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Exploring and negotiating femininity

Young women's creation of style in a Swedish Internet community

Media & Communication, Karlstad University, Sweden email: malin.sveningsson{at}kau.se

Previous studies have pointed at the girls' room's importance for girls' identity work. Instead of working with identities in the street, as the boys, girls have instead mainly sought their free places in the home. It is in the girls' room that girls have gathered together to engage in identity work, such as experimenting with style. The ‘Internet generation’ is not different in this respect. The difference is rather that where it used to be done primarily in the girls' room at home, or in fitting rooms of clothes' shops, the act of experimenting with styles is now increasingly also found online. The aim of this article is to look at how teenage girls use their production of style in their identity work in the Swedish Internet community, Lunarstorm. Results show how girls use their experimentation with style in a way that lets them explore and negotiate the conflicting ideals of femininity. The mediation does not seem to change what aspects of femininity are displayed. However, it does change the conditions on which femininity is explored and negotiated.

Key Words: Internet community • youth • gender identity • style • femininity

Young, Vol. 17, No. 3, 241-264 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/110330880901700302


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