Equal but Different: contradictions in the development of gender identity in the 1990s

Abstract

At the present time, youngsters develop gender identities in a context in which contradictory discourses exist on femininity and masculinity. They have to accommodate both the fact that gender is an important structuring category in society and the fact that many people currently consider gender inequality to be undesirable. This article argues that an understanding of the ambivalences in current discourses on gender provides the key to the development of more effective feminist strategies in education. This tenet is illustrated by means of interpreting the data of two studies on recent curricular experiments—one on women's history and one on information and computer literacy—in which girls and boys in secondary education talked and wrote about their views on gender equality/inequality and the meaning thereof in their personal lives.