This paper focuses on the cross-sectional application of the gender perspective in a hermeneutic phenomenological (HP) research, centered on the political participation of young women. Specifically, the selection of the sample will be explained.

Gender Perspective in the Research

Biglia and Verges (2016) establish a series of criteria and questions that help to reflect on the application of the gender perspective in the three stages of a research, and regarding the choice of the sample they point out "Have the differences between women and men as research subjects been considered? Are we taking for granted the equivalence between sex and gender? How has the sample been defined?" (pp. 21-22, our translation). In our research, the high degree of awareness of the existence of these differences has led us to select a sample of 18–35-year-olds who are or feel themselves to be women. In this sense, we embrace the advances in feminist phenomenology (FP), which assumes that the so-called "identity categories" (race, sex, sexual orientation, etc.) reveal that structures that appear to be universal (such as, for example, the perception of space and time) are not so (Ahmed, 2007; O'Byrne, 2020). On the other hand, according to Sans Martín (2015), we assume that women are the subject of phenomenological verification when talking about them/us. In this sense, our research team in this part of the study is formed, exclusively, by women.

Feminist Phenomenology

At first, the study sample was raised without analytical taking into account the gender category, as we understood that phenomenology aspires to find the essence of participation and that as such it gender-neutral, since the phenomenological approach seems to advocate for the essences of the phenomenon being studied (Ayala- Carabajo, 2017). That is, the study sample included both men and women.

Delving into the subject and under the prism of a FP, we sought to elucidate whether the gender category and other identity categories such as race and class should occupy an important place or whether, on the contrary, above them is a universality that flattens these identities.

Under the prism of hermeneutic phenomenology (HP) we can aspire to find structures of meaning that are above ethnicity, class, and gender. However, from the FP it is considered that these three categories cannot be omitted (Sáenz, 2014). In fact, what it does is to introduce into this thinking and method these three realities.

The HP aims to uncover the structures of meaning of the phenomenon of study by implicitly or explicitly assuming the universal human. For FP both mind and body are part of individual and collective historicity, a historicity that shapes that mind and body.

Identity categories structure lived experience. Therefore, there are no structures of meaning that are not mediated by the manifestations of each person in his or her relationship with the world, a relationship in which sexual difference (having the experience of a man-boy or woman-girl body) acquires an importance defined by that body embodied in a specific way. The body mediates the relationship with the world from the first moment.

This communication is part of a Research & Development project on the experiences of political participation (its social and educational dimension) -taking into account the gender perspective- of young people between 18 and 35 years old who participate in participatory actions/processes. The research follows the method proposed from the AHP (applied hermeneutic phenomenology) (Ayala-Carabajo, 2017; Wilson, 2012; Van Manen, 2003), and is part of the second phase of research. Its objectives are: General objective of the research: To give an account of the lived experience in political participation of women aged 18 to 35. Specific objectives of the research: 1. To describe the pre-reflexive lived experience in political participation of women from 18 to 35 years old. 2. To reflect on the pre-reflexive lived experience in political participation of women from 18 to 35 years old. 3. To show the meaning structures of the lived experience in political participation of women aged 18 to 35. Specifically, this communication explains the selection process of the study sample under the FP approach. This is a cross-cutting objective that has accompanied the entire research process: to reflect on the application of the HP from a gender perspective. In order to respond to this objective, we have used and analyzed the epistemological diaries of the researchers. Participants in the study: Women aged 18 to 35 who had significant experiences of political participation. We chose intensity sampling as suitable for this case. Approach: Applied Hermeneutic Phenomenology. The ultimate objective of HP is to gain access to the meaning structures of lived experience by appropriating them, clarifying them, and reflectively making them explicit (Van Manen, 2003, pp.320). An essential step in our study was the selection of the sample. Based on this, in this paper we reflect on the choice of the participants of the study, starting from the contributions of the FP and the HP. The FP contributes with issues of gender, sexual difference, and race, it also contributes knowledge in relation to the approach of body-mind dualism, universalism, and biological determinism (Sáenz, 2014). Biological determinism refers to the fact that the body determines the identity and behavior of human beings; in this sense, it introduces historicization, explaining that both nature and the body must consider that there is a history through which this mind and body unfold. Empirical methods: Stories and interviews. Analytical methods: Thematic analysis.

In the present communication two issues are raised in relation to the application of the gender perspective in the study of the sample. On the one hand, in a more general way and thanks to the contributions of Barbara and Vergés (2016) concomitant with the research process, it is resolved that we understand the experience of women as relevant and different from that of men and therefore, with the need to be investigated in a particular way. Secondly, and starting from what has been said about FP: participation may vary from one group to another, from one human being to another and be different for boys and girls. Patriarchal regulation makes a girl participate differently than a boy, in other words, the rules, forms and participatory processes differ between boys and girls, as has been demonstrated in empirical research. Research has also shown that ethnicity and vulnerable groups enter a different participatory logic. Aspiring to find a structure of meaning regardless of gender or ethnicity is a bias in HP. The answer to both questions led us to formulate the following research question: What is the lived experience of political participation as a young woman? and to select only young women.

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