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This article explores how textual analysis can help us understand subjectivity as an empirical, rather than purely theoretical, phenomenon. The texts discussed here are advice columns in adolescent magazines; the analysis takes as its starting point girls' accounts of magazine reading. Drawing on focus group discussions and interviews with 48 girls between the ages of 13 and 17 years, I explore how the accomplishment of 'individuality'– as a culturally and historically-specific task of adolescence – is mediated by advice texts. Because my analysis directs us to the existence of embodied subjects, I employ the notion of 'Subject-ivity'. As a concept, 'Subject-ivity' reminds the analyst of the presence of an embodied, rather than theoretically constructed Self, brought into existence as a practical mode of consciousness. It thus provides a potential bridge between the sociological world of social subjects and highly theoretical work on subjectivity.

La promotion de la méthodologie comme une fin en soi a fourvoyé le féminisme dans une voie sans issue. Ainsi, Stanley et Wise (1983) soutiennent que la conscience féministe est 'une façon de conduire la recherche féministe,' qui se doit de rejeter ľorientation masculiniste aux structures. Selon elles, la recherche féministe ne peut ni ne doit 'dépasser' le domaine de ľexpérience personnelle. A partir de ma recherche en cours, sur la prise de décisions dans le domaine de la reproduction, je sugge au contraire qu'il est nécessaire de transcender les univers personnels des femmes. A ce titre, on pourra mieux comprendre les débats entre le 'scientisme masculin' et les méthodologies féministes du personnel, dans la perspective logico‐déductive du test de théories établies au préalable, plutôt que dans celle de la découverte de théories de facçn inductive. Le débat ainsi posé, nos choix doivent se justifier selon des critères pratiques, plutôt que de rectitude politique.This paper examines the current impasse which feminism has created by promoting methodology as an end in itself. Stanley and Wise (1983), in particular, argue that feminist consciousness is a 'way of doing feminist research' which must reject a masculinist structure‐orientation. Challenging their claim that feminist research cannot and should not 'go beyond' the realm of personal experience, the author discusses her current research on reproductive decision‐making which highlights the necessity of transcending the strictly personal worlds of women. The author argues that debates about 'masculine scientific' versus 'feminist personal' methodologies are better understood in the context of testing established theory through logio‐deductive research as opposed to the discovery of grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967) through an inductive approach. From this perspective, debates concern the practical rather than the political correctness of our choices.

Against the trend of increasing divorce rates and the acceptability of alternatives to established family formations, Canadians continue to marry and to remarry. Given the apparent success of feminism over the past few decades and a rise in consciousness about gender equality, researchers are perplexed over the persistence of traditional family practices. This paper explores one component of these practices: the traditional white wedding. Through interviews with a small nonrandom sample of 13 brides and grooms, Currie explores why traditional wedding ceremonies remain popular, and examines the role which they play in reproducing patriarchal marital relations. In this study she contrasts the symbolism of getting married to the practice of wedding planning. In doing so, she highlights weddings as primarily women's work, occurring through consumption. Explaining how weddings assume this specific form, the author explores the importance of mass culture, perpetuated in part by bridal magazines. Ironically, although weddings entail up to a year of planning and preparatory work, the transient nature of celebrations helps to make weddings appealing. As one day of indulgence, weddings did not require participants to feel that they were compromising their expectations for egalitarian marital relations, despite the fact the work of making the work of making weddings happen was based on an unequal division of labour.