tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/girlhood-47595/articlesGirlhood – The Conversation2024-01-15T19:02:39Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2206622024-01-15T19:02:39Z2024-01-15T19:02:39ZThe shame and pleasure of masturbation: Poor Things gets girls’ early sexual feelings right<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568511/original/file-20240109-23-zhaggx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C5%2C3570%2C2141&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Searchlight Pictures</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This piece contains spoilers for Poor Things.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Poor Things can be described in one word: polarising. Yorgos Lanthimos’ film follows Bella Baxter (Emma Stone), a scientist’s experiment created from a woman’s body and a child’s mind. </p>
<p>It <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/jan/07/golden-globes-2024-the-full-list-of-winners">won two Golden Globes</a> and received a <a href="https://variety.com/2023/film/news/emma-stone-poor-things-sex-nudity-venice-standing-ovation-1235695885/">standing ovation</a> at the Venice Film Festival. </p>
<p>Yet others walked out of the Venice screening during its many sex scenes, one which depicts a father teaching his two sons the birds and the bees by letting them watch him and Bella in the act. (This scene has <a href="https://www.indiewire.com/news/general-news/poor-things-sex-scene-reedited-uk-release-1234940615/">been re-edited</a> for the United Kingdom release to comply with local classification requirements.)</p>
<p>While some critics lauded Poor Things as a <a href="https://www.timeout.com/movies/poor-things-2023">feminist exploration</a> of sexual liberation, others saw it as a male director and screenwriter’s exploitative attempt to portray female sexuality. Vulture writer Angelica Jade Bastién took the latter view, <a href="https://www.vulture.com/article/poor-things-review-a-banal-rendition-of-sexual-freedom.html">arguing</a> the film:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>is not interested in the sex lives of women as much as the ways in which a young woman’s body can be positioned and used […] I want to see what a grown woman thinks and feels about sex!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But I think it is wrong to read Poor Things as a film about grown women. Its most controversial scene involves children witnessing sex, and Bella begins the movie with a child’s brain. Poor Things is about the sexuality of girls. It accurately depicts girls’ early sexual feelings and shows us some more positive ways of understanding girlhood sexual desire.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RlbR5N6veqw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Discovering sexuality</h2>
<p>I have interviewed 23 Australians who were teenage girls between 1970 and 2010 about how they learned about sex, and their experiences were echoed in Poor Things.</p>
<p>Early in the film, Bella teaches herself to masturbate and is delighted by her discovery. Many of my interviewees had similar memories, often describing themselves as “exploring” their bodies and finding enjoyable sensations in the process.</p>
<p>Nicole* grew up in the 2000s and told me she did not know what she was doing when she first masturbated, but </p>
<blockquote>
<p>somehow when I was pretty young […] [I] discovered that it felt good.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Interviewees, including Nicole, were normally aged between five and 10 during these experiences (which are <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-it-normal-for-girls-to-masturbate-112393">normal and common</a> among children).</p>
<p>Interviewees regularly described their early forays into masturbation as disconnected from adult sexuality. These were simply experiments with their bodies. </p>
<p>But this also meant my interviewees often believed nobody else masturbated. Sue, born in the 1960s, even created her own term for masturbation, because she had never heard anyone speak about it before:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It was my bobble wobble. I had no idea that it had a name.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Bella also thinks she is the first person to masturbate, and humiliates her maid by demonstrating her newfound discovery. This is the first of many incidents in which she learns “polite society” does not speak about sex, let alone perform it in public. While Bella mostly ignores these warnings, many of my interviewees were acutely aware of societal expectations about girlhood sexual desire.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-it-normal-for-girls-to-masturbate-112393">'Is it normal for girls to masturbate?'</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Girls are interested in sex</h2>
<p>In the recent past, the media depicted boys as much more sexual than girls, who were supposedly interested in romance instead. Even magazines like Dolly – which catered to girls and <a href="https://theconversation.com/goodbye-dolly-the-magazine-that-helped-so-many-young-women-grow-up-69723">spoke openly</a> about sex – assumed girls’ sexual impulses would be awakened by their boyfriends’ advances. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568510/original/file-20240109-21-m7kabg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Production image" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568510/original/file-20240109-21-m7kabg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568510/original/file-20240109-21-m7kabg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568510/original/file-20240109-21-m7kabg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568510/original/file-20240109-21-m7kabg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568510/original/file-20240109-21-m7kabg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568510/original/file-20240109-21-m7kabg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568510/original/file-20240109-21-m7kabg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bella thinks she is the first person to masturbate.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Searchlight Pictures</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is clear even in well-meaning advice to girls about not being “pressured” into sex, which presupposes girls would not initiate sex themselves. Studies about Dolly and Girlfriend have also found their columnists <a href="https://journals-sagepub-com.virtual.anu.edu.au/doi/abs/10.1177/0959-353505054717">downplayed</a> girls’ sexual desires and insisted they were responsible for <a href="https://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/n11664/pdf/01_byrnes.pdf">controlling</a> boys’ sexual behaviours.</p>
<p>These ideas clearly influenced my interviewees. Many were deeply ashamed of masturbating by the time they were teenagers. Some were told not to masturbate by their parents. Others became fearful when their friends called masturbation disgusting. Charlotte* even read a book that said masturbating children developed excess phlegm. She concluded:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>obviously you’re not meant to have fun like that […] obviously you’re not meant to do it yourself.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>None of this stopped my interviewees from masturbating. It only stopped them from talking about it or thinking anyone else did it too. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/goodbye-dolly-the-magazine-that-helped-so-many-young-women-grow-up-69723">Goodbye, Dolly, the magazine that helped so many young women grow up</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A healthy sexuality</h2>
<p>Teen media did not always have a negative influence. Several interviewees told me they learned the word “masturbation” from Dolly, which portrayed it as a normal and healthy practice. “Oh, that’s what I’ve been doing”, thought Nicole when she found instructions on how to masturbate in the magazine. This discovery was reassuring; so too were discussions about masturbation with friends (though very few people were brave enough to mention it out loud).</p>
<p>But my interviewees still felt conversations about sexual pleasure were missing from their media and their education. Jess, born in the 1990s, told me:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[In] high school, I had a great understanding of the mechanics. But pleasure had never been part of the discussion, you know?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Perhaps Poor Things could be instructive here. </p>
<p>Bella does not feel embarrassed about enjoying sex, nor in talking about it. This allows her to cast aside her controlling lovers and to question the conditions at her brothel workplace. She develops a healthy relationship to her sexuality; she knows sex should be enjoyable for her, not just for men, and that she should not be coerced into it.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568967/original/file-20240111-25-1sbmqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Production image" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568967/original/file-20240111-25-1sbmqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568967/original/file-20240111-25-1sbmqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568967/original/file-20240111-25-1sbmqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568967/original/file-20240111-25-1sbmqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568967/original/file-20240111-25-1sbmqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568967/original/file-20240111-25-1sbmqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568967/original/file-20240111-25-1sbmqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bella does not feel embarrassed about enjoying sex, nor in talking about it.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Searchlight Pictures</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Bella Baxter may be a fairy tale character who makes <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/emma-stone-yorgos-lanthimos-poor-things-interview">her own sexual rules</a>. But we can learn from her. We can treat girls’ masturbation as natural and normal. We can show future generations there is nothing shameful about sexuality. And we can teach girls to know not just their sexual rights, but also their sexual pleasures.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/poor-things-meet-the-radical-scottish-visionary-behind-the-new-hit-film-220080">Poor Things: meet the radical Scottish visionary behind the new hit film</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><em>*Names have been changed.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220662/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Saskia Roberts does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Poor Things accurately depicts girls’ early sexual feelings and shows us some more positive ways of understanding girlhood sexual desire.Saskia Roberts, PhD Candidate, School of History, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2052972023-06-11T20:52:36Z2023-06-11T20:52:36Z‘When my thoughts would stray over the sea’: reading the 19th century diaries of girls migrating to Australia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529698/original/file-20230602-29-8wjczk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C3%2C2374%2C2992&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tom Roberts, Coming South, 1886</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Victoria</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the digital age our lives are constantly being recorded. Yet, the deliberate act of recording – what we want to remember and how we want to remember – remains popular. Diaries allow us to journal our thoughts and feelings, to work through the challenges we face every day.</p>
