05 CONFIDENCE IS A CULT
JUNE 2023
24 page zine which has been bound using saddle stitch. Paper used is grey sugar paper 135gsm.
A zine created to explore the toxicity of confidence culture. The main focus was to highlight how the trend ignores inequalities in social structures that prevents women and marginalised groups of people to reach their full potential.
“It’s like a cult in the way that it’s been placed beyond debate: Who could be against confidence? Nobody could possibly argue against it because it’s so taken for granted. I think it’s good to be suspicious of the things that get placed in that space where they can’t be interrogated at all. It was also just a culture in the way that it saturated right across society — it was disseminated so, so widely. We were encountering exactly the same messages, literally word for word, in our respective areas of research. The women I spoke to describe it as something that isn’t tangible: When you ask them, “Where did you get these expectations that you should be the confident mother and the full-time worker who’s assertive?” they say, “It’s everywhere.” It becomes so unquestioned that it’s being internalized into the most intimate sphere, whereby women, often very painfully, judge themselves according to this unattainable expectation.” - Rosalind Gill & Shani Orgad
“It’s like a cult in the way that it’s been placed beyond debate: Who could be against confidence? Nobody could possibly argue against it because it’s so taken for granted. I think it’s good to be suspicious of the things that get placed in that space where they can’t be interrogated at all. It was also just a culture in the way that it saturated right across society — it was disseminated so, so widely. We were encountering exactly the same messages, literally word for word, in our respective areas of research. The women I spoke to describe it as something that isn’t tangible: When you ask them, “Where did you get these expectations that you should be the confident mother and the full-time worker who’s assertive?” they say, “It’s everywhere.” It becomes so unquestioned that it’s being internalized into the most intimate sphere, whereby women, often very painfully, judge themselves according to this unattainable expectation.” - Rosalind Gill & Shani Orgad