Risky pleasures? to what extent are the boundaries of contemporary understandings of (in)appropriate femininities shaped by young women’s negotiation of risk within the night time economy?

This snapshot will offer a summary of my current research project on how the boundaries of appropriate femininities might be policed and managed through women’s everyday practices within the Night Time Economy (NTE) in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, North East England. Through focus groups and semi-structured interviews with young women, my research will explore the embodied practices of alcohol consumption, presentation of the body and patterns of use of the NTE, facilitating a greater understanding of the extent to which notions of risk and respectability might continue (or otherwise) to regulate young women’s behaviour, and providing an insight into how particular classed and sexualised (in)appropriately feminine identities are conceptualised and performed.