<p>This practice is older than you may think. As I write in my <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14490854.2023.2200802">recent journal article</a>, some British and Irish girls and young women who migrated to Australia in the mid-1800s used diaries to record their day-to-day lives, document their travel experiences and navigate their emotions. </p>
<p>In the 19th century, around <a href="https://museumsvictoria.com.au/immigrationmuseum/resources/journeys-to-australia/">1.5 million people</a> migrated to Australia, including <a href="https://museumsvictoria.com.au/immigrationmuseum/resources/immigrant-stories/girlhood/">large numbers of girls</a> who were defined as under the age of 15, and young women in their late teens and early 20s. </p>
<p>Unless she was married, a girl had little other option than to accompany her family to the colonies. </p>
<p>Though few diaries from this demographic survive (I examine only 13 extant sources of about 850 known to survive), they divulge the intricate emotions of migration. </p>
<p>Today, a 24-hour flight from Britain to Australia feels like an eternity, but in the 19th century it took around three months to sail to the continent. Removed from the demands of everyday life, passengers had a lot of time on their hands. Some wrote journals to while away the long days.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529702/original/file-20230602-21-933y42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529702/original/file-20230602-21-933y42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529702/original/file-20230602-21-933y42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=789&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529702/original/file-20230602-21-933y42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=789&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529702/original/file-20230602-21-933y42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=789&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529702/original/file-20230602-21-933y42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=991&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529702/original/file-20230602-21-933y42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=991&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529702/original/file-20230602-21-933y42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=991&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An emigrant’s thoughts of home, 1859, Marshall Claxton.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Victoria</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/young-womens-memoirs-of-migration-dispossession-and-australian-unbelonging-demand-to-be-heard-182223">Young women's memoirs of migration, dispossession and Australian 'unbelonging' demand to be heard</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A difficult experience</h2>
<p>Migration could be a difficult experience. Passengers endured months at sea in cramped conditions, often fearing for their safety and health, missed those left behind and worried about their futures in a new land. </p>
<p>It is such thoughts and emotions that can be found in surviving migrant girls’ diaries.</p>
<p>Aboard the Great Victoria in 1864, 22-year-old <a href="https://www.historyvictoria.org.au/ehive-object-details/753376/">Isabella Adcock</a> had to share cramped cabins with strangers and complained about it in her journal. She had “feelings repugnance to the sleeping accommodations and indeed almost everything in the ship”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529699/original/file-20230602-19-dr6a04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529699/original/file-20230602-19-dr6a04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529699/original/file-20230602-19-dr6a04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=865&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529699/original/file-20230602-19-dr6a04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=865&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529699/original/file-20230602-19-dr6a04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=865&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529699/original/file-20230602-19-dr6a04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1088&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529699/original/file-20230602-19-dr6a04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1088&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529699/original/file-20230602-19-dr6a04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1088&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A cabin on board the barque Mary Harrison and ashore in Australia, 1852-54, sketched by T. Warre Harriott.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library of New South Wales</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Diaries were sometimes a mechanism to cope with boredom and frustration. <a href="https://find.slv.vic.gov.au/permalink/61SLV_INST/1sev8ar/alma9916362193607636">Jane Swan</a>, 13, was impatient to reach Australia in 1853. She was sick of the “very long voyage” and felt “to see the same things, and the same faces, becomes very tiresome”. </p>
<p>Working-class girls were subject to strict conditions. On her voyage to Brisbane in 1863, 14-year-old Welsh girl <a href="https://onesearch.slq.qld.gov.au/permalink/61SLQ_INST/tqqf2h/alma99195703402061">Maria Steley</a> noted in her diary the “young women are put Down every night at six O clock” and “are not Allowed to speak to the young men”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529700/original/file-20230602-29-933y42.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529700/original/file-20230602-29-933y42.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529700/original/file-20230602-29-933y42.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529700/original/file-20230602-29-933y42.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529700/original/file-20230602-29-933y42.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529700/original/file-20230602-29-933y42.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529700/original/file-20230602-29-933y42.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529700/original/file-20230602-29-933y42.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Diary of Maria Steley.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a working-class teenager, Maria was separated from her family and housed with the single women. Wealthier girls would stay with their families in private cabins. </p>
<p>Among such shared conditions, girls could also make friends. Maria wrote she and her new pals “have many bits of fun more than i thought we would” by “singing and Dancing and playing eney thing we like untill 10 O clock then we go to bed we Play four howrs after we are Loch Down”. </p>
<p>But shipboard travel generated loneliness for many girls. Working-class Scottish woman <a href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn719785">Mary Maclean</a>, who was 22 when she voyaged to Sydney in 1865, experienced homesickness, often “Sheding a tear and often Wonder if thay miss one at Home”. </p>
<h2>Joy and sadness</h2>
<p>Girls also used diaries to record their fears. <a href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn3428157">Illness</a> could tear through the close confines of a ship. </p>
<p><a href="https://find.slv.vic.gov.au/permalink/61SLV_INST/1sev8ar/alma9916355823607636">Sarah Raws</a>, 15 when she sailed to Melbourne in 1854, was preoccupied with the proximity of death, including that of two infant boys and the “very sudden” death of a lady in Sarah’s own cabin. </p>
<p><a href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn1563391">Emily Braine</a>, ten years old when she embarked in 1854, was “frightened” by large waves and rough seas. The risk of shipwreck <a href="https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/SSSC/article/view/8135">was low</a>, but the possibility played on Emily’s mind. </p>
<p>Towards the end of their journey, some girls were excited to disembark. Sarah Raws rejoiced “"when we first saw land” from the ship’s deck. But others experienced a resurgence of homesickness and doubt. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526368/original/file-20230516-19-jv9t75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526368/original/file-20230516-19-jv9t75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526368/original/file-20230516-19-jv9t75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526368/original/file-20230516-19-jv9t75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526368/original/file-20230516-19-jv9t75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526368/original/file-20230516-19-jv9t75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526368/original/file-20230516-19-jv9t75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526368/original/file-20230516-19-jv9t75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ally Heathcote’s diary from aboard the, s.s. Northumberland, 1874.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museums Victoria</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nearing Melbourne in 1874, 19-year-old <a href="https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/items/272753">Ally Heathcote</a> had feelings “of a mingled character, joy and sadness”. She felt torn between her old life in England and her new life in Victoria. </p>
<p>Ally’s writings helped her deal with these “mingled” feelings. Her diary, she wrote,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>has helped to keep me employed during the passage and many times I have turned to it when my thoughts would stray over the sea, and have written the account of the day’s proceedings when otherwise I should have begun to mope. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Most girls concluded their diaries at the end of their voyage before they started on a new life. Some made copies and sent the account “home” to Britain for family and friends to peruse. </p>
<p>The diary became a record and a keepsake of a life-changing journey. </p>
<p>Girls’ shipboard diaries reveal the complex and varied emotions of people from the past and provide insight into the human experience of migration. These sources centre girls in the migration narrative, giving a voice to an often-overlooked group.</p>
