Hästtjejer : formationer av genus och klass i stallet

The purpose of this essay is to examine formations of gender and class of so called horse girls in a riding school located in Stockholm, Sweden. The essay is based on interviews with six girls in the ages between fifthteen and eighteen. Through the theoretical framework of Judith Butler and Beverley Skeggs, I examine how the girls negotiate the boundaries and probabilities within doing gender in an upper and middleclass associated area. As a result of its female domination, the stable functions as a place where the girls can dislocate themselves from otherwise normative feminine practises. This is possible since the premises of the stable are constructed in the light of the heterosexual matrix, where the girls organise themselves within the heterosexual girl collective. Class is a contributing factor in the negotiation of gender, in the sense that the economic capital that the girls possess enables their time spent in the stable, and forms particular ideas on how femininity should be performed, whether or not the girls realizes such ideals inside and outside of the riding school