DECODING FEMININITY - ADVERTISEMENTS AND THEIR TEENAGE READERS

The author explores how the discursive practices of social texts relat e to the subjectivities of readers. Employing Dorothy Smith's notion o f femininity a textually mediated discourse, the author analyzes how t eenage girls read the depictions of femininity in the glossy advertise ments of fashion magazines. Through interviews with 48 girls aged 13 t o 17 years, she explores both why and how young girls negotiate ''what it means to be a woman.'' Most young girls in her study draw on stere otypical meanings of adult femininity. By giving these stereotypes tru th status, these readers valorize not only patriarchal meanings of wom anhood bur also naturalize associations between femininity and the com modities through which this femininity is expressed as the everyday do ing of gender. The author concludes by discussing implications of this study for both a feminist theory and a feminist politics of culture.