It contends that the Guide literature and programs reflected and contributed to a conservatively modern ideal of imperial and international
girlhood by combining an older emphasis on maternalism and domesticity with a focus on bravery, independence, and female masculinity, and promoted a friendly familial idea of international and imperial relations influenced by older ideas about race and class-based hierarchies, while also allowing some girls to adapt and use the movement for their own ends, which were sometimes subversive.
Many feminists have denounced the pinkification of
girlhood.
Critique: The vignettes of
Girlhood in America: Personal Stories 1910-2010 offer vivid snapshots of young
girlhood across the decades.
Several prominent recent titles attest to strong scholarly preoccupation with this topic: Katie Knowles' Shakespeare's Boys: A Cultural History (Palgrave, 2014); Jennifer Higginbotham's The
Girlhood of Shakespeare's Sisters: Gender, Transgression, Adolescence (Edinburgh, 2013); Shakespeare and Childhood (eds.
Several of the cultural studies contributors propose new directions for
girlhood research and/or exhibit welcome sensitivity to how research is currently conducted.
Critique: An original, authentic, engaging, exceptionally well written and thoroughly entertaining novel, Norma Elia Cantu's "Canicula: Snapshots of a
Girlhood en la Frontera" is very highly recommended for both community and academic library Literary Fiction collections.
In wearing a soldier's armour, La Pucelle recalls the origins of 'girl' as a term for both female and male children (23)- 'La Pucelle's identification as a "girl" through her acts of resistance', explains Williams, 'highlights the enabling variety of possibilities and associations attendant upon
girlhood in the early modern period' (24).
Making Modern Girls is a history of
girlhood and the fascinating contestations that played out in colonial Lagos over the meanings of childhood more generally.
While joining other authors of Yoruba women's history such as Helen Callaway, Judith Byfield and Marjorie McIntosh, this book's uniqueness lies in its core focus on girls--or, more accurately, the perception and construction of
girlhood in colonial Lagos.
Of interest to both investigations are the actual lived experiences of black girls, not just constructions of their
girlhood.
Part coming-of-age drama and part exploration of the minority experience - Marieme and her besties are all black -
Girlhood is a small triumph.
The colour of the bus comes from the One Nation colour scheme - see Ed's speech at last conference - and it would have been patronising and defeatist to avoid it because it has been stolen by the toy industry as a badge of
girlhood.
