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Growing Up Tween: Femininity, Masculinity, And Coming Of Age, Victoria Velding

Wayne State University Dissertations

The construction and performance of gender reveal conceptions of femininity and masculinity that are exclusive to individuals and groups of individuals. As research suggests, societal gender norms are rooted in heteronormative ideologies suggesting that heterosexuality is ideal, and therefore to appropriately perform dominant femininity and masculinity is to perform heterosexuality. In this dissertation, I expand gender and sexuality knowledge by bridging the two in a population where sexuality studies are sparse: children, and more specifically, tweens. I conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 tweens (10 female and 10 male) between the ages of 8 and 12 and 15 mothers of tweens. …