has been given a loan economy-2009, last
accessed 23 August 2011.
to buy a cow.

She uses the profits from the milk to help her family. Pretty soon the cow becomes a herd. And

she becomes the business owner who brings clean water to the village, which makes men

respect her good sense and invite her to the village council, where she convinces everyone

that all girls are valuable. Soon more girls have a chance and the village is thriving. Healthier

babies, peace, lower HIV, food, education, commerce, sanitation, stability. Which means the

economy of the entire country improves and the whole world is better off." 22 'The girl effect',
http://www.youtube. com/
watch?v=WlvmE4_KMNw,
In this simple narrative, told and retold across multiple iterations of the Girl Effect,
last accessed 5 August
neo-liberalism is portrayed as the liberating force through which patriarchy can be 2013.

defeated. Once they are unleashed, girls' entrepreneurial spirits can instantly
overturn hundreds of years of patriarchy and transform the economic fortunes of
the whole world. Following Cornwall, Harrison and Whitehead's influential notion of
'feminist development fables' (2007), Heather Switzer aptly describes this narrative
as a '(post)feminist development fable'.

Indeed, within the Girl Effect the celebration of neo-liberal entrepreneurialism

is such that even a struggle with extreme poverty can be cast in terms of
empowerment. A Nike Foundation report vividly illustrates this when it claims that
'A girl living in poverty is already an entrepreneur-in-training. To simply survive,
she has already learned to be resourceful. A negotiator. A networker ... [s]he
could be further down the path of economic possibility than she—or anyone
else—realizes'.23 Poverty, it seems, can be celebrated for the entrepreneurial 23 Nike Foundation
(2009) 'Girl effect: your
capacities it stimulates. The structural dimensions of poverty remain unacknow move', 34, http://www
.girleffect.org/media, last
ledged, as does the potential role played by First World institutions such as the
accessed 27 September
IMF in bringing about the poverty with which women (and men) struggle (Mohanty, 2010.

2003; Hartsock, 2006).

As Wilson (2011) has argued, these kinds of constructions are notable for the way
they break with older depictions of 'third world woman' (Mohanty, 1988), often
presented as passive victim. The shift to more 'positive images' of women in the Global
South by international NGOs, donor governments and other development institutions is
partly a response to feminist and anti-racist and anti-imperialist critiques of this
figure, and has led to an almost ubiquitous stress in development materials upon
women's 'agency'. What is at issue, however, as Wilson argues, is the way in which
'agency' becomes linked to a specific modality of neo-liberal entrepreneurialism; the

