Speaking themselves into existence

The purpose of this critical feminist poststructural study was to understand the sociocultural and political influences that contribute to the construction of sexuality in several young Saskatchewan women. This study attempted to increase the understanding of how peers, family, and the media contribute to the ways in which young women simultaneously construct their subjectivities and their sexualities. Techniques of narrative inquiry as well as Foucauldian discourse analysis (FDA) were used to analyze 10 interviews to understand the discourses that construct gender and sexuality. The findings show that young women are bombarded with hypersexualized images and conflicting messages from peers, media and family. The social, cultural, and political discourses that are available to young women result in discourses in which young women construct their sexuality in response to the heteronormativity of the male gaze. The young women in this study had difficulty articulating a definition of sexuality and even more difficulty describing their own sexuality.