<p>It is a shame so few survive. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/handwritten-diaries-may-feel-old-fashioned-but-they-offer-insights-that-digital-diaries-just-cant-match-187508">Handwritten diaries may feel old fashioned, but they offer insights that digital diaries just can’t match</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205297/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catherine Gay does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>British and Irish girls and young women who migrated to Australia in the mid-1800s used diaries to record their day-to-day lives, document their travel experiences and navigate their emotions.Catherine Gay, PhD Candidate in History, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2051772023-05-22T11:34:49Z2023-05-22T11:34:49ZGirls are in crisis — and their mental health needs to be taken seriously<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526896/original/file-20230517-19889-9mh2pf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C52%2C8688%2C5722&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">If we want to see improvements in the lives of girls in Canada and beyond, we need to first think critically about why we tend to dismiss and invalidate their concerns.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>An article in the <em>Washington Post</em> recently declared “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/02/17/teen-girls-mental-health-crisis/">a crisis in American girlhood</a>.” Girls in the United States are experiencing alarmingly higher rates of sexual assault, mental health issues and suicidality than ever before.</p>
<p>Data collected in 2021 by the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/yrbs/pdf/YRBS_Data-Summary-Trends_Report2023_508.pdf">Centers for Disease Control</a> (CDC) demonstrates how dire the circumstances of American girlhood are. Fourteen per cent of teenage girls in the United States shared that they had been forced to have sex, and 60 per cent had experienced <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/02/13/teen-girls-violence-trauma-pandemic-cdc/">extreme feelings of sadness or hopelessness</a>. Nearly a quarter of girls had considered and planned suicide.</p>
<p>While these findings are based on U.S. data, the story is consistent with what girls in Canada have been saying for the past decade. In Canada, <a href="https://www.camh.ca/en/camh-news-and-stories/half-of-female-students-in-ontario-experience-psychological-distress-camh-study-shows">over 50 per cent of female students in Ontario have reported</a> moderate to severe psychological distress. <a href="https://assaultcare.ca/services/sexual-assault-statistics/">One in four girls</a> has been sexually abused by the time they turn 18.</p>
<p>Suicide is the <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/cv.action?pid=1310039401">fourth leading cause of death</a> for girls up to 14 years old, an annual statistic that has remained relatively consistent since 2016.</p>
<p>The gendered wage gap in Canada has been found to <a href="https://www.girlguides.ca/WEB/Documents/GGC/media/thought-leadership/girlsonjob/GirlsOnTheJobRealitiesInCanada.pdf">start as early as 12 years old</a>. The situation is worse for girls who are <a href="https://www.girlsactionfoundation.ca/_files/ugd/0512fe_ccc6638a5e3844c8b3dcf4a0e536a9c2.pdf">racialized, living in poverty</a>, <a href="https://dawncanada.net/media/uploads/page_data/page-64/girls_without_barriers.pdf">disabled</a>, or <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28111592/">LGBTQ+</a>.</p>
<p>The dire state of girlhood has historically been attributed to the usual suspects: <a href="https://www.girlguides.ca/WEB/GGC/Parents/Thought_Leadership/IDG_Nationwide_Survey/GGC/Media/Thought_Leadership/IDG_Nationwide_Survey.aspx">unrealistic beauty standards</a>, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/instagram-girls-body-image-1.6200969">pressures of social media</a>, <a href="https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/girlhood-studies/14/1/ghs140104.xml">living in a rape culture</a>, and more recently, the <a href="https://www.girlguides.ca/WEB/Documents/GGC/Girl_Research/Life_During_COVID19_Report.pdf">COVID-19 pandemic</a>.</p>
<p>In interviews conducted by the <em>Washington Post</em> with girls themselves, however, they point to another, perhaps unsuspected culprit: that when girls do speak up, they aren’t listened to or taken seriously.</p>
<h2>Why don’t we listen to or take girls seriously?</h2>
<p>I am a former community social worker with experience working directly with girls between the ages of 10 and 18 years old. My current doctoral research focuses on girls between the ages of eight and 12 years old who engage in activism, exploring ways that adults can better listen and support them when they tell us what they want for their lives and their worlds. I have heard countless stories from girls themselves about when they had felt dismissed by adults.</p>
<p>This dismissal was often directly tied to their identities as girls, attributed to claims that girls were just going through a phase, not accurately sharing what had happened or that they were being dramatic.</p>
<p>Put simply, when girls tell us what is happening in their lives, we have a tendency not to believe them.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526901/original/file-20230517-11818-a2ke9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="close up image of two pairs of hands holding each other." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526901/original/file-20230517-11818-a2ke9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526901/original/file-20230517-11818-a2ke9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526901/original/file-20230517-11818-a2ke9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526901/original/file-20230517-11818-a2ke9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526901/original/file-20230517-11818-a2ke9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526901/original/file-20230517-11818-a2ke9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526901/original/file-20230517-11818-a2ke9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Adults tend to doubt girls’ credibility as speakers because of prejudices about girls and girlhood.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Dismissing the credibility of an entire group of people because of prejudices that we may have about their identities is what philosopher Miranda Fricker has described as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198237907.001.0001">epistemic injustice</a>.</p>
<p>In this type of epistemic injustice, a speaker’s credibility is dismissed because of prejudices that others have based on the speaker’s identity. This means that the speaker’s testimony is not listened to or taken seriously because of who they are. </p>
<p>Adults tend to doubt girls’ credibility as speakers because of prejudices about girls and girlhood. These prejudices against girls are rooted in the construction of girlhood as a time of frivolity, fun and emotionality.</p>
<h2>Do girls just want to have fun?</h2>
<p>For a long time, girlhood — and specifically <a href="https://nyupress.org/9780814787083/racial-innocence/">white, middle- and upper-class, able-bodied girlhood</a> — has been seen as a time of inherent innocence, <a href="https://www.peterlang.com/document/1109532">frivolity</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1469540518806954">fun</a>.</p>
<p>Constructions of girlhood are linked to expectations we have about girls as children and as gendered subjects. As children, we expect girls to have a sort of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0907568218811484">wide-eyed wonderment</a> about the world around them. As gendered subjects, girls are additionally stereotyped in ways typically associated with womanhood, such as <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0016821">emotionality</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526897/original/file-20230517-25100-wn41e5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman comforts a teenage girl sitting on a bed." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526897/original/file-20230517-25100-wn41e5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526897/original/file-20230517-25100-wn41e5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526897/original/file-20230517-25100-wn41e5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526897/original/file-20230517-25100-wn41e5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526897/original/file-20230517-25100-wn41e5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526897/original/file-20230517-25100-wn41e5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526897/original/file-20230517-25100-wn41e5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">When girls tell us what is happening in their lives, adults must listen and not dismiss them.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a world that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1525/collabra.274">dichotomizes rationality and emotionality</a>, with rationality being considered more credible than emotionality, girls are dismissed because of the way girlhood is viewed.</p>
<p>When girls tell us what is happening in their lives, such as when they’ve experienced sexual assault or are feeling suicidal, these views become especially harmful.</p>
<p>If we want to see improvements in the lives of girls in Canada and beyond, we need to first think critically about why we tend to dismiss and invalidate their concerns. Challenging our own prejudices about the credibility of girls is a vital first step in this process.</p>
<p>When considering the crisis in girlhood, girls have been clear about the way forward. In my own community practice work, girls shared that they feel most supported by adults while “<a href="https://www.womenscentrecalgary.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Girls-Lead-YYC-1.pdf">being listened to and feeling like I am being heard</a>.” In the <em>Washington Post</em> article, girls called for adults to “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/02/17/teen-girls-mental-health-crisis/">stop dismissing their concerns as drama</a>.”</p>
<p>Girls have never just wanted to have fun. They want — and need to be — listened to and taken seriously.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205177/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexe Bernier receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) for her doctoral research. </span></em></p>In Canada, over 50 per cent of female students in Ontario have reported moderate to severe psychological distress. One in four girls has been sexually abused by the time they turn 18.Alexe Bernier, PhD Candidate, Department of Social Work, McMaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1983972023-02-17T02:14:58Z2023-02-17T02:14:58ZNew Aussie drama Bad Behaviour gives us a complex portrayal of girlhood and queer stories<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509689/original/file-20230213-22-7knae0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C9%2C6221%2C4138&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jane Zhang/Stan</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Bad Behaviour, directed by Corrie Chen.</em></p>
<p>Bad Behaviour is a gritty, intense psychological drama that follows the haunting teenage experience of now 20-something Joanna Mackenzie (Jana McKinnon), who revisits the year she spent on scholarship at Silver Creek. </p>
<p>The exclusive girls’ boarding school, in the remote Australian wilderness, fosters independence, strength and resilience through survivalism and marathon training. </p>
