What makes a woman a woman? Exploring the gender identities of young female Estonians with higher education
Date
2019
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Tartu Ülikool
Abstract
To gain a better understanding of how women conceptualize gender and situate
themselves in a changing society, the research conducted 12 semi-structured interviews
with highly educated young Estonian women aged between 24-35. The interviews were
conducted from February to March 2018 in Tartu, Estonia. Participants were recruited
through snowball sampling on an entirely voluntary basis. The research inquires into the
ways the informants define themselves in terms of gender and the social significance of
the elements utilized to construct their gender identities. The results were categorized
thematically and analyzed with Discourse Analysis (DA).
The study finds that femininity at the individual level is conceptualized, experienced
and related to one’s social life very differently. First of all, how “woman” is defined and
how one understands the relationship between biological sex, gender and gender
identity are already sites of struggle. Secondly, the boundary between women’s
essential nature and socially constructed femininities is fuzzy. It is very difficult to
claim anything other than female physiology essentially feminine since what makes a
woman a woman differs from person to person. Lastly, the perceived importance of
each elements of femininity to the participants’ overall self-identifications and their
social life varies, which is highly contingent on the socialization processes that the
informants have undergone.
The empirical research illustrates the diverse conceptualizations of femininity and
individual struggles to get rid of traditional gender roles while preserving a sense of
belonging to her assigned gender group or her sex category, contributing to existing
literature with an in-depth understanding of how gender as a social identity is negotiated
at the individual level when different strands of thoughts coexist in society. Yet the
research only focuses on highly educated young females perspectives. How other
groups of women conceptualize and practice femininity may be interests to future
research.