Absences that matter : constructions of sexuality in studies of young women_s friendships

C. Griffin

This article reviews recent research on young women_s friendship groups in western societies, arguing that much of this work has relatively little to say about the sexual and erotic dimension of such relationships and the construction of young women_s sexualities. Research on young women_s lives often overlooks the possibility of same-sex female desire, and also lesbian (or bisexual) existence, thereby assuming that young women are always already heterosexual by default. The article ends by arguing that feminist youth research could engage more fully with debates on the social, psychological and cultural processes involved in the construction of female sexualities, whether lesbian, bisexual, heterosexual or queer. _Adolescence_ is a crucial moment in which young women (and men) must be _won_ for the (heterosexual) patriarchal system, so these debates have important political implications for feminism.