<p>With teachers located off campus, the quiet, sensitive Jo soon finds herself in an environment more Lord of the Flies than kumbaya.</p>
<p>Jo and her classmates are tormented by charismatic bully Portia (Markella Kavenagh). Soon finding herself in the favour of the cruel and unpredictable Portia, the two begin a highly charged, intimate friendship. Jo experiences the first inklings of her queer sexual awakening. </p>
<p>When Portia suddenly moves on to a new bestie, Jo, now on the outer, never recovers from the rejection.</p>
<p>Driving the story is the mystery of Jo’s role in the suffering of Alice Kang (Yerin Ha), a fellow scholarship student. </p>
<p>Alice is the target of relentless and severe bullying. The first episode opens with her in tears, setting herself alight. Flash forward to the present where she is a successful cellist performing at the concert hall where Jo works as a cleaner and cocktail waiter. </p>
<p>Jo’s surprise meeting with Alice is the catalyst for her distressing mental revisitation of Silver Creek.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1qiqDcI8Bv8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Complex girlhood</h2>
<p>Bad Behaviour, based on Rebecca Starford’s memoir of the same name, shows a disturbing side to teenage girlhood we don’t often see represented in such a brutal, truthful way. A melting pot of sex, power, manipulation and cruelty, this story runs counter to dominant tropes of girlhood such as sweetness, naivety and innocence. </p>
<p>Figures of complex girlhood have become more widely represented on screen in recent years: think of Anya Taylor-Joy’s <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/02/robert-eggers-the-witch-female-empowerment/470844/">Thomasin</a> in The Witch; Katherine Langford as Miki in <a href="https://theconversation.com/more-than-a-murder-mystery-savage-river-is-a-gripping-new-take-on-the-australian-gothic-188739">Savage River</a>; and Antonia Gentry’s <a href="https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2023/01/11263276/black-teen-girls-tv-ginny-georgia-euphoria-gossip-girl">Ginny</a> of Ginny & Georgia. </p>
<p>These characters go beyond the often maligned “strong female character” who sometimes simply resembles a male hero archetype with a female body (think Katniss Everdeen).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509695/original/file-20230213-28-kdvt05.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two school girls in half dark." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509695/original/file-20230213-28-kdvt05.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509695/original/file-20230213-28-kdvt05.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509695/original/file-20230213-28-kdvt05.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509695/original/file-20230213-28-kdvt05.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509695/original/file-20230213-28-kdvt05.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509695/original/file-20230213-28-kdvt05.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509695/original/file-20230213-28-kdvt05.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Normally a ‘good girl’, under Portia’s influence Jo is pulled into bad behaviour.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jane Zhang/Stan</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Instead, Jo and other complex feminine characters are intriguing for their contradictions, flaws, vulnerabilities and psychological depth. </p>
<p>Jo is not easily “likeable”: she is unemotional, participates in bullying, and is unkind to her adoring non-binary housemate Saskia (Daya Czepanski), having sex with them and then discarding them. </p>
<p>A troubled psychology is revealed piece by piece over four episodes. </p>
<p>These kinds of female protagonists tell more varied and diverse narratives of femininity.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/leon-at-25-representations-of-girlhood-need-to-be-real-and-relevant-not-distorted-by-the-male-gaze-141262">Léon at 25: representations of girlhood need to be real and relevant – not distorted by the male gaze</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Complicated queer narratives</h2>
<p>At the heart of this series is the spectre of abuse and long-term effects of trauma on victims. Queer experiences of intimate partner abuse, including coercive control, have been largely invisible in the popular imagination. </p>
<p>Representations of abusive heterosexual relationships are not uncommon, even if they often draw on inaccurate stereotypes that warp public perception of how such dynamics play out in reality. </p>
<p>Queer narratives of intimate partner violence and abuse are rare, with dire consequences on real lives. A <a href="https://aifs.gov.au/resources/practice-guides/intimate-partner-violence-lesbian-gay-bisexual-trans-intersex-and-queer">2015 Australian Institute of Family Studies</a> report found:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>there has been an invisibility of LGBTIQ relationships in policy and practice responses and a lack of acknowledgement that intimate partner violence exists in these communities. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This makes such dynamics difficult to detect, a problem taken up by Carmen Maria Machado in her <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/05/in-the-dream-house-carmen-maria-machado-review">memoir</a> about struggling to make sense of an abusive relationship with a “charismatic and volatile” woman. Machado argues heteronormative definitions of partner abuse equate masculinity with violence and femininity with passivity, making it difficult to recognise “queer abusers and the queer abused”. </p>
<p>Bad Behaviour works against this cultural blind spot. It fills in detail and unpacks dynamics of power and control in the relationship between Jo and Portia as teenagers, and later when they meet up as young adults who are both “out”.</p>
<p>To adults, Portia’s behaviour looks like bullying, misbehaviour or cliquey exclusion. The drastic change in the victimised Jo, who becomes increasingly withdrawn and aggressive, looks like disobedience and a bad attitude. </p>
<p>But there is something much more sinister at play. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510731/original/file-20230216-1999-nix1y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A girl stands on a bed." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510731/original/file-20230216-1999-nix1y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510731/original/file-20230216-1999-nix1y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510731/original/file-20230216-1999-nix1y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510731/original/file-20230216-1999-nix1y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510731/original/file-20230216-1999-nix1y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510731/original/file-20230216-1999-nix1y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510731/original/file-20230216-1999-nix1y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This is a revolutionary story of control, abuse and girlhood.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jane Zhang/Stan</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The sexually charged nature of some of the abuse is unmissable. In one scene, Portia corrals her cronies into helping her ambush Jo. They lift her by her underwear so she is left bleeding and bruised. </p>
<p>Bad Behaviour shows Portia motivated by the power and control she has over others. She takes pleasure in being able to control their emotions through giving her attention and enacting public and private cruelties on her victims. </p>
<p>If she is difficult to identify as a domestic abuser, Jo is even more difficult to identify as a victim.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/beyond-gender-lgbtiq-abuse-shows-its-time-to-shift-the-debate-on-partner-violence-50238">Beyond gender: LGBTIQ abuse shows it’s time to shift the debate on partner violence</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The myth of the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9299.2008.00749.x">perfect victim</a> plagues real and fictional narratives about victimhood. Jo doesn’t recognise herself as a victim, having internalised perspectives of onlookers she is “bad”, “weak” or “trouble”. </p>
<p>Jo is closed off from her emotions. She keeps going back to Portia, craving her affection even as an adult. She manipulates others using the same techniques she learned from Portia, continuing the cyclical nature of abuse. </p>
<p>But the fact is real victims are imperfect, and they are more likely to resemble Jo than <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-long-american-history-of-missing-white-woman-syndrome">Gabby Petito</a>.</p>
<p>This limited series is an absolute must-watch, offering performances that crackle with tense chemistry, eerie and beautiful landscapes, and a revolutionary story of control, abuse and girlhood. </p>
<p><em>Bad Behaviour is on Stan now.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198397/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Maguire does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Stan’s new series adapted Rebecca Starford’s memoir gives brutal and honest insight into the consequences of bullying.Emma Maguire, Lecturer in English and Writing, James Cook UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1560922021-03-07T14:36:24Z2021-03-07T14:36:24ZStop telling girls to smile — it pressures them to accept the unjust status quo<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388104/original/file-20210305-19-12d6kla.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=25%2C0%2C8456%2C5646&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Global movements for social change are being led by girls, who are the most affected by environmental, labour and social justice issues.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Girls are constantly told to smile, from T-shirts sold in stores that say “<a href="https://www.walmart.com/ip/Everyone-Loves-a-Happy-Girl-YOUTH-SHORT-SLEEVE-TEE/119028349">everyone loves a happy girl</a>” to the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/02/19/807407891/artist-tatyana-fazlalizadeh-wants-you-to-stop-telling-women-to-smile">catcallers telling young women to smile when they walk down the street</a>. </p>
<p>Audrey Hepburn once famously stated that “<a href="https://www.momtastic.com/parenting/parenting-in-the-news/575251-happy-girls-are-the-prettiest/">happy girls are the prettiest girls</a>” — now this quote is reiterated in the post-feminist marketplace on T-shirts, pillow cases and stationery.</p>
<p>Perhaps the most public callout to a girl to smile was Donald Trump’s caustically sarcastic tweet that climate activist Greta Thunberg “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/24/she-seems-very-happy-trump-appears-to-mock-greta-thunbergs-emotional-speech">seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!</a>”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-end-of-the-trump-years-means-for-american-and-global-girlhood-154227">What the end of the Trump years means for American and global girlhood</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But lift up the hood of this pressure to be perceived as carefree and happy and look underneath: something much more disturbing is revealed.</p>