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24 Plan (2009) 'Because
I am a girl: the state of
the world's girls 2009; girls
in the global economy1,
138, http://www
.plan-international.org/
about-plan/resources/
publications/campaigns/
because-i-am-a-girl
girls-in-the-giobal
economy-2009, last
accessed 23 August 2011.
25 ibid., 145.
26 UN Foundation
(n.d.b) 'Girlafesto',
http://www.girlup.org/
get-involved/girlafesto
.html, last accessed
30 August 2011.
continuities between contemporary racialised representations of women and girls in
the Global South with earlier representations of '"productive and contented" workers
in colonial enterprises' (Wilson, 2011: 316); and the way in which girls and women's
own collective struggles for social transformation are occluded in this focus upon
individual agency/micro-enterprise. In these depictions, girls are "lifted out' of history
and politics to be recast as individual entrepreneurial subjects.
A similar mixture of neo-liberal, entrepreneurial and postfeminist discourse can be
found in the narratives of the 'girls who made business', that is the successful
women who are corporate executives involved in sponsoring or implementing Girl
Effect initiatives, which form the perfect complement to the micro-finance
strategies promoted. These executives include their own personal narratives in the
reports they help fund, and these play a pivotal role in the Girl Effect's impact. They
represent the success stories that 'prove' that entrepreneurialism is the solution to
global injustice, and present a picture of neo-liberal capitalism as a benign and
benevolent force—especially in the hands of women. Furthermore, these high
earning professional women describe their work as being driven by a strong sense of
gender solidarity. For example, Maria Eitel, then the Nike Foundation's president,
writes that '[a]s a woman and a mother, I couldn't help but consider the accident
of geography and imagine my life (and my daughter's) if I had grown up in Addis
instead of Seattle'.24
Similar claims can be found in an opinion piece by Indra K. Nooyi, Chair and chief
executive officer (CEO) of PepsiCo. Nooyi draws attention to the fact that she was
brought up in India and highlights the role her mother played in her future success.
The climb to the top of a large multinational corporation is described as being
enabled by an ambitious and competitive approach cultivated by a mother who did
not herself enjoy similar job opportunities. By highlighting her relationship with her
mother, Nooyi recasts the familiar neo-iiberal story of competition and success as
a narrative of female solidarity and empowerment, a solidarity and empowerment
that is now to be extended to other women in developing countries who are—by
dint of being women—'just like' her. It is an impressive rhetorical accomplishment
when the CEO of a multinational corporation can claim solidarity with the world's
poorest and most dispossessed people. Nooyi reveals that gender solidarity is at
the heart of this when she concludes her account with a pledge to 'keep working
toward a world in which girls...can look to the future with the same sense of
possibility my mother instilled in me'.25
li matter, and so does she'26
One of the key features of the Girl Effect discourse is its address to Northern/
Western publics. A range of high-profile public figures have endorsed these efforts.
These include Sarah Brown and Cherie Blair (wives of former British Prime Ministers
Ofra Koffman and Rosalind Gill feminist review 105 2013 91
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 Gordon Brown and Tony Blair), Mary Robinson (former Irish President) and
Madeleine Albright, the former US secretary of state. To help engage the public in
the 'Girl Effect', the Nike Foundation created several promotional animation films,
which are circulated online. Through the production and dissemination of a range
of media outputs, widespread public support for this campaign is being solicited.

Within the larger appeal to Western publics, a specific discourse is the one that
takes as its target American teenage girls. In 2010, the UN Foundation, launched a
campaign titled 'Girl Up', which aims to ignite a grass-roots social movement
27
among American girls. Girl Up advocates consist of a range of public figures, 27 UN Foundation
(2010a) 'United Nations
mostly women, located at the nexus of celebrity-charity-public life. Queen Rania Foundation launches Girl

of Jordan is one of the advocates, as well as Judy McGrath, the chairperson and C£0 Up', Press release, 30
September, http://www
of MTV networks. Other public figures involved in the campaign are Nickelodeon's . unfoundation. org/press
center/press-releases/
teen star Victoria Justice and Ivanka Tramp, daughter of entrepreneur and reality 2010/united-nations
28
TV personality Donald Trump. foundation-launches
girl-up.html, last
accessed 30 August 2011.
The 'Girl Up' campaign encourages American girls to take on the cause of girls in
28 UN Foundation
the Global South. They are invited to render their support through their activity (2011a) 'Girl Up website',
http://www.girlup.org/,
in social networks, through financial donations and through fundraising. As part
last accessed 30 August
of the campaign, a 'Unite for Girls Tour' was launched with motivational rallies, 2011.

featuring celebrity advocates, taking place in several large American cities

including New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Denver and Washington, DC.29 29 UN Foundation
(n.d.a) 'Girl Up blog: unite
for girls tour', http://www
The 'Girl Up' campaign is a significant part of the range of discourses and .girlup.org/blog/?
sites that form part of the broader 'Girl Effect' discourse. Girl Up events and category=unite-for-girls
tour, last accessed 30
promotional material articulate the relationship between American girls and August 2011.

girls in the Global South, revealing the notion of girlhood and North/
South differences that are being promoted. American teenage girls are
portrayed as 'more educated, socially connected and empowered today than
ever before in history'. The vast discrepancy between American girls and girls 30 UN Foundation
(2010a) 'United Nations
in the Global South is highlighted while evoking a universal notion of girlhood as Foundation launches Girl

the basis for solidarity. The website states, 'With Girl Up, you can join the fight Up', Press release, 30
September, http://www
for every girl's right to be respected, educated, healthy, safe and ready to rule .unfoundation.org/press
center/press-releases/
the future. Just like you'.31 American girls are already 'ready to rule the future' 2010/united-nations

and are now alleged to be in a position to try to ensure that girls in developing foundation-launches
girl-up.html, last
countries enjoy similar privileges. accessed 30 August 2011.

