This project explored young women’s identity constructions in the context of competing and changing cultural ideals of womanhood, such as feminist discourses and neoliberal discourses of choice and individualism. Specifically, we were interested in how young women attending university in the new millennium envisioned their futures. Thirty women, aged 18–26, who were university students taking courses in Psychology, participated in 15 research conversations with two participants and an interviewer. Using discourse analysis, we show how the young women routinely privileged the ideal of women as wives and mothers, yet positioned themselves as autonomous individuals making free choices and, thereby, personally responsible for managing the problems in their lives. They also ignored gender politics by avoiding or glossing over talk about women’s inequality and criticisms of traditional family and workplace arrangements.
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