[But that´s how it should be…] : A qualitative study of six young women's relationship to femininity                                                                                          

The aim of this study was to try to identify what young women see as typically female and how this affects them as individuals, focusing on the female body. How free or limited do they consider themselves to respond to prevailing ideals of beauty, to men and other women. Our questions are how young women construct femininity through the body and why? We do this by using a holistic gender perspective and with the help of key theoretical concepts; gender, normative femininity, heteronormativity, performance, freedom/power and the female body,. We have had a qualitative approach and we have done interviews with six girls in secondary school age. The material is processed and analyzed on the basis of the IPA model, which aims to build themes from the interviews. The themes we have stressed in the study are: Female with large F, To find balance, I want to be unique... (but in the right way), Get a good boyfriend and learn to socialize with girls, To be something for everyone and desire after impossibility and the road ahead. By letting our informant´s voices be made visible in our analysis, we have been able to answer the question of how they experience their own construction of femininity. What becomes visible in the analysis is the great knowledge and awareness which are among the girls on this subject. This shows the complexity that exists around young women today. More conclusions that can be drawn is that whichever way the woman construct her femininity gives different degrees of social status. Lack of freedom is not about the limited possibilities for action it is rather the impact the effectiveness of the choices made and the awareness of those who provide the experience of not being free.