31 UN Foundation
The 'oneness' of girls is evoked repeatedly through Girl Up campaigns, as a way of (2011b) 'Girl Up website:
making an impact',
disavowing the tensions and power differences between girls in the US and girls in http://www.girlup. org/

the Global South. While US girls are hailed as donors, and girls in Africa as learn/making-an-impact
.html, last accessed 30
recipients, the campaign stresses that these are girls 'just like you'. The Girl Up August 2011.

website is suffused with the familiar language of girl power, organised around a
simply expressed pride in being a girl, and being part of a social movement 'for
girls, by girls'. Slogans such as 'I am her, she is me' serve further to reinforce this
view of unproblematic identification and solidarity, while necessarily obscuring

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 discussion of differences, power, history or social transformation. Indeed, these
are further elided by the use of American slang phrases such as 'BFF' with which
accolade US girls are invited to nominate themselves if they believe they have
made an 'extraordinary contribution'. Charitable giving, then, systematically recast
as an act of identity, friendship and girlie solidarity, expressed through consump
tion and display.

The Girl Up website features a 'Girlafesto' that is downloadable as a poster (see

picture). It can be purchased in the form of a bag and a magnetic sticker. A sense of
'cheekiness' and resistance to power runs through this text. The Girlafesto states:

I AM A GIRL, bright, able, outspoken, soft-spoken, serious, spirited, adventurous, curious and

strong ... i am me. i follow, i lead, i learn, i teach, i change my clothes, my hair, my music

and my mind, i have a voice that speaks, ideas to stand on, and a world to step up to. i

matter, and so does she. she may look different and talk different, but she is like me. SHE IS A
32 UN Foundation GIRL. And together, we will rise up.32
(n.d.b) 'Girlafesto',
http://www.gir/up. org/
get-involved/girlafesto
The American girl is interpellated as empowered, 'outspoken' and 'spirited'. This
.html, last accessed 30
August 2011. empowerment manifests itself, among other things, in her freedom to change her
clothes and her hair. The disempowered girl in the developing world cannot do these
things, yet through the solidarity of American girls and their joint 'rising up', she
too will become free (to change her hair!). The Girlafesto, which was put together
with the advice of market researchers, reveals uncanny similarities with many
contemporary postfeminist style adverts aimed at girls, with a defiant tone, an
assertion of individuality and pride in being female (Gill, 2007a). Indeed, it bears
strong resemblances to a lip gloss advert described by Harris. The advert included
several 'tick-box' statements: 'I have a brain, I have lip-gloss, I have a plan, I have
a choice, I can change my mind, I am a girl' (Harris, 2004: 21-22). The discourse
propagated by Girl Up entails references and connotations specific to the US.
However, the tone and character of the Girlafesto, and the Girl Up campaign more
generally, have broader cultural resonances, particularly in the English-speaking
world. They speak to the 'igeneration' (Gill, in press) shaped by postfeminist
culture, immersion in information and communication technologies—particularly
social networking sites—and individualism. The 'rights' being championed are not
social or collective but relate to consumption, personal growth and individual
conduct—including the much-vaunted 'right' to be contradictory (Dobson, 2011).

