Young women have taken up new subject positions in a historical period when the
subject of modernity has been declared dead.Subject positions have been far from selfevident
either in the cultural context, or in the young women themselves, a fact that
may, paradoxically, have helped them produce modern reflexive subjectivities with
greater ease. It has been more necessary for contemporary girls than for boys to ask
who they are and who they want to become. By gradually changing the norms for how
gender, body or sexuality can be represented in public space,by reframing sexuality and
morality in public as well as private, young women over the last three generations have
simultaneously carved spaces for new subjectivities for women that are not reducible
to gender.Thus, the ?work of culture? has also been a ?work of subjectivity?.General claims
of what the processes of modernization entail need specification, not only in relation to
gender and other particular identities, but also in relation to societal contexts and to
lived life. The new subjectivities are contextualized as ?made in Scandinavia? as well as
discussed in an ethical perspective as a new form for ?relational individualism?. |