Producing and Policing Elite Bodies in an Independent Girls’ School

Abstract This study is situated in an independent UK girls’ school using data from focus group interviews with Year 9 girls. Taking Judith Butler's view on gender, I discuss how white, elite femininity is performed, rehearsed, and reproduced on the schoolgirl body through uniform regulation. Elite femininity is not a stable attribute that is secured by class position but is a fragile construct that requires relentless maintenance. Beginning with Beverley Skeggs's notion of respectability, I argue that middle-class girls also have to labor to regulate and maintain respectability through the strict policing of the school skirt. Ultimately, I suggest that elite status does not free individuals from regulation but, rather, intensifies it, producing the simultaneous but contradictory forces of privilege and precarity.