Girlhood

Building on the work of emerging scholarship on the girl group era of the 1950s and 1960s, this paper further illuminates the extent to which the girl groups challenged dominant discourses and hegemonic ideas of girlhood. By analyzing girl group songs which were both commercially popular and relatively obscure this paper reveals the incredible diversity within a genre that has sometimes been homogenized. Moreover, the paper highlights instances, both on record and in history, where girl group performers demonstrated resistance to the concept of the idealized girl. Feminist rhetoric, transgendered fantasies, same-sex relationships, inter-racial and inter-class romance, leftist and pacifist protest, murder, physical abuse, consensual pre-marital sex, teenage pregnancy, and date-rape were all subjects which were addressed in lyrics. And though girl group performers rarely wrote their own material, instances where these types of lyrics were present featured a disproportionate number of female songwriters and self-written material by group members.

"The ‘girl subject’ and ‘young femininity’ are repeatedly and with great effect being made increasingly visible as a particular social, cultural and psychical problematic in late capitalist societies (Driscoll, 2002). The last two decades have witnessed a burgeoning and interdisciplinary field of critical girlhood studies that have rapidly taken up this contested site of young femininity (e.g. Walkerdine, 1991; Hey, 1997; Walkerdine et al., 2001; Gonick, 2003; Aapola et al., 2004; Harris, 2004; Mitchell
and Reid-Walsh, 2005; Jiwani et al., 2006; Nayak and Kehily, 2007; Duits, 2008;Currie et al., 2009; Kearney, 2011; Hains, 2012; Ringrose, 2013). As a sociopolitical project, the figure of the contemporary girl is over-determined, weighted down with meaning and commonly represented through binary formations of celebratory postfeminist ‘girl power’ vs. crisis discourses of ‘girls at risk’ (Aapola et al., 2004; Gonick et al., 2009). One of the primary ‘luminosities’ (Deleuze in McRobbie, 2008) surrounding girls as both bearers of power and objects of risk centres on girls’ relationship to sexuality and entry into sexual womanhood. In this special issue, we bring together a series of articles that explore a veritable explosion of interest, debate and controversy over what is referred to as the (premature or hyper) ‘sexualisation of the (girl) child’.
One of our aims in this introduction is to invite readers to think about what the collection of articles and shorter ‘interchange’ pieces do together as a type of assemblage, where each article intra-acts with the other to create new potentials for thinking
about girls and sexuality. Each author explores in different ways how the figure of the ‘girl’ connects with culturally specific contexts across a range of topics and practices. The girl travels across the articles in multi-modal ways (as digital, as affect,
as animation, as biology, as brand, as policy discourse) and through different theoretical, disciplinary and political lenses. What follows is our own particular, partial tracing of the girl and her affective address across this engaging range of articles."

Bratz dolls, popular among pre-adolescent girls, have been the subject of widespread criticism. Many scholars, activists, educators, and parents have argued that the scantily clad fashion dolls contribute to the sexualization of girls that has been decried by the American Psychological Association, among others. As is often the case in studies of girls’ popular culture, however, these conversations about the problems with Bratz have rarely incorporated the voices of girls in the brand’s target audience. To address this gap, this article analyzes an afternoon of Bratz doll play by a small group of African-American girls, aged between 8 and 10 years. Th is article suggests that although critical concerns about Bratz’ sexualization are warranted, the dolls’ racial diversity may benefi t some girls’ play, enabling them to productively negotiate complex issues of racial identity, racism, and history while paying little attention to the dolls’ sexualized traits.

While researchers and concerned adults alike draw attention to relational aggression among girls, how this aggression is associated with girls' agency remains a matter of debate. In this paper we explore relational aggression among girls designated by their peers as 'popular' in order to understand how social power constructs girls' agency as aggression. We locate this power, hence girls' agency, in contradictory messages about girlhood that, although ever-present 'in girls heads,' are typically absent in adult panic about girls' aggression. Within peer culture, power comes from the ability to invoke the unspoken 'rules' that police the boundaries of acceptable femininity. We thus challenge the notion advanced by Pipher and others that girls' empowerment entails (re)gain-ing an 'authentic voice.' In contrast, we suggest that such projects must be informed by an interrogation of how girls are positioned as speaking subjects.

