Young Girls and Feminine Values (Research on High School Students in Tehran)

Constructionists as a critical school argue gender identity is a social construct. Accoridng to this perspective femininity is something beyond the mere essential characteristics of womanhood and females. This study focuses on the variety of gender identities among female high school student’s girls and insists that the plurality in values reveals the importance of gender and its use in the study of women and girls arguing that femininity is a key concept in such studies. Using survey methodology with a sample of high school female students in Tehran the gender identity of girls and their attitudes towards feminine values in relation to their socio-economic status were studied. The findings reveal the diversity of feminine identities among the sample and also reveal some discrepancies in the perception of feminine values. According to the results girls with a higher socioeconomic status show a lower degree of commitment to feminine values, while girls from lower statuses show a higher commitment to them. Although other findings reveal no meaningful relationship between socio-economic status and gender identity and there are similar distribution of the following gender identity, feminine, masculine, bi-gender and androgynous amongst both higher and lower socio-economic groups.