In line with this, young women are invited to participate in Girl Up through engaging
in the purchase of commodities (Mukherjee and Banet-Weiser, 2012). As the Girl Up
website puts it, 'support Girl Up with style—buy a Girl Up tee or tote and fill your
33 UN Foundation
bag with a water bottle, pen, magnet and stickers!'.33 Girls are then encouraged to
(2010b) 'Girl Up website:
Girl Up store', http://www celebrate these choices by posting pictures of themselves wearing or carrying Girl
.store.girlup. org/defautt
Up products. Social networking sites have been established specifically to display
these examples of stylish consumption and media-savvy girlhood. Girls are told,

Ofra Koffman and Rosalind Gill feminist review 105 2013 93

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 'We...want to see you in your Girl Up gear. So, send us a photo of you wearing your .aspx, last accessed 30
August 2011.
shirt, drinking from your water bottle...or post it on our Facebook page!'.34
34 UN Foundation
(2011c) 'Girl Up website:
gear up with Girl Up',
http://www.girlup. org/
GIRIflFESID
GIRLDFESTO blog/gear-up-with-girl
up.html, last accessed 30
August 2011.

IIM R GIRL
OMR GIRL
bright, able, outspoken, soft-spoken.
soft-spta. serious,
serious,
spirited,
spirited,
adventurous,
adventurous,
curious
curious
andand
strong.
strong.

i am me. i follow,
fallow, i lead, i learn, i teach.
i change my clothes, my hain my music
music and
and my
my mind.
mind,
i have a voice that speaks, ideas to stand
stand on,
on, and
and aa world
world to
to step
step up
up to.
to.

matte n
i mattei I! and so does she.
she may loo k different and talk different.
may lool

but she
she is
is like
like me.
me.

SHE IS
SHE IS fl
fl GIRL.
GIRL
And
And together
together we
wewill
willrise
riseup.
up.
Because
Because while
while we
we are
arestrong,
strong,together
togetherweweare
arestronger
stronger

find
And together
together our
our voices
voiceswill
willchange
changeour
ourworld.
world.

—You
—You see
see aa girl.
girl:
WE SEE
W[ SEETHE
THE FUIURE.
FUTURE.

éUNITE
I iUNITEl

GirlUp.org
girluP'
Reproduced with permission from the United Nations Foundation.

Joining the Girl Up movement is not merely an exercise in altruism. It is also

promoted as identity work that will benefit US girls directly—as well as those girls in

94 fe m i n i St re V i e W 105 2013 'the revolution will be led by a 12-year-old girl'

