| Summary: | This thesis explores how young women negotiate femininity in their everyday
lives. My research is based upon a theoretical analysis of current literature on femininity,
and is informed by a group interview. The main areas of emphasis within the literature
focus on the problematic of how women 'do' and explore the potential agency that
women enact in the construction of their identities. My analysis of these ideas gave rise
to three themes that depict the different, but often overlapping, theoretical positions on
femininity. Firstly, that women are disciplined to be feminine, secondly, that women
enact agency in the development of their identities, and thirdly, women negotiate their
ever-changing identities in relation to social as well as individual pressures and
circumstances. Through exploring and critiquing these themes I suggest that negotiation,
as an approach, enables femininity to be theorized as a cultural discourse that shapes and
disciplines women, as well as a conscious, negotiated embodiment. Furthermore, the
findings from the group interview demonstrate the importance of bringing women's lived
experience into the centre of analyses of identity and agency, by providing insight into
how femininity is negotiated.
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