Page 158 - Decoding Culture

G E N D ERED SUBJECTS, W O M E N ' S TEXTS 151

contribution to have such a remarkable effect. To understand
what happened to the CCCS-mediated version of post-structural­
ism, however, we will need to cast our net more widely. We can
usefully begin this task by looking at aspects of the thinking of one
feminist scholar, Angela McRobbie, who worked initially within
the CCCS and whose changing concerns reflect the larger move­
ment of feminist-influenced cultural studies. McRobbie has not
been as influential as Mulvey, but she has followed a path that we
can take to typify more general theoretical and methodological
trends.
Let us begin with her essay 'Working class girls and the culture
of femininity' in the CCCS W o men's Studies Group volume, W o men
T a ke Issue, which catches well the intellectual tenor of the times
(McRobbie, 1978) . The essay is based on her CCCS MA thesis of
the same title, in which she explored various aspects of the lifestyle
and culture of a group of teenage girls who were members of a
local youth club. In many respects this work falls firmly within the
prevailing tradition of CCCS subculture studies (see Hall and
Jefferson, 1976) , using a range of methods - participant observa­
tion, interviews, diaries, questionnaires, etc. - to assemble a body
of data about the girls' distinctive culture. McRobbie draws on the
class aspects of CCCS subculture theory, concerning herself with
the 'interpellation' of the girls as class subjects and asking 'how do
the effects of this positioning find expression at the level of a devel­
oping class identity?' (McRobbie, 1978: 100) . Aspects of her
argument are akin to that advanced by Willis (1977) in one of the
best known CCCS ethnographic studies, in as much as, like Willis'
'lads', these girls are victims of their own anti-school culture: 'it is
their own culture which itself is the most effective agent of social
control for girls' (McRobbie, 1978: 104).
For all its family resemblance to the prevailing CCCS subculture
tradition, however, McRobbie's analysis is also strongly inflected

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