Past and Future in Young Women's Experience of Time

Abstract

Women's experience of time is marked by the multiple, interdependent, non-hierarchical times involved in the construction of female identity. This is, in fact, characterized by the overlapping of public and private times and by the mingling of cyclical and linear times. The specificity of this experience is clearly visible in the particular modalities of self-reflection with regard to the biographical past and also in the difficulties that accompany the female process of choice. On the basis of the findings of a 10-year research study of a qualitative nature on young people's (male and female) experience of time, this article aims to open a discussion concerning some theoretical and methodological problems relating to the way in which young women represent the past and the future.