Graham Lauren
a Centre for Social Development in Africa , University of Johannesburg , Johannesburg , South Africa.
Cult Health Sex. 2016;18(3):265-79. doi: 10.1080/13691058.2015.1084376. Epub 2015 Sep 28.
In studies of sexual risk behaviour among youth, the role of dominant conceptions of masculinity and femininity has received increasing attention. However, where research has sought to explore femininity, it has predominantly focused on adolescent girls. This paper departs from previous research by offering insights into how young women negotiate their femininity as they transition from adolescence to adulthood and encounter changing social contexts. Drawing on data from ethnographic enquiry, it argues that as young women transition out of school and into emerging adulthood, their options for negotiating different types of femininity become constrained, with consequences for engagement in sexual risk behaviours. This may to some extent explain why in some South African contexts older young women are more vulnerable to HIV infection than adolescent girls. The paper offer insights into future prospects for youth development programming seeking to reduce young women's vulnerability to risk.
在针对青少年性风险行为的研究中，男性气质和女性气质的主流观念所起的作用受到了越来越多的关注。然而，在探索女性气质的研究中，主要关注的是青春期女孩。本文与以往研究不同，探讨了年轻女性在从青春期过渡到成年期并面对不断变化的社会环境时，是如何协调其女性气质的。基于人种志调查数据，本文认为，随着年轻女性从学校毕业进入成年初期，她们协调不同类型女性气质的选择受到限制，这对她们参与性风险行为产生了影响。这在一定程度上或许可以解释，为何在南非的一些情况下，年龄稍大的年轻女性比青春期女孩更容易感染艾滋病毒。本文还为旨在降低年轻女性风险易感性的青少年发展规划的未来前景提供了见解。