<p>I have been studying the experiences of girls, particularly tweens aged eight to 12, with regards to consumer culture for the past 15 years. The pressure on girls to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1469540518806954">be fun, happy and smiling</a> reveals much about the cultural expectations projected onto girls and girlhood.</p>
<h2>Perpetual fun?</h2>
<p>This constant expectation of girls to be always smiling depoliticizes girls and positions them as compliant in their own subjugation. “Fun” acts as a distraction from deeper political issues, discouraging girls from considering the exploitation and violence that girls worldwide face.</p>
<p>Directing their attention to the myriad social and political issues facing girls, like the <a href="https://plan-international.org/emergencies/effects-of-climate-change-girls-rights">climate crisis</a> or <a href="https://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca/">missing and murdered Indigenous girls and women</a>, would upset the happiness and fun of girlhood.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388101/original/file-20210305-13-fmuty4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Young girls lead a MMIWG march" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388101/original/file-20210305-13-fmuty4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388101/original/file-20210305-13-fmuty4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388101/original/file-20210305-13-fmuty4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388101/original/file-20210305-13-fmuty4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388101/original/file-20210305-13-fmuty4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388101/original/file-20210305-13-fmuty4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388101/original/file-20210305-13-fmuty4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Young girls walk together during the annual Women’s Memorial March in Vancouver on Feb. 14, 2021. The march is held to honour missing and murdered women and girls from the community with stops along the way to commemorate where women were last seen or found.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Feminist scholar Sara Ahmed writes that <a href="https://socialtextjournal.org/the-promise-of-happiness/">happiness is promised to those who commit to living their life in an unchallenging way that does not upset the status quo</a>. To challenge the status quo by drawing attention to these issues disrupts the fantasy.</p>
<p>If everyone loves a happy girl, as the T-shirt says, then unhappy girls are unlovable: it’s a clear warning to girls to maintain happiness or else face being “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1367549417733003">psychologically and aesthetically unappealing</a>.”</p>
<p>Fun can be had with others, but at its root is an individual endeavour to be responsible for one’s own fun. The <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/dont-tell-me-to-smile-more-provocative-proclamation-for-women-to-reclaim-ownership-of-their-smile-launched-by-undnyable-300884702.html">call to smile</a> is not an invitation to celebrate the resolution of the misogynistic and patriarchal structures that are often at the root of unhappiness.</p>
<p>Happiness and fun are forms of <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2019/03/08/author-interview-qa-with-sarah-banet-weiser-on-empowered-popular-feminism-and-popular-misogyny/">popular feminism</a> that frame gender equality as individual empowerment eclipsing a feminist structural critique. Unhappiness deviates from the <a href="https://soundcloud.com/toprankpodcast/episode-18-commodity-feminism">post-feminist script</a> in which women — who are responsible for their own happiness and emancipation — need to think positively and be inspired to make change. The emphasis is on individual actions over collective consciousness. </p>
<p>These moral demands for happiness and fun <a href="https://2019.steirischerherbst.at/de/vorherbst/1377/the-happiness-imperative">undermine citizenship and commitments to community</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388102/original/file-20210305-17-1w5qsje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A girl holds a cardboard sign with a picture of George Floyd and text reading I CANT BREATHE" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388102/original/file-20210305-17-1w5qsje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388102/original/file-20210305-17-1w5qsje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=737&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388102/original/file-20210305-17-1w5qsje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=737&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388102/original/file-20210305-17-1w5qsje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=737&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388102/original/file-20210305-17-1w5qsje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388102/original/file-20210305-17-1w5qsje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388102/original/file-20210305-17-1w5qsje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A girl at a protest in Washington, D.C., holds a sign featuring George Floyd.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Obi Onyeador/Unsplash)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Girls’ leadership</h2>
<p>The call to happiness and fun lets patriarchal structures and institutions off the hook for the injustices, unhappiness and pains of girls worldwide, and posits the responsibility for their own happiness on girls’ shoulders. But girls are no longer complying, including Greta Thunberg, who brilliantly turned Trump’s own words back on him.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1351890941087522820"}"></div></p>
<p><a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/greta-thunberg-trump-tweet-happy-old-man-b1790085.html">Thunberg’s clapback</a> to Trump flips the script exposing the misogynistic and ageist rhetoric on girls to be happy.</p>
<p>A global youth movement led by girls — like water activists <a href="https://naaee.org/about-us/people/autumn-peltier">Autumn Peltier</a> and <a href="https://www.maricopeny.com/">Mari Copeny</a>, education activist <a href="https://malala.org/malalas-story">Malala Yousufzai</a> and climate activist <a href="https://www.un.org/youthenvoy/vanessa-nakate/">Vanessa Nakate</a> — are countering these narratives. They are fighting <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/01/19/797298179/you-need-to-act-now-meet-4-girls-working-to-save-the-warming-world">against climate change</a> and advocating for social change using a whole and complex range of emotions,including happiness and fun. </p>
<p>Girls are refusing to be dismissed by misogynistic critics who tell them to “smile more.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/156092/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natalie Coulter receives funding from SSHRC.</span></em></p>Telling girls to smile pressures distracts them from the very real, dangerous and sometimes deadly challenges that girls around the world face.Natalie Coulter, Associate Professor of Communication Studies, and Director of the Institute for Research on Digital Literacies, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1460172020-09-15T19:54:07Z2020-09-15T19:54:07ZDisney’s Mulan tells women to know their place<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357791/original/file-20200914-18-1f90udg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C0%2C1994%2C1329&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Disney</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Disney’s live-action adaptation of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4566758/">Mulan</a> was released last week amid much controversy. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/jul/08/mulan-trailer-is-a-dismal-sign-disney-is-bowing-to-china-anti-democratic-agenda">Accusations</a> of Disney bowing to the Chinese Communist Party emerged when the trailer was released. </p>
<p>Many were outraged to learn the movie was partially filmed in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/08/world/asia/china-mulan-xinjiang.html">Xinjiang</a>, where at least <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/features/uighurs/">one million Uighurs</a> have been forced into internment camps. They also objected to actress Liu Yifei’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/16/disneys-mulan-star-sparks-call-for-boycott-with-hong-kong-stance">reported support of the Hong Kong police</a> during the 2019 protests. </p>
<p>Criticisms of the movie include its <a href="https://www.indiewire.com/2019/07/mulan-trailer-criticized-china-historical-inaccuracies-1202157142/">historical and geographical inaccuracies</a>, an undertone of <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2020/9/9/21427978/mulan-disney-controversy-explained-uighurs-xinjiang">Islamophobia</a>, and a <a href="https://international.thenewslens.com/article/140433">misrepresentation of <em>qi</em></a> (life force).</p>
<p>Also concerning, but less visible, is how Disney’s Mulan is a more conservative telling of an ancient story – and the place of women – than some historical Chinese renditions. While Mulan might claim to be a tale of female empowerment, ultimately this film is about how women will only be rewarded if they know their place.</p>
<h2>A 1,500-year-old tale</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357792/original/file-20200914-16-1i7cd5w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357792/original/file-20200914-16-1i7cd5w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357792/original/file-20200914-16-1i7cd5w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357792/original/file-20200914-16-1i7cd5w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357792/original/file-20200914-16-1i7cd5w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357792/original/file-20200914-16-1i7cd5w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1294&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357792/original/file-20200914-16-1i7cd5w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1294&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357792/original/file-20200914-16-1i7cd5w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1294&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A painting of Mulan on silk dating to the 18th century.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Trustees of the British Museum</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The 2020 adaptation of Mulan follows the basic plot of the 1998 Disney <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120762/">animation</a>. The dutiful heroine cross-dresses as a man to take her father’s place in the army. She returns victorious. </p>
<p>The original ballad <em><a href="https://www.tor.com/2020/09/03/womens-work-the-evolution-of-the-ballad-of-mulan/">Mulan shi</a></em> (“The Ballad of Mulan”) dates back to the Northern Wei dynasty (386-534), a period of warfare and instability. Readers of this poem are exposed to the painful emotions that surround Mulan’s decision to go to war. </p>