This chapter seeks to interrogate normative notions of at-risk girlhood and violence, offering a roadmap for a broader terminology and reconceptualization of gender in girlhood studies. I argue that studying the knowledge produced by girl-driven activist organizations enables activist-scholars to rethink what constitutes girlhood from a perspective critical of how criminalized, homeless and street-involved, and incarcerated girls and gender non-conforming youth have been disciplined, managed, corrected, and punished as prisoners, patients, mothers, and victims of multiple, interconnected forms of violence through imprisonment, medicalization, and secure care. By showcasing case studies of anti-violence and abolitionist activism that contest sexual violence, colonial state control, and carceral state violence undertaken by girls whose identities stretch far beyond normative gender and racial binaries, I aim to frame a transnational discussion of girls' community activism within and against exclusionary notions of what constitutes girlhood and girls' social justice activism.

Disney animated princesses are broadcasted around the world through Disney Channel and its global affiliates, as well as through numerous other networks that purchase distribution rights.  In an attempt to provide diversity Disney in the last 25 years has featured non-western princesses -- such as Aladdin (1992), Pocahontas (1995), Mulan (1998), and Moana (2016). This study examines how princess in animated Disney movies are perceived and understood by girls (8-15 years) in three different countries, over two time-periods with a gap of nearly a decade (2009 & 2018).
The primary research question, considering Disney’s global reach, is how race, culture, presence of a royal family interact with transnational access to the same media content, in the perception of princess concept and about being a girl.  The selected countries provide an opportunity to explore differences in perception of Disney princesses between girls raised in country with and without a royal family, and between girls in non-western and western countries. Differences in the perception are attributed to local and national cultures that allow a different lens to view the same content.  A mixed method combining interviews, focus groups and participant generated images was used to gather data in India, Fiji and Sweden.  Results indicate Disney princesses, with their ubiquitous presence in various formats, e.g. media content, costumes and school stationery have created a uniform idea of beauty across countries.  Princesses in Disney were perceived by participants as being caucasian and American, regardless of the race or country they represented. Girls in India and Fiji did not identify with Jasmine or Mulan, who they considered ‘American’, whereas girls in Sweden considered Jasmine and Mulan as princesses of non-western origin.  Girls in India and Fiji did not think they could be princesses because of their skin color, and did not want to lead a life ‘restricted with responsibilities’, but girls in Sweden considered the same question from the place of a choice, i.e. they preferred not to lead a ‘boring’ and regulated life like that of a princess.  Participants from Fiji, with the least access to domestic programming that shows girls of Fijian origin were least likely to consider themselves capable of being a princess.

Memory and storytelling can provide valuable tools for media scholars aiming to better understand popular media audiences from a historical perspective. Girls’ stories are particularly important because they have been absent from most official recorded history and archived documents. In this study, we
interview 30 U.S. women born 1918–1948 in order to uncover their girlhood experiences with mid-20th Century media. Their narratives reveal 1) a shared experience of radio listening; 2) an emphasis on the ‘‘experience’’ of using media artifacts rather than on the content; and 3) the appeal of music and dance as a girlhood pastimes.

Haul videos are a unique vlogging format that is based on showing and reviewing a so called ‘haul’, which consists the outcome of shopping sessions. Haul vloggers are micro- and ordinary celebrities that have a large fan base, especially among female teens.

He  comisariado el ciclo de cine Gandules 17 'Rebeldes y peligrosas'  para el Centro de Cultura Contemporánea de Barcelona. Entre los días 8 a 24 de agosto se han proyectado las películas 'No soy un ángel' (Wesley Ruggles, 1933)  'Johnny Guitar' (Nicholas Ray, 1954), 'La gran ciudad' (Mahanagar) Satyajit Ray, 1963), 'Instinto Básico' (Paul Verhoeven, 1992), 'Mommy'  (Xavier Dolan, 2014), 'Girlhood '(Bande de filles) (Céline Sciamma , 2014), 'La calle de la vergüenza' (Akasen Chitai) (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1956), 'La novia vestía de negro' (François Truffaut ,1968) y 'Nacidas para sufrir' (Miguel Albaladejo, 2009).
Una programación que tiene como eje la rebeldía y la peligrosidad, personajes femeninos que dinamitan los mandatos de género y sobre todo no asumen el rol de víctimas. Aquí tenéis la presentación al Ciclo así como las críticas de las películas.
Toda la info en: http://www.cccb.org/es/marco/ficha/gandules17-gas-natural-fenosa/226829

