Sex and Sensibility: Gender, Race, and Class in Three Youth Cultures

• Main Author: Wilkins, Amy C
• Language: ENG
• Published: ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst 2004
• Subjects: Social structure|Womens studies|Religion|Cultural anthropology
• Online Access: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI3160123

This study combines interviews and participant-observation to explore the negotiation of gender, race, and class in three youth cultural projects: Puerto Rican Wannabes, Goths, and evangelical Christians. While these projects seem very different, they are all examples of local identities mobilized to solve a range of shared problems. These strategies, beyond the personal and idiosyncratic, are all about gender, race, and class locations. They allow young people to navigate gender, race, and class expectations by manipulating or transgressing established gender, race, and class boundaries. Despite variations in these strategies, each project is hemmed in by the intractability of inequality. Thus, these projects show us the possibilities and limitations of intersectionality as it is experienced on the ground.