<p>In early renditions, Mulan was a Northerner of unspecified ethnicity, and some retellings cast her as a resistor to the imperial court. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.academia.edu/2200655/Transformations_of_the_Woman_Warrior_Hua_Mulan_From_Defender_of_the_Family_to_Servant_of_the_State%5D">Scholars</a> have likened Mulan to a blank canvas. The freedom to tell her story in different ways has contributed to its popularity. By the 20th century, the ethnicity of this female warrior was designated as Han, and her loyalty allied with the central government. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Movie still" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357831/original/file-20200914-22-zysxzl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357831/original/file-20200914-22-zysxzl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=812&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357831/original/file-20200914-22-zysxzl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=812&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357831/original/file-20200914-22-zysxzl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=812&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357831/original/file-20200914-22-zysxzl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1021&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357831/original/file-20200914-22-zysxzl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1021&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357831/original/file-20200914-22-zysxzl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1021&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chen Yunshang played Mulan in the 1939 film.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Xinhua Pictorial</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0192338/">Mulan Joins the Army</a> (1939), Mulan’s filial piety was emphasised as a <a href="https://www.academia.edu/2200655/Transformations_of_the_Woman_Warrior_Hua_Mulan_From_Defender_of_the_Family_to_Servant_of_the_State">service to the country</a>. </p>
<p>Similar themes were explored in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064452/">Lady General Hua Mu-lan</a> (1964) and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1308138/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Mulan: Rise of a Warrior</a> (2009). Disney’s 1998 animation was the first major non-Chinese adaptation of the Mulan story. </p>
<p>In these retellings, Mulan had fully transformed into a defender of the state.</p>
<h2>‘Know your place’</h2>
<p>Early in the new film, the village matchmaker tells 16-year-old Mulan (Liu Yifei) a good wife is “composed, graceful, polite” and “when a wife serves her husband, she must be silent, invisible.” </p>
<p>Mulan fails to embody these long-held virtues of an ideal Chinese girl, and her father exhorts Mulan to hide her special <em>qi</em>. This masculine power has no place in a girl’s life. The only way she can honour her family is through marriage.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-booming-international-movie-market-is-transforming-hollywood-118743">A booming international movie market is transforming Hollywood</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>However, Mulan ultimately brings honour to her family by demonstrating that she is “loyal, brave and true” – qualities engraved on her father’s sword. Mulan knows her crippled father will die in battle if he is conscripted into the army. Taking his place, she leaves home in the middle of the night with the sword.</p>
<p>As a reward for her courage and leadership in saving the Emperor, he bestows her an official position in the imperial guard, but Mulan rejects the offer in order to return home. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Mulan reaches for a sword." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357808/original/file-20200914-16-vk7yz3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357808/original/file-20200914-16-vk7yz3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357808/original/file-20200914-16-vk7yz3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357808/original/file-20200914-16-vk7yz3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357808/original/file-20200914-16-vk7yz3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357808/original/file-20200914-16-vk7yz3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357808/original/file-20200914-16-vk7yz3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mulan puts her family and her Emperor ahead of herself, and is rewarded for this.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Disney</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Emperor sends his men to offer Mulan a new sword. In addition to the three qualities, the new sword is engraved with a fourth virtue, <em>xiao</em> (“filial piety,” translated in the film as “devotion to family”). The men urge her to reconsider the Emperor’s offer and join the guard.</p>
<p>The film ends with the phoenix, Mulan’s ancestral guardian, circling above her. This creature has been her guide and its reappearance signals her acceptance of the offer. Because her love interest, Honghui, is an imperial soldier, it is implied she will fulfil her romantic desires as well. </p>
<p>Mulan is rewarded for knowing her place and for her <em>xiao</em>: by working within the dominant patriarchal system, she is a woman who “can have it all.” </p>
<h2>A 17th century band of sisters</h2>
<p>Within the film, the villain Xianniang (Gong Li) provides a powerful contrast to Mulan. </p>
<p>Xianniang invites Mulan to join forces and rebel against the Emperor. She wants to build a kingdom where strong women like them are accepted for who they are, but Mulan responds, “I know my place” – emphasising her duty is to serve her Emperor. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Xianniang reaches towards the camera with an eagle's claw for a hand." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357803/original/file-20200914-24-n1yg5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357803/original/file-20200914-24-n1yg5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357803/original/file-20200914-24-n1yg5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357803/original/file-20200914-24-n1yg5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357803/original/file-20200914-24-n1yg5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357803/original/file-20200914-24-n1yg5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357803/original/file-20200914-24-n1yg5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In the film, Xianniang is punished because she chooses to step outside of what is expected of women.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Disney</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ultimately, Xianniang sacrifices herself to save Mulan. By refusing to work within the system, Xianniang’s death signifies the failure of her radical approach. </p>
<p>Rather than being a story of female empowerment, Mulan promotes the idea that women must put male authority figures before themselves to achieve recognition. </p>
<p>The story of Mulan hasn’t always sent this message. In a version by the 17th century author <a href="https://www.academia.edu/2200655/Transformations_of_the_Woman_Warrior_Hua_Mulan_From_Defender_of_the_Family_to_Servant_of_the_State">Chu Renhuo</a>, set at the end of the Sui Dynasty (581-618), Xianniang is a warrior princess who becomes Mulan’s sworn sister. They lead a group of women soldiers and travel together. This friendship is absent from the Disney film.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146017/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The story of Mulan has been told and retold for 1,600 years. This latest version is more conservative, when it comes to a woman’s place, than one told in the 17th century.Sin Wen Lau, Senior Lecturer in China Studies, University of OtagoShih-Wen Sue Chen, Senior Lecturer in Writing and Literature, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1412622020-07-09T15:06:08Z2020-07-09T15:06:08ZLéon at 25: representations of girlhood need to be real and relevant – not distorted by the male gaze<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346640/original/file-20200709-46-1h6ghpt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C3%2C728%2C463&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Les Films du Dauphin/Buena Vista</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This year marks the 25th anniversary of Luc Besson’s controversial thriller <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-professional-1994">Léon: The Professional</a> – and a special director’s cut has been released to mark the event. In 1995, the film caused a stir on its release over its portrayal of the relationship between the two main characters, the loner hitman Léon and his girl apprentice Mathilda. </p>
<p>The representation of Mathilda as a sexually precocious pre-teen was shocking to both viewers and critics, but the film made stars of both actors, Natalie Portman and Jean Reno, and catapulted Besson into mainstream Hollywood. </p>
<p>Adolescent girls’ stories have long been presented in terms of their sexual precociousness. Yet the history of youth can offer insights into girls’ culture that provides an alternative view to the more common perspective of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-does-the-male-gaze-mean-and-what-about-a-female-gaze-52486">male gaze</a>.</p>
<p>In film theory, the male gaze provides a view of the world through the eyes of straight men, since they tend to dominate positions within the film and TV industry. But looking at the nature of girls’ culture, which involves adapting adult conventions to suit their needs, can provide a radical rereading of girlhood.</p>
<h2>Looking at Léon</h2>
<p>Though Besson’s film was critically acclaimed and in many ways has stood the test of time, its representation of girlhood has long been seen as <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/luc-besson-and-the-disturbing-true-story-behind-leon-the-professional">problematic</a> – and still jars. </p>
<p>Léon presents the story of Mathilda (played by a 12-year-old Portman in her debut role), who is orphaned when her family is murdered and seeks refuge with her neighbour Léon. Mathilda tells Léon that she is 18, though she is clearly prepubescent. Due to her traumatic formative experiences, she believes that she has “finished growing up” and “just getting older”. Over time the two become close as Mathilda becomes Léon’s protégé. Eventually, Mathilda tells Léon that she loves him, and and that she wants to “have it” with him.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jawVxq1Iyl0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>In a scene that reinforces her precociousness, Mathilda dresses up as a series of celebrities, impersonating Madonna, Marilyn Monroe and Charlie Chaplin for Léon. The scene wasn’t rehearsed, so that Reno’s response would be one of genuine surprise when Portman croons Like a Virgin and Happy Birthday (Mr President) while clad in make-up and costumes. </p>
<h2>Girls’ cultural history</h2>
<p>Although the scene invites controversy and is uncomfortable to watch, what it actually demonstrates is undeniably girls’ play, showing typical girlhood amusements: dressing-up and impersonation. </p>
