'I've been pondering whether you can be a part-feminist': Young Australian Women's Studies students discuss gender

This article explores a qualitative, year long study of young, first-time Women's Studies students at a large metropolitan university in Australia. These students came from a wide range of different ethnic backgrounds and from low socio-economic groups. In particular, the article focuses on the students' changing perceptions of the meaning(s) of gender in their personal lives, in their communities and in Australian society at large. It looks at the discourses employed by the young women to articulate, and negotiate, their perceptions of 'equality', 'freedom' and lastly, their relationship to feminism itself.