Girlhood: A Global History

Part I: Girls' Cultures and Identities

PART I GIRLS’ CULTURES AND IDENTITIES The chapters in this section analyze the intersections of gender, ethnicity, class, sexuality, and youth through a variety of female subcultures that have operated in relation to, but also separate from, dominant societal and adult values. Girls’ cultures have been distinct both from boys’ cultures and from the world of adults. Although girls are influenced by socializing institutions, they have also developed their own distinct values, activities, rituals, and understandings. Sometimes these coincide with adult expectations; other times they do not. The chapters in this section explore how national identity coexists, challenges, and reflects the experiences of girls from various backgrounds as well as how the movements of peoples, ideas, and products across borders can disrupt or offer tools for shaping youth culture. This section casts identity formation as part of the story of international migrations. In the first chapter, Melissa Klapper argues that Jewish girls in twentieth-century United States formed “tripartite identities” that combined female, Jewish, and American traditions in ultimately affirming ways. Jewish identity provided girls with special rewards and satisfactions through spirituality, family closeness, and community involvement that shaped their experiences with both adolescence and modernity. Next, Christa Jones adopts a biographical approach to understand the life of Algerian writer and filmmaker Assia Djebar. As with the other works in this section, the reader sees a girl negotiating complex and often contradictory cultural messages to come to understand herself and her community. The third chapter in this section, by anthropologist Marion den Uyl and sociologist Lenie Brouwer, looks at contemporary girls’ experiences in Amsterdam. Specifically , den Uyl and Brouwer use methods developed in studies on African American girls to understand the multicultural experiences of girls from minority migrant families in the Netherlands. Finally, Fran Martin examines non-Western ideas of girlhood through the lens of popular culture in late twentieth-century Taiwan. Through her examination of Taiwanese pop feminism, specifically the influence of independent folk-rock singersongwriter and producer Sandee Chan on a generation of girls, Martin illustrates the complex interrelation between two contemporary feminine identity categories—girlhood and lesbianism—to show how girl power challenges masculine authority, but creates powerful new forms of intragender sociality and solidarity between women and girls. Read together, these chapters suggest the hidden strength that marginalized girls possess in defining their own identities. In each case, the authors demonstrate how girls struggle against institutions and dominant cultures that conflict with their familial backgrounds or generational desires, while negotiating these forces successfully. Their experiences show agency rather than a fragmented identity in shaping coherent concepts of themselves and their communities. girls’ cultures and identities 32 ...