Imagining gendered adulthood

In this article, the authors draw on two qualitative, longitudinal studies of young people's transitions to adulthood and how they construct these transitions over time in social, cultural and material terms. The authors focus on the hopes, anxieties and imagined futures of young women. They di...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The European journal of women's studies 2005-02, Vol.12 (1), p.83-103
Main Authors: Gordon, Tuula, Holland, Janet, Lahelma, Elina, Thomson, Rachel
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adulthood
Finland
Gender roles
Rites of passage
Young women
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Summary:In this article, the authors draw on two qualitative, longitudinal studies of young people's transitions to adulthood and how they construct these transitions over time in social, cultural and material terms. The authors focus on the hopes, anxieties and imagined futures of young women. They discuss the individualization thesis, and the contradiction for female individualization between expectations of equality and the reality of inequality between the genders. The debate is moved beyond 'pitiful girls' and 'can-do girls' by exploring how young women in the UK and Finland anticipate and try to avoid being locked into the lives of adult women. (Original abstract)
ISSN:1350-5068
1461-7420
DOI:10.1177/1350506805048857