IV International Congress of Belorussian Studies with our collegue Nadya Nartova.

Recently (3-5 of October), in Kaunas the 4th Congress of Belarusian Studies been held. It was transferred to Lithuania from the outset for political reasons, and since then developed in Kaunas. Our colleague, Nadia Nartova for second time went there with a report on the new project, which she oversees the CYS - "Age at work: construction of age by girls and young women". Nadia appeared in the 15th section of the Congress - "Gender Rules: discourses, policies and practices" in the panel 15.3 - Body and Sexuality: between biopolitics and discipline.

At the congress many other issues were discussed, such as gender policy in Ukraine, Russia and, of course, Belarus. Much emphasis was placed on the conservative turn in the family gender policy. There were reports on research on local gender practices, such as about creating a special type of wedding events through their representation in the wedding video. - Says Nadia – Speaking of my report, I talked about part of our study, which examined a group of girls aged 15 to 20 years. The key notion of my thesis was that growing up becomes the target value and that the current age period informants described as a more mature, conscious, "real", and in relation to current situation all prior periods in their lives were labeled as "frivolous", dependent  and less important. Growing up, for the girls under study, is strongly linked with the end of body changes and with the acquisition of physical competences, such as the practice of body care, use of cosmetics, access to new types of clothing and footwear (heels, etc). Finding bodily competences for young girls is the process of literal experiments, trials, skills develop for further work with the body. They are, de facto, try a lot of things for the very first time (creams, cosmetics, solarium, peeling, etc.), evaluate them, and choose suiting options. Such physical development, of course, is greatly influenced by cosmetic production market and services. It not only offers a wide range of products, but also became available for teenagers. The target age of the modern consumer of makeup and body care cosmetics is rapidly declining. Even the school culture is actively supports cosmetic / cosmetology "cure" of the body. For example, on 14 year old informant said in the interview: "Yesterday was the first of September and i had to be brighter somehow... I had a red lipstick and red nails – it fits". The use of makeup, hair coloring, eyebrow plucking, waxing, wearing heels - the normal practice in the girls' communities. Moreover, it almost do not meet resistance from the adults. Teachers only restrict excessive make-up, the rest is quite legitimately on school grounds. The third point, and probably one of the most important, is that the maturation allows them to enter into heterosexuality as a normative frame of reference. In many ways, it is through the work on their bodies young women claim their cultural adult status, allowing them to think of themselves and act within the framework of heterosexuality as the space of proper adults.