beginning of our collaboration we sought to create and expand the possibilities of scholarship by and on Indigenous girls. In our call for papers we said that we were interested in work that takes a strengths-based approach to thinking about the lives of
Search Results
Speaking Our Truths, Building Our Strengths
Shaping Indigenous Girlhood Studies
Kirsten Lindquist, Kari-dawn Wuttunee, and Sarah Flicker
“Like Alice, I was Brave”
The Girl in the Text in Olemaun’s Residential School Narratives
Roxanne Harde
’s persistent colonial ideology that sees these girls as exploitable and dispensable, but she also sees the ways in which they resist. As she notes, the lived history of these girls “is also characterized by an intergenerational strength that is too often
Brigette Krieg
have a traditional understanding of women in society. The photographers felt that traditional teachings emphasizing women’s strength and importance in society, as well as respecting their power as women would be valuable lessons for Indigenous youth
“Loving and Cruel, All at the Same Time”
Girlhood Identity in The Craft
Emily Chandler
banding together, their strength once they form a group, and Sarah’s vulnerability following her exile, The Craft gives dimension to this fear. This is arguably where a key relevance of the film for girl audiences lies: The Craft is literally a horror
Being a Girl Who Gets into Trouble
Narratives of Girlhood
Elaine Arnull
In this article I focus on the narratives of girls who describe the events that shape their lives and get them into trouble. The narratives are explored against Darrell Steffensmeier and Emilie Allan’s (1996) proffered Gender Theory, to consider whether it offers an adequate explanatory framework. The article adds to the body of knowledge about girlhood, gender norms, and transgression and provides fresh insight into the relevance of physical strength to girls’ violence. I conclude that girls are defining girlhood as they live it and it is the disjuncture with normative concepts that leads them into conflict with institutions of social control.
Risky Environments
Girlhood in a Post-conflict Society
Donna Sharkey
Post-conflict settings often contain high levels of risk for war-affected girls, yet these same settings also support hope for them. In such contexts, what risks exist for girls and how do they construct responses to these risks? is article is based on an ethnographic study which included a cohort of fifteen girls who had been caught up in the decade-long war in Sierra Leone, a war noted for its gender-based viciousness. Having lived through horrific situations, a major task of these girls has been to make meaning of, and respond to, the risks existing within their post-conflict environments. Following an analysis of the current context of the lives of these girls, this article examines the risks the girls face in their daily lives and the strategies they employ as strength-based responses to these risks.
Becoming Jane Addams
Feminist Developmental Theory and 'The College Woman'
Tamara Beauboeuf-Lafontant
Jane Addams (1860–1935) was a major reformer of the American Progressive Era (1890 to 1920) whose ideas about social justice continue to engage contemporary scholars. This article contributes to the recent examination of her feminist insights by investigating a source of her voice of social critique. Situating Addams in the first generation of white women to have access to both secondary and tertiary education, I use a feminist developmental lens to attend to a repeated figure in her earliest public addresses, “the college woman.” By highlighting parallels between Addams's presentation of “the college woman” and the developmental strengths, struggles, and resistance of contemporary girls and adolescents, I offer a reading of her motivations that brings into focus the socially transformative potential of young women.
Poor Quality Health
A Symptom of Gender Inequality for Girls Living with Poverty
Zainul Sajan Virgi
Abject female intergenerational poverty is a systemic issue which denies girls the opportunity to access a higher quality of life because of poor health that results in under-development. The article focuses on the root cause-gender inequality-that is responsible for their inability to access adequate nutrition, particularly during their critical period of physical and intellectual growth and development. Their resulting sub-standard health has a bad impact on their school attendance. This article follows the lives of a group of ten girls between the ages of ten and fourteen years living in a peri-urban community outside Maputo. It outlines the importance of engaging girls, through participatory methodologies, and giving them the opportunity to express themselves, their challenges, strengths and ideas for possible resolution of the problem.
Natalie Clark
different picture of herself. She is articulate, strong, and clear about the abuse and about her right to live in a safe home and attend school where she chooses. She gets her day in court and the judge marvels at her strengths and her ability to represent
Sexy Health Carnival
One Small Part of Indigenous Herstory
Alexa Lesperance
could be better equipped to deal with these kinds of things. I also wanted to make sure that we were celebrating our strengths, and learning about sexual health (relationships, birth control, family planning, and self-pleasure, for example) in fun