Sonam Doomtso (b. 1987) describes her lived experiences and recollections encompassing the first twenty years of her life. These include living on the grassland in Sichuan Province, experiences with relatives and neighbors; attending schools; moving to Lhasa; religious fasting; pilgrimage; encounters with marmot hunters; attending school in Xining City; and the death of her beloved grandfather.

The female child protagonist has always been a major figure in the work of several Jamaican female fiction writers. More recently, however, Jamaican female writers from across the diaspora have begun to reveal a new kind of poetics through the presentation of their female child protagonist and the situations they encounter. This paper will explore the use of an emerging post-diasporic poetics in the work of Jamaican Children’s Literature author Diane Browne, which introduces fluid female identities constructed through the realities of globalisation and post-diasporic conditions. The female child protagonist represents a newly emerging female sensibility and consciousness, which enables readers to access both girlhood and womanhood through realities and perspectives tied to the migrant experience across different periods of time. Each protagonist portrays a self which exists beyond boundaries and outside of the dictates of the social ideals framing femaleness and the female migrant experience, embedded for so long in the Jamaican culture. Browne challenges both traditional and to some extent postmodern models of womanhood and female identity, through the way each of her female child protagonists are portrayed as they move through a post-diasporic process of navigation of both self and space in Browne’s texts.

Nineteenth-century girlhood was imagined as a decisive period of liminality: distinct from both childhood and adulthood, it shaped the womanhood that followed it. Shipboard diaries written by emigrants engage with a similar period of transformation. Discussing three diaries written by girls en route from Scotland and Ireland to New Zealand, this essay explores how the liminality of girlhood and the liminality of the emigrant voyage are intertwined. While narrating a spatial and temporal transition, the three texts also negotiate a transformation in the concept of girlhood: the notion of the ideal colonial girl as brave, resourceful and hardworking developed traditional British expectations of women as responsible for the domestic sphere and as upholders of morals. Whereas two of the diarists stress qualities such as bravery, a sense of adventure, and good health, the third diarists focuses on a more traditional concept of girls as pure and virtuous. The texts’ adherence to and departures from the genre conventions of shipboard diaries emphasise the liminality of the journey, mirroring the transformative potential of new notions of girlhood.

The aftermath of the #MeToo campaign saw a myriad interrogations of sexuality and the way women perceive sex and intimacy. But, especially 'bad sex' became a wide topic of conversation in the press. This paper charts changes in media conversation over what constitutes 'bad sex' and consent over the course of the #MeToo campaign by looking at humorous portrayals of young women's painful sexual experiences in popular TV shows. This paper will begin by a brief review of Judith Butler's theory of sex and intercourse as social constructs and will then move onto interrogate some populist and journalistic writings lashing back at #MeToo, citing biological differences and male needs. This will open a conversation over sexual education and views that bypass 'relative deprivation', a theory by which 'disenfranchised groups, having been trained to expect little, tend paradoxically to report the same levels of satisfaction as their better-treated, more privileged peers' (Loofbourow, 2018). In practice this means, that men's account of 'bad sex' often includes erectile problems or a lack of orgasm, while women's accounts of the same term: 'bad sex', include much worse; coercion and physical pain.
This discourse will be built on primary examples from popular TV shows. In these there is a recurring theme where young women engage in sexual intercourse, and while the settings are humorous and invite the viewer to laugh, it makes it equally clear that the woman engaging in sex is suffering physical pain as a result.
In this paper I would like to argue, that 'relative deprivation' has been backdrop upon which male pleasure has been constructed regardless of its contribution to women's physical pain, what will be interesting to see is how these will be negotiated in popular media now in the aftermath of the #MeToo campaign.