Abstract

This article uses two concepts—trying on gender and local gender regime—to examine adolescent gendering processes for 26 girls from two northeastern communities. Based on a four-year study, the author found that the process of becoming a woman is much more provisional than previously thought. Adolescent girls resist, experiment, and practice gender in a trying-on process; gender, race, and class structures in the communities mutually reinforce particular kinds of femininities. This article describes the gender regime of each community and examines how the gender regimes differentially shape the process of trying on gender as these girls make the transition to womanhood.