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35 UN Foundation
(2011d) 'Washington O.C.
unite for girls tour: pep
rally', http://www
.facebook.com/events/
191107120904746/, last
accessed 30 August 2011.
36 New York Times
(2012) 'If Roe v. Wade
goes', editorial,
15 October, http://www
. nytimes. com/2012/10/
16/opinion/if-roe-v
wade-goes.html?
_r-0iadxnni=
l£adxnnlx=
1350756312-HRDlx/
xESbgxkOGHdOtjng, last
accessed 20 October 2012.
37 UN Interagency Task
Force on Adolescent Girls
(2010) 'Accelerating
efforts to advance the
rights of adolescent girls:
a UN joint statement',
http://www. unicef. org/
the Global South it is ostensibly designed to support. Promotional material describes
the campaign as an opportunity for American girls to further their career
opportunities—promising that a Girl Up rally will be 'a globetrotting experience
that will turn you and your friends into global leaders'.35 In this way, participation in
Girl Up seamlessly blends stylish consumption, networking and social media visi
bility, with opportunities to enhance one's CV, while also—almost incidentally—
working to empower girls from the Global South who are 'just like you'.
One of the starkest features of the Girl Up discourse is that while it celebrates
individualism, entrepreneurialism and consumption as markers of American girls'
empowerment, it ignores girls' sexual and reproductive rights. The cultural and
political climate in the US, particularly since the Bush presidency, has been one
that undermines girls and young women's freedom to make decisions regarding
their sexual health. The promotion of abstinence-only sex education and more
recently the resurgence of conservative political attacks on abortion rights reveal a
significant threat to the reproductive rights of American women (Schalet, 2011).36
The discourse promoted by Girl Up disregards this reality, purporting instead that
girls are more empowered than 'ever before in history'. This denial is particularly
glaring considering the centrality of sexual and reproductive rights to the policy
rationale at the heart of the Girl Effect, as we discuss in the next section.
empowerment and fertility
Although expressed through notions of 'empowerment', the Girl Effect discourse has
a very concrete biopolitical objective at its core. Adolescence is described as a
crucial period in the lives of girls and one that has a lasting impact on their future
prospects. The main reason for this is the process of sexual and reproductive
maturation that takes place at this stage. In developing countries, Girl Effect
proponents argue, young women often marry shortly after puberty and begin to
have children while in their teens (Buvinic, Guzman and Lloyd, 2007). This pattern is
portrayed as a key factor reinforcing the intergenerational cycle of poverty. The
young girl who becomes a mother interrupts her education, thereby undermining
her future earnings. Furthermore, as a mother, she will pass on her educational
disadvantage and ill health to her children (ibid.). However, if a girl is empowered,
she will resist this path and a positive chain of events will be set in motion. As the
UN Interagency Taskforce proclaims, empowered girls 'will stay in school, marry
later, delay childbearing, have healthier children, and earn better incomes that will
benefit themselves, their families, communities and nations'.37 Girls' empowerment
is a strategy for improving the health and wealth of their countries (Foucault, 1998;
Macleod, 2002). It is assumed that education will invariably lead girls to choose to
delay childbearing and that this crucial postponement will improve their children's
health.
Ofra Koffman and Rosalind Gill femi niSt review 105 2013 95
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 This narrative brushes aside the immense variation in education, marriage and media/files/UN Joints
Statement_Adolescent_
fertility patterns across different developing countries and promotes a single Girls_FINAL.pdf, last
accessed 30 August 2011.
picture of 'life in the Global South' as plagued by 'child marriage', teenage
motherhood and HIV/AIDS. Rather than acknowledge the historical and structural
dimensions of poverty, emphasis is placed on women's domestic role and their high
fertility. Furthermore, proponents of the Girl Effect assume that the life trajectory
they sketch out is the inevitable choice of every empowered woman. The possibility
that some women may value early motherhood, or indeed a large family, remains
unthinkable.

The concern with 'third world woman's' fertility has a long history, dating back to
colonial concerns with the fecundity of indigenous populations (Dogra, 2011).
Policies that tackle girls and women's fertility have been a central component of
development work from its inception, and this emphasis persisted through the
notable shift from coercive population control to an emphasis on reproductive
rights. The Girl Effect can be seen as confirming the continued preoccupation with
fertility coupled with the current emphasis on empowerment and rights (Connelly,
2008).

However, the Girl Effect narrative is rooted not only in changes occurring in the
Global South but also within the social transformations that occurred in the West

during the second half of the twentieth century. The life trajectory being promoted
in the Girl Effect is a relatively recent invention linked to wide-reaching social and
economic changes occurring in the West over the last five decades, including
increased secularisation and the liberalisation of sexual, gender and familial
norms. These changes saw the decline of the Fordist model of family life
characterised by a male breadwinner, a family wage and full-time mothering
(Fraser, 1994; Waldby and Cooper, 2008). The two-salaried family—based on
women's increased participation in the labour force—has replaced the earlier
model. Economic changes such as the decline of manufacturing and the rise of
service industries have also impacted on the gendered and classed life trajectory.
Many Western countries have seen a decline in birth rates with a large number of
professional women delaying childbirth and having fewer children (Gerodetti and
Mottier, 2009; Thomson, Kehily, Hadfield and Sharpe, 2011). It is within this context
that preventing 'teenage motherhood' became a policy objective, replacing the
earlier policy concern with 'unwed mothers' (Arney and Bergen, 1984; Solinger,
1992; Luker, 1996; Koffman, 2012).