<p>My <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/745975">research</a> into the history of children’s cultures demonstrates that girls have long experimented with appropriation and imitation. Before mimicking celebrities from film and popular music, 19th-century girls would imitate the magazines they read, and write homages to, or critiques of, notable authors. They drew on the media they were immersed in at the time, much like Mathilda. Her impression of Marilyn Monroe is part of her cultural arsenal, despite never having seen Monroe’s films. </p>
<p>An example of 19th-century girls’ appropriating culture can be seen in the youthful writings of <a href="https://www.savethechildren.org/us/about-us/why-save-the-children/eglantyne-jebb">Eglantyne Jebb</a> (1876–1928), who went on to co-found the Save the Children Trust and define <a href="https://theconversation.com/protection-et-emancipation-les-deux-faces-des-droits-de-lenfant-139062">the rights of the child</a>. Her home-made magazines are held in the <a href="https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/collections/thewomenslibrary">Women’s Library</a> at the London School of Economics. One shows that young Eglantyne copied the The Pickwick Club fictional magazine from Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women (1868), which was in turn inspired by Charles Dickens’ first novel The Pickwick Papers (1836–7). </p>
<p>Experts in sociology and education have also observed children’s tendency to appropriate. The sociologist William Corsaro calls this <a href="https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/the-sociology-of-childhood/book249436">interpretive reproduction</a>, which captures the balance of imitation and agency in girls’ play. Yet this phenomenon is just one aspect of children’s rich cultural lives.</p>
<h2>Improving how girls are seen</h2>
<p>It is undeniable that latent sexual potential has <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/lewis-carrolls-shifting-reputation-9432378/">defined girlhood</a> for many writers and creators, whether they have realised it or not. The depiction of overtly sexualised girlhood is tiresome at best, and dangerous at worst. Natalie Portman has spoken out about the “<a href="https://www.nme.com/news/natalie-portman-sexual-terrorism-womens-march-speech-2225784">sexual terrorism</a>” she experienced as a result of appearing in Léon, leading her to <a href="https://www.film-news.co.uk/news/UK/64897/Natalie-Portman-No-one-would-make-Leon-today">say in 2019</a> that “no one would make Léon today”. </p>
<p>Yet many film-goers informed by #MeToo and intersectional views – which consider the overlapping of social categories such as race, gender and class – expect more. It was only a few months ago that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jan/30/hollywood-reverence-child-rapist-roman-polanski-convicted-40-years-on-run">convicted child rapist</a> Roman Polanski won the César award for best director, sparking protests in France and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-51684494">condemnation</a> from actresses including Adèle Haenel, star of the recent French hit Portrait of a Lady on Fire. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/j8xzi4yk0M8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>In recent years, even before the #MeToo movement, female writers and directors have been emerging to take the subject of girlhood into their own hands, which has resulted in more authentic representations of girls’ experiences. Some, including French director <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/celine-sciamma-interview-portrait-of-a-lady-on-fire-adele-haenel-tomboy-girlhood-a9365411.html">Céline Sciamma</a> are trailblazers in their depiction of female adolescence, eager to redress the balance.</p>
<p>Her films such as Water Lilies (2007), Tomboy (2011), <a href="https://theconversation.com/girlhood-is-remarkable-a-film-brimming-with-messages-of-empowerment-40860">Girlhood</a> (2015) and this year’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire, all place girl characters at the heart of the story. Sciamma’s example shows that stories of girlhood relationships, pastimes and creativity all make for dynamic cinema. They also sensitively deal with questions of adolescent sexuality. </p>
<p>Whether we consider a film made 25 years ago – or a novel written 125 years ago – we see that girlhood is often framed by the wilful misunderstanding of young women’s experiences. The films of Sciamma and her contemporaries indicate that a sea-change is possible. Writers and directors can and must do justice to their girl subjects. They need to look to the real experiences, interests and creative lives of young women, instead of pandering to tropes of sexual precociousness favoured by the male gaze for far too long.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141262/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lois Burke does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>For too long the tired tropes of the male gaze in film and literature have focused on girls’ sexual precociousness. Girlhood culture deserves to be represented more authentically.Lois Burke, Research Associate in English, Edinburgh Napier UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1382622020-05-25T19:48:16Z2020-05-25T19:48:16ZMindy Kaling’s ‘Never Have I Ever’ makes me feel hopeful about representation, gender and race<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/336558/original/file-20200520-152349-1pxhstq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=83%2C16%2C1293%2C911&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, left, stars in _Never Have I Ever_ as Devi, a delightful protagonist who has endearing, thoughtful friends with stories of their own, Fabiola (Lee Rodriguez), center, and Eleanor (Ramona Young), right.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Lara Solanki/Netflix)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Television depictions of South Asians can be uneven at best — <em>Big Bang Theory</em>, <em>Homeland</em>, <em>Saving Hope</em>, <em>24</em>, to name a few. When I sat down to watch the new Mindy Kaling-produced sitcom, <em>Never Have I Ever</em>, for the first time, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. </p>
<p>Some reviewers critiqued the show for its unevenness, <a href="https://www.flare.com/tv-movies/never-have-i-ever-representation/">the stereotypes</a> and <a href="https://www.laineygossip.com/mindy-kalings-never-have-i-ever-gets-off-to-rough-start-but-takes-on-new-life-after-episode-three/66166">having Indian culture explained by former tennis star John McEnroe</a>. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, <em>Never Have I Ever</em> is a fresh, fun and poignant addition to television’s repertoire of coming-of-age stories. With its tender portrayal of imperfect teens navigating a complex world, it is reminiscent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/aug/26/my-so-called-life-claire-danes-show-that-changed-tv">of <em>My So-Called Life</em></a>, which starred Claire Danes. </p>
<p>Although Danes’s character Angela is more introverted than Maitreyi Ramakrishnan’s hotheaded and occasionally self-destructive Devi Vishwakumar, both young women are the core of their stories, frequently awkward and at risk of missing out on real friendships and love as they pursue handsome, popular and vulnerable young men. </p>
<h2>Devi and Indian girl adolescence</h2>
<p>For Devi, of course, the travails of high school politics are even more acute because of her refusal to acknowledge the grief she feels over the death of her father. She also struggles with confusion over her identity; as a young American woman of Indian descent, Devi doesn’t know — or want to know — how to feel comfortable in the skin that marks her as different.</p>
<p>It’s a battle that <a href="https://www.ubcpress.ca/dreaming-in-canadian">many second-generation and third-generation immigrants know well</a> — <a href="https://doi.org/10.20355/C5901G">we are marked</a> as having a particular identity but <a href="http://tupress.temple.edu/book/3128">either don’t want to enact it or don’t know how</a>. And yet, persistently, we are told that we must. </p>
<p>In some ways, this theme underpins the story of showrunner Kaling, and has formed part of the backdrop for the interest in <em>Never Have I Ever</em>. Regardless of her success, she is often asked to explain why she hasn’t paid more homage to her Indian roots, to account <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/ywy9zm/mindy-kaling-is-finally-changing-her-disappointing-track-record-on-diversity">for the whiteness in her writers’ rooms and for the fact that her character on <em>The Mindy Project</em> dated mainly white characters</a>. </p>
<p>Kaling is singled out on the basis that women of colour who succeed are obligated to remember their minority status, and to extend a helping hand to other people of colour. Indeed, artists such as director Ava DuVernay, show creator Shonda Rhimes and screenwriter/producer Lena Waithe are <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/ywy9zm/mindy-kaling-is-finally-changing-her-disappointing-track-record-on-diversity">rightly applauded for having opened doors of opportunity to others</a>. At the same time, the notion that we should be particularly critical of a woman of colour — more critical than we are of white showrunners, it seems — for not promoting visible minorities <a href="https://www.elle.com/culture/a29340748/mindy-kaling-interview-2019/">seems like a rather noxious double standard</a>. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HyOCCCbxwMQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Released in April, Mindy Kaling-produced <em>Never Have I Ever</em> depicts the life of Devi, an Indian American teenage girl.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The enlightened racism of television</h2>
<p>With <em>Never Have I Ever,</em> Kaling is responding to her critics. The cast is gloriously diverse with characters who are Black, Asian, South Asian, Jewish and gay. (Devi’s hunky crush is half Japanese, and his sister is a person with Down Syndrome.) But the appeal of the show is not just that the cast is diverse. </p>
<p>One of the main criticisms of <em>The Cosby Show</em> (before the sexual assault allegations against Bill Cosby, that is) was that the show portrayed a successful family who <em>just happened</em> to be black — a perspective that <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/watching-race">television scholars such as Herman Gray</a> have criticized. </p>
<p>As media scholars Sut Jhally and Justin Lewis argue, this <a href="https://books.google.ca/books/about/Enlightened_Racism.html?id=vzGopxuoksoC&redir_esc=y">enables a form of enlightened racism</a>. That is, the presence of people of colour on screen begs the question: does the text engage meaningfully with what it means to be a person of colour in a society shaped by racism? </p>
<p>Devi doesn’t just happen to be brown. It’s a significant part of her identity, and part of her coming-of-age, coming-to-terms-with-herself story. And yet, her brownness is not the entirety of who she is. </p>
