Girls Claiming Discursive Space within the Dominant Discourse on Gender Performativity: A Case Study from a Compulsory School in Iceland

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article investigates how four teenage girls claim discursive space in a compulsory school in Iceland where the dominant discourse sustains traditional gender performances and (cis)heteronormativity. It also examines how the dominant discourse positions the girls and how they resist such positioning and position themselves. The analysis draws on an ethnographic study conducted in a compulsory school, consisting of observations in various spaces therein and interviews with 13–16-year-old students. The findings suggest that Iceland’s reputation as a gender-equality utopia, with a progressive, cutting-edge curriculum, has not fundamentally changed students’ or teachers’ day-to-day realities or lived experiences. That discrepancy manifested in hegemonic ideas in the discourse on gender performativity, which is deeply rooted and reinforced through ((cis)hetero) normative gender performances. The few female students who tried to find cracks in the (cis)heteronormative discourse in order to claim discursive space for alternative gender performances were positioned as being difficult, wilful subjects—as feminist killjoys—for in addressing those cracks they dared to disturb the dominant discourse on legitimate femininity.