Unveiling the girl boss sexual contract: A multimodal discourse analysis of female influencers in the UK, Sweden and Slovenia

This article examines the self-representations of three female lifestyle influencers from three different empirical settings – the United Kingdom, Sweden and Slovenia – who are each in their own context referred to as a ‘girl boss’. Drawing on multimodal discourse analysis, we examine what ideas and practices constitute a girl boss. Our analysis shows that, despite different geographies and socioeconomic backgrounds, influencers’ self-representations are made up of the same themes that together constitute the girl boss as an ideal feminine subject of the current moment. Drawing on the work of Angela McRobbie, we extend sociological and feminist accounts of postfeminism by arguing that, with neoliberalism entering its maturity stage, the girl boss is a new sexual contract offered to women through four modalities of prescriptive feminine agency: girl boss masquerade, boss babe, power couples and woke girl. We also demonstrate the homogenizing tendencies of Internet culture and how the girl boss ideal is easily transposed from the West to the rest.