From the “macho” entrepreneur to the “angel of the office”. The oppression of female bodies by patriarchy and neoliberal feminism

Abstract

As the history of women’s work has shown, capitalism and the law of the market in times of crisis exploit women’s work to their advantage, as a “safety valve”. However, in the recent global economic crisis, women no longer have this role, due to their influential position in the labor market. This time, women’s contribution to work appears more dynamically, through the rise of neoliberal feminism, a “liberatory” feminism that claimed to empower women to be entrepreneurial. Specifically, by appealing to white, middle-class, privileged women, neoliberal feminism urges women to “lean in”, do whatever it takes to increase their grain, and try to “have it all”, career and family. Through my ethnographic example in subsidiary companies of a multinational in direct sales and marketing in Thessaloniki, this paper aims to highlight how patriarchy, neoliberal and corporate feminism oppress, discipline, and consciously transform female bodies. This will be achieved through the comparison and analysis of two different job positions, that of women entrepreneurs (“owners”) and secretaries (“admins”).