The Girl Effect discourse seems to draw heavily on Western policy literature on
adolescent motherhood. The notion that early motherhood disrupts young women's
educational and professional training and sets them on the path for long-term
poverty and ill health is a key feature of this literature (Social Exclusion Unit,
1999). This claim has come under sustained criticism. Scholars argue that policy
makers' concern with adolescent motherhood is linked to the fact that it is

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 primarily economically disadvantaged young women who bear children in their
teens. Teenage mothers' economic disadvantage, however, precedes the occurrence
of becoming a mother. Deprived young women who opt for motherhood do not fare
any worse than women of similar socioeconomic background who have postponed
childbearing (Lawlor and Shaw, 2002; Duncan, 2007; Arai, 2009). Furthermore,
qualitative research indicates that young women's experience of becoming mothers
is a positive one that is often described as motivating and empowering (Barn
and Mantovani, 2007; Arai, 2009; Rudoe and Thomson, 2009; Duncan, Edwards
and Alexander, 2010). In this context, it is unsurprising that the UK government's
efforts to curb teenage motherhood were unsuccessful despite a considerable
38
38 Department for amount of resources and effort.
Education (2011) 'Teenage
conception statistics for
England 1998-2009', The Girl Effect 'exports' a well-trodden policy narrative that despite decades of
http://www.media
.education.gov.uk/assets/
implementation failed to yield the result policy makers wished for. Having failed to
files/pdf/e/england% make Western young women of disadvantaged backgrounds adopt the proposed life
20under%201S%20and%
20under%2016% trajectory, this narrative has now been directed at girls in developing countries.
20conceptiori%>
20statistics%201998
Taking into account the historical and cultural specificity of this policy agenda
2009%20feb%2020U.pdf, raises significant questions regarding its implementation in vastly different cultural
last accessed
1 September 2011.
and social contexts. This includes, of course, the variation between different
nations and localities within the Global South (Mohanty, 1988, 2003). Rather than
recognise and engage with cultural differences in their multiplicity and complexity,
the Girl Effect proposes that girls in the South need to simply emulate privileged
Western women.

conclusion

In this paper we have discussed the Girl Effect as it materialises in

policy discourses and changed investment priorities for national and
development institutions, and as a distinct form of address to publics
Europe whose support is sought. The Girl Effect, we have sugges
consolidates a number of ongoing shifts that include the neo-libe
development, the growing role of corporate players such as the Nike
the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and, above all, the uptake of po
ideas to create what we have called 'the girl-powering of developm
emphasis on girl power can be seen to operate in constructions of th
'aid', in the kinds of projects supported, and, crucially, in the mod
directed towards governments and potential donors in the Global N
together, these construct 'girl power' as a new 'globalised' commons
new hegemony in development practice.

There is much (more) that could be said about the Girl Effect. As alre
significant role played by corporate bodies is profound. The place
culture and the role of social media are also very important d

Ofra Koffman and Rosalind Gill feminist review 105

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 Furthermore, the shift in the very language of development policy, and the uptake
of rhetorics from marketing and branding, deserves considerably more analysis
than has been possible here. In concluding, however, we wish to highlight a number
of points concerned with the specific issues raised by the girl-powering of
development.

What we have sought to argue is that the Girl Effect literature is suffused with
discourses of girl power, postfeminism and neo-liberalism that have been
circulating in the West for at least two decades. The policy strategies that are
being 'exported' to the Global South are therefore imbued with, and profoundly
shaped by, culturally specific understandings and values. The Girl Effect also
entails an address to girls and women in the West, reinforcing postfeminist notions
of Western women as free from any form of gender discrimination or bias. What is
novel about this address is the way in which the postfeminist characteristic of
evoking feminism and repudiating it at the same time (McRobbie, 2004) is
articulated: in this case the mixture is mapped onto a split between the North
and the South. First World girls are invited to endorse feminism but only in relation
to the South. They themselves are seen as being the most empowered, socially
connected and educated girls in history. The need for social change in gender
relations is entirely displaced onto the less fortunate 'sisters' in the South. This is
of course problematic in the colonial relation of rescue fantasy that it sets up in
relation to the South, but it also does significant performative work in the North. In
emphasising the postfeminist idea that 'all the battles have been won' (for
privileged women in the Global North) it further underscores the move to indivi
dualistic discourses that disavow structural or systemic accounts of inequality.