<p>She is a rebellious teen who chafes at her mother’s strict rules, misses her father, can be self-centred in the way of teenagers, uses some of her prayers to ask earnestly for a thinning of her arm hair (believe me, the young women of South Asian origin get it), and is trying to reconcile the vision of sexuality she sees in the media with the reality before her. </p>
<h2>A future of Devis</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.trutv.com/shows/the-problem-with-apu">Unlike other brown characters who have appeared on television before her, such as <em>The Simpson’s</em> Apu</a>, Devi is more than a sidekick or a figure of fun. She drives the narrative, and in ways that are alternately inspiring, cringe-worthy and relatable. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1260822148404273152"}"></div></p>
<p>And while Devi’s mother and cousin Kamala do invoke stereotypes of Indian culture and gender, they are also smart, strong and good-hearted — even if Devi’s mother has a tough exterior and Kamala presents initially as a Bollywood trope. Clearly, the show isn’t perfect, and <a href="https://www.flare.com/tv-movies/never-have-i-ever-representation/">as the actress portraying Devi has noted</a>, Devi is only one representation of South Asian culture. </p>
<p>The arrival of <em>Never Have I Ever</em> on the television scene carries with it a sense of promise: of future seasons where we learn more about Devi and where she learns more about herself. Hopefully, future shows will have representations of other girls of different backgrounds. When we have enough of those representations, there won’t be quite so much pressure riding on a show like this one.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/138262/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Faiza Hirji does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>“Never Have I Ever” is a fresh, fun and poignant addition to television’s repertoire of coming-of-age stories, especially for stories of Indian teenage girls.Faiza Hirji, Associate Professor Department of Communication Studies and Multimedia, McMaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/873282017-12-13T19:07:24Z2017-12-13T19:07:24ZBetween innocence and experience: the sexualisation of girlhood in 19th century postcards<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194246/original/file-20171112-29374-1c71nia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">French postcard of Lili (before 1904), 'playing around'.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In our sexual histories series, authors explore changing sexual mores from antiquity to today.</em></p>
<p>We often hear that we are living in a <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3347564/The-generation-of-damaged-girls.html">corrupting, visually saturated, consumer culture</a>, which threatens the innocence of girlhood. But representations of young girls in the European postcard trade at the turn of the 20th century cast doubt on this notion of an ideal, more innocent past.</p>
<p>From the mid-1890s until the first world war, Europeans had a love affair with collecting postcards. Created in 1874, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Postal_Union">Universal Postal Union</a> established standardised postal regulations at accessible rates for its member nations; this greatly contributed to the postcard craze. In bigger cities, cards needed just a few hours to arrive at their destinations. The world was at one’s fingertips.</p>
<p>Rival publishers vied for attention with collectors’ competitions, impressive exhibitions, and artistic innovations. It did not take long for alluring postcards to flourish in the light-hearted social context of the time. European publishers showed great ingenuity in avoiding local censorship. They played with the boundaries of what was socially and legally acceptable. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194245/original/file-20171112-29364-1v5gd6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194245/original/file-20171112-29364-1v5gd6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194245/original/file-20171112-29364-1v5gd6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194245/original/file-20171112-29364-1v5gd6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194245/original/file-20171112-29364-1v5gd6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194245/original/file-20171112-29364-1v5gd6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194245/original/file-20171112-29364-1v5gd6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194245/original/file-20171112-29364-1v5gd6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Postcard (c. 1900), published in Italy by C.R.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet the trend of erotic postcards did not just bring cheeky smiles and cheerful eroticism. A quick look at one Italian postcard (c. 1900) highlights more disturbing aspects. Elevated on a pedestal, a pre-pubescent model is the privileged object of our gaze. Side lightings magnify her blond mane, and sculpt her flawless skin. A neutral backdrop focuses the attention on her statuesque body. This little goddess is a work of art. </p>
<p>Let us study the precise nature of this ideal.</p>
<p>Three eggs hide the sitter’s bosom. They allude to the symbol of fertility, while playing with the visual resemblance between the shape of breasts and eggs. A deftly positioned piece of cloth emphasises her hips thereby defining an inviting triangle. This veil of modesty also denotes the art of teasing in a game of hide and seek. </p>
<p>The artist tainted the model’s lips with a vivid red, a similar hue to the plinth’s velvet. The colour conveys a brazen sexuality immediately contradicted by the candour of the model. What strikes one’s attention is precisely the discrepancy between these sexual innuendos and the sitter’s youthful naivety. She proudly smiles, unaware of the paedophilic gaze she may entice in the adult viewer. The end result is deeply unsettling and exploitative. </p>
<p>In another unattributed French postcard (before 1904), we follow the adventures of Lili who is described as “playing around”. The caption informs us that she has a springtime smile, and that she is ready to wear her bedside wreath. Her white apparel and the laced clothing convey the idea of virginal innocence and freshness.</p>
<p>Still, her inviting pose, coquettish manners, and bare shoulder leave the viewer perplexed. There is an uneasy tension between the artificiality of the setting and the model’s impression of spontaneous cheerfulness. It is difficult not to read in this staged vignette an eroticised performance for adults at the expense of the young model.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194246/original/file-20171112-29374-1c71nia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194246/original/file-20171112-29374-1c71nia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194246/original/file-20171112-29374-1c71nia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194246/original/file-20171112-29374-1c71nia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194246/original/file-20171112-29374-1c71nia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194246/original/file-20171112-29374-1c71nia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194246/original/file-20171112-29374-1c71nia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194246/original/file-20171112-29374-1c71nia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The full postcard of Lili ‘playing around’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The ‘erotic virgin’</h2>
<p>In both postcards, the sitters epitomise the photographers’ quest for both pristine morality and brazen sexuality. The ambivalent girl exemplifies what scholar Hanne Blank names, the “erotic virgin”. </p>
<p>In her book, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/225909.Virgin">Virgin: The Untouched History</a>, Blank highlights a recurrent theme in pornographic tropes: “the tale of the skilled ‘conversion’ of resistant virgin into willing wench”. In these coded scripts, virgins hold a dormant sexuality ready to be activated by “the magic of the ‘right’ male wand”. </p>
<p>Blank links the modern fetishising of virginity to the rise of capitalism during the industrial revolution. Young girls left rural areas with the hope of finding better prospects in the city. Economically and socially vulnerable, they were easy prey for unscrupulous employers and brothel owners. The temptation of a pristine body was even greater as venereal diseases were rampant. </p>
<p>The burgeoning mass media culture played a pivotal role in establishing the virgin as an object of sexual lust. As the possibilities of reaching a wider audience increased, so did the virgin’s lucrative potential. By drawing on the dual characterisation of female sexuality as virtuous and vicious, the industry capitalised on fantasies of both innocence and experience.</p>
<p>This new eroticised visual culture drew the attention of legislators, philanthropic organisations, and religious groups. Concerns of child protection reformers ranged from the growing recognition of the child as a vulnerable being in need of protection to a more general fear of moral corruption. </p>
<p>Still, photographs of coquettes were risqué yet charming. Under the celebration of a candid femininity, they catered for both male and female audiences. More than a marginal phenomenon, the sexualisation of girlhood in the social fabric denotes a collective fascination with the young body as a modern ideal of femininity. </p>
<h2>A socially ingrained phenomenon</h2>
<p>The first world war sounded the death knell of the postcards age. During the conflict, <a href="https://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/patriotism-and-nationalism">propaganda postcards</a> had helped feed the nationalistic fervour but overall, demand for postcards plunged. The attraction of youthful femininity though, did not wane. Another medium offered more exciting prospects and creative potential than serialized postcards: the cinema. </p>
<p>Tendentious 19th century postcards, Brooke Shields’s auctioned virginity in Louis Malle’s movie Pretty Baby (1978), and virginity pornography pervasive on the internet, all create the same sexual scenario. Their protagonist has been a little Eve who tempts Adam in the Garden of Eden.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/X11Zlw1NcVo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Though technology evolves constantly, the sexualisation of girlhood is a socially ingrained phenomenon and the commodification of the female being as virgin and whore remains unchanged. </p>
<p><em>Tomorrow: Alastair Blanshard on the myth of the ancient Greek ‘gay utopia’.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87328/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elodie Silberstein receives funding from Monash University for a Graduate Research Scholarship.
She is a member of the Darebin Women’s Advisory Committee (DWAC) which provides guidance to the City of Darebin on gender policies.</span></em></p>Eroticised postcards featuring young girls in playful poses were collectables at the turn of the 20th century. These images challenge the notion that childhood was once more innocent than it is today.Elodie Silberstein, PhD candidate in Film, Media and Communications, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.