A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal
Complexities of Care in the Political Aspirations of Finnish Girls
Authors: Suni, Anna; Åberg, Erica; Mietola, Reetta
Publisher: Routledge
Publication year: 2025
Journal: NORA Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research
Journal name in source: NORA - Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research
ISSN: 0803-8740
eISSN: 1502-394X
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/08038740.2025.2522227
Web address : https://doi.org/10.1080/08038740.2025.2522227
Self-archived copy’s web address: https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/499341660
This article explores aspirations concerning future and political participation of Finnish adolescent girls. We analyse data produced in 2018 by 856 girls aged 13–20 in response to a questionnaire. We ask (1) what futures do the girls see as possible and desirable for themselves and (2) what kind of political agency is constructed in the girls’ accounts? While our interest in political participation has steered our analysis, the thematic analysis led us to focus on the changing and sustaining possibilities available for the girls and especially the process by which these girls are becoming (political) agents within the plurality of discourses defining contemporary femininities. Drawing on feminist literature on girls’ agency, girl power and care our analysis highlights the complexities of care entangled in the political agency, actions and (gendered) societal expectations visible in the girls’ responses. We develop the concept of triple burden to describe the contradictory terrain where the emancipated strong and active girls are imagining their future.
Downloadable publication This is an electronic reprint of the original article. |
Funding information in the publication:
This work was supported by the Strategic Research Council [336548, 336551]