Girls Like This, Boys Like That ─ The Reproduction of Gender in Contemporary Youth Cultures

What role does taste play in contemporary youth culture? How do young people reproduce, or alternatively, reject gender norms? Using new research and the work of renowned theorists such as Judith Butler and Pierre Bourdieu, Victoria Cann argues that popular culture affects young people’s experiences of masculinity and femininity and forces them to navigate a social minefield in which they are pressured to display tastes deemed appropriate for their gender. Combining her own unique empirical research with a strong theoretical framework, Cann widens and links the fields of gender and taste studies to show the everyday reality of twenty-first-century youth and their apprehensions – especially those of young boys- about participating in activities, or embracing pop-cultural preferences that have traditionally only been associated with the opposite sex.

Victoria Cann is a Lecturer in Humanities at the University of East Anglia. Her research is concerned with the processes through which identity is reproduced, and feminist politics more broadly. Victoria has published on the topic of gendered audiences, identity politics and the politics of representation. She teaches courses in Media and Cultural Politics and she undertakes a range of feminist engagement work in the community.