A field study on young-age discrimination against women

Being a well-acknowledged and highly defined issue, "age discrimination" is mostly addressed within the scope of ageing studies. This dissertation, on the other hand, deals with age discrimination against women in the context of young age, arriving at a new concept with the term "young-age discrimination" that I have coined. It bases on the hypothesis that the claims of ageing are not only directed against the elderly, but also against the young. The constant and frequent appearance of age sensitivity suggests that this phenomenon goes beyond aging and its roots reach down to deeper issues, pointing to the comprehensiveness of the discrimination we are exposed to. Secondly, in this research, apart from being a problem that clearly concerns everyone, "young-age discrimination" is discussed in terms of women alone, considering that it affects women more directly. Hence, the research question: "How a group of young women at the ages of 30-54 experience this distinct form of discrimination" has been investigated in the regarding fields: "intimate relationships", "reproduction", "biological processes", "school&work" and "identity" where oppression is presumed to be subjected to women the most. The study, resting upon feminist paradigm, aims to discuss the issue by revealing the connections between young-age discrimination patriarchy, gender practices and power relations. For the analysis of the data, it drew on theories of biopolitics, governmentality, social construction, symbolic capital, stigma, interpellation and intersectionality; insomuch as, this discriminatory and population-directed phenomenon could not be separated from the contexts of power relations and social construction. Regarding the chapters, after defining the scope and method of the research, I secondly discuss young-age discrimination in the axis of gender and other theories. In the third chapter, highlighting the quotations from the in-depth interviews and analyzing the data, I explain the ways through which I proposed the conceptualization of young-age discrimination and demonstrate the dimentions of discrimination. According to this data, in the fourth chapter, I synthesize and discuss the concepts and themes emerged from the in-depth interviews defining young-age discrimination with its dynamics and apparatuses. Finally, in the conclusion part, after conducting my general evaluation, I revisit the individuals' right to be happy in terms of restrictions of freedom in their private life, and I propose solutions on how to break the domination and liberate the age-wise oppressed, based on feminist theory principles, such as queer and care ethics. Keywords: young-age discrimination, age in intimate relationships, age in reproduction, age in school and workplace, biopolitics, governmentality, symbolic capital