Women, Worker, Young: Youth in the Life Stories of Women Workers

Women experience different facets of patriarchy and capitalism at various stages of their lives, at varying ages and in various historical periods. At different ages, they encounter different forms of domination and create different spaces for themselves. This article aims to rethink the social meaning of age with a focus on the experience of womanhood and labor, focusing on the youth narratives of 25 women workers whose life stories I listened to. As much as, or even more than knowing how the concrete reality of being a worker, a woman and a young person is produced and reproduced by power, it is also about how subjects encounter this reality in many areas of social life, how they bend and twist its meanings, and how they grow in their capacity for agency. This study deals with relations with the home, the different meanings of earning money, female friendships and dating.