This is connected to the very specific use of feminist ideas in the Girl Effect
campaign. As others have argued in relation to microfinance and other develop
ment interventions, the feminism invoked is individualistic, cut off from collective
struggles or historical understandings, and tied to postfeminist, neo-liberal and
entrepreneurial ideas (Rankin, 2001; Bee, 2011; Wilson, 2011). Furthermore,
capitalist pursuit of profit is described as being wholly compatible with feminist
activism. Women CEOs, such as PepsiCo's Nooyi, can therefore safely claim that
they are seeking to increase their company's profit and help their sisters at the
same time.

In this context, women in the Global South are constructed as ideal neo-liberal
subjects, more 'responsible' than their male counterparts and more 'worthy' of
investment in a way that therefore—as many have argued—reproduces classed
and colonial ideas about the deserving or undeserving poor: girls are the
'unexpected solution' to 'the world's problems' as the Girl Effect would have it,
because they will buy a cow, not alcohol or cigarettes.

In addition, the Girl Effect can be seen as feeding into the 'Othering' of the Global
South, a process that is particularly dangerous in the present political climate. As

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is well documented, the post-9/11 era saw Western societies becoming increasingly
preoccupied with Muslim women and this became the pretext for xenophobic
political mobilisations against Muslim minorities in the West (Scott, 2007;
Bhattacharyya, 2008, 2011) as well as the invasion of Afghanistan (Abu-Lughod,
2002; Hirschkind and Mahmood, 2002). Within public discourse, gender equality
gained salience as a marker distinguishing the (civilised) North from the oppressive
cultures of the South (Razack, 2004; Lewis, 2006; Gill, 2007b; Pedwell, 2010;
Scharff, 2011), a trope that has deep historical roots dating back to colonial times
(Ahmed, 1992; Abu-Lughod, 2002; Fanon, 2004 [I960]). The Girl Effect reinforces
these discourses by depicting the Global South as a homogenous sphere plagued by
patriarchy and 'harmful cultural practices'. Furthermore, Northern and Southern
girls are positioned differently in relation to their 'culture'. While Western girls are
depicted as empowered agents who have culture, girls in the Global South are
(subjected to) 'culture' (Lowe and Lloyd, 1997).

Finally, we want to draw critical attention to the constructed relation of solidarity

that underpins the Girl Effect. As we have seen, the Girl Effect relies for its force on
a repeatedly asserted claim about identification and solidarity between women. It
is on this basis of shared womanhood that one of the richest company directors in
the world can claim common cause with the most hungry or oppressed. While
development practices have taken on board—at least at face value—the critiques
of those who challenged depictions of the 'third world woman', it appears that
similar anti-racist and anti-colonialist critiques of an easy or straightforward
universal solidarity or sisterhood have not been heard. While solidarity among
women may be a laudable aspiration, decades of discussion within feminism about
differences between women (related to sexual orientation, race, geography,
disability, etc.) give the lie to the simple assertion that 'I am her, she is me'. To
challenge the realities of global world order marked by profound injustice, a more
complex politics is required.

acknowledgements
The research on which this paper is based was funded by the Leverhulme Trust. We
would also like to thank Kalpana Wilson, the two anonymous reviewers and the
editors for their helpful comments and suggestions.

authors1 biographies
Dr Ofra Koffman is Leverhulme Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department for Culture
Media and Creative Industries at King's College London.

Professor Rosalind Gill is Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis in the

Department for Culture Media and Creative Industries at King's College London.

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