In my second class period of African-American Women's History on thursday, Professor Brooks asked us to freewrite for a few minutes on two definitions
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GIRLHOOD is the discovery and learning about the world through the lens of being young and female. It is shaped by other social categories, such as race and class, but primarily by perceptions of that youngness and femaleness. Girlhood is a period of learning "the Rules" imposed on that gender. I think of Janie in Thier Eyes Were Watching God and her pear tree - and the seeming dissonance of the the rest of her life to that ideal.
WOMANHOOD is a claming of space, or relevance, of responsibility. Now, knowing or having internalized the rules, there is a possibily of strong resistance or subversion. Noncompliance can no longer be attributed to youth or Girlhood, it can only recognized as a statement - politcal, social, or otherwise.
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WOMANHOOD is a claming of space, or relevance, of responsibility. Now, knowing or having internalized the rules, there is a possibily of strong resistance or subversion. Noncompliance can no longer be attributed to youth or Girlhood, it can only recognized as a statement - politcal, social, or otherwise.
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