Girl
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A girl is a young
The treatment and status of girls in any society is usually closely related to the
Etymology
The English word girl first appeared during the
Usage for adult women
The word girl is sometimes used to refer to an adult female, usually a younger one. This usage may be considered
In a casual context, the word has positive uses, as evidenced by its use in titles of popular music. It has been used playfully for people acting in an energetic fashion (Canadian singer
History
The status of girls throughout world history is closely related to the status of women in any culture. Where women enjoy a more equal status with men, girls benefit from greater attention to their needs.
Girls' education
Girls' formal education has traditionally been considered far less important than that of boys. In Europe, exceptions were rare before the printing press and the Reformation made literacy more widespread. One notable exception to the general neglect of girls' literacy is Queen Elizabeth I. In her case, as a child, she was in a precarious position as a possible heir to the throne, and her life was in fact endangered by the political scheming of other powerful members of the court. Following the execution of her mother, Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth was considered illegitimate. Her education was for the most part ignored by Henry VIII. Remarkably, Henry VIII's widow, Catherine Parr, took an interest in the high intelligence of Elizabeth, and supported the decision to provide her with an impressive education after Henry's death, starting when Elizabeth was 9.[5] Elizabeth received an education equal to that of a prominent male aristocrat; she was educated in Latin, Greek, Spanish, French, philosophy, history, mathematics and music. It has been argued that Elizabeth's high-quality education helped her grow up to become a successful monarch.[6]
By the 18th century, Europeans recognized the value of literacy, and schools were opened to educate the public in growing numbers.
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La lettrice (1856). Reading Girl, sculpture by Pietro Magni
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Princesswomen in Ancient Egyptenjoyed a relatively high social status.
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TwoHailuoto Islandin 1912
"Coming of age" customs
This section needs additional citations for verification. (January 2022) |
Many cultures have traditional customs to mark the "coming of age" of a girl or boy, to recognize their transition to adulthood, or to mark other milestones of their journey to maturity as children.
Japan has a coming-of-age ritual called Shichi-Go-San (七五三), which literally means "Seven-Five-Three". This is a traditional rite of passage and festival day in Japan for three- and seven-year-old girls and three- and five-year-old boys, held annually on November 15. It is generally observed on the nearest weekend. On this day, the girl will be dressed in a traditional kimono, and will be taken to a temple by her family for a blessing ceremony. Nowadays, the occasion is also marked with a formal photo portrait.
Many coming-of-age ceremonies are to acknowledge the passing of a girl through puberty, when she experiences
Some coming-of-age ceremonies are religious rituals to recognize a girl's maturity with respect to her understanding of religious beliefs, and to recognize her changing role in her religious community.
A traditional coming-of-age ritual for daughters of college age (17 to 21 years old) from
Across Latin America, the fiesta de quince años is a celebration of a girl's fifteenth birthday. The girl celebrating the birthday is called a
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58th International Debutante Ball, 2012, New York City (Waldorf-Astoria Hotel)
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Bat mitzvahin Israel
Preparing girls for marriage
This section needs additional citations for verification. (January 2022) |
In many ancient societies, girls' upbringing had much to do with preparing them to be future wives. In many cultures, it was not the norm for women to be economically independent. Thus, where a girl's future well-being depended upon marrying her to a man who was economically self-sufficient, it was crucial to prepare her to meet whatever qualities or skills were popularly expected of wives.
Western society
In cultures ranging from
China
In some parts of China, beginning in the Southern Tang kingdom in Nanjing (937–975),[11] the custom of foot binding was associated with upper-class women who were worthy of a life of leisure, and husbands who could afford to spare them the necessity of work (which would require the ability to be mobile and spend the day on their feet).[11] Because of this belief, parents hoping to ensure a good marriage for their daughters would begin binding their feet from about the age of 5–8 to achieve the ideal appearance.[11] The tinier the feet, the better the social rank of a future husband.[11] This practice did not end until the early years of the 20th century.[11]
China has had many customs tied to girls and their roles as future wives and mothers. According to one custom, a girl's way of wearing her hair would indicate her marital status. An unmarried girl would wear her hair in two "pigtails", and once married, she would wear her hair in one.[12]
Africa
In some cultures, girls' passing through puberty is viewed with concern for a girl's chastity. In some communities, there is a traditional belief that female genital mutilation is a necessity to prevent a girl from becoming sexually promiscuous. The practice is dangerous, however, and leads to long-term health problems for women who have undergone it. The practice has been a custom in 28 countries of Africa, and persists mainly in rural areas. This coming-of-age custom, sometimes incorrectly described as "female circumcision", is being outlawed by governments, and challenged by human rights groups and other concerned community members, who are working to end the practice.
Trafficking and trading girls
Girls have been used historically, and are still used in some parts of the world, in settlements of disputes between families, through practices such as
Demographics
Scholars are unclear and in dispute as to possible causes for variations in human sex ratios at birth.[15][16] Countries which have sex ratios of 108 and above are usually presumed as engaging in sex selection. However, deviations in sex ratios at birth can occur for natural causes too. Nevertheless, the practice of bias against girls, through sex-selective abortion, female infanticide, female abandonment, as well as favouring sons with regard to allocating of family resources[17] is well documented in parts of South Asia, East Asia, and the Caucasus. Such practices are a major concern in China, India and Pakistan. In these cultures, the low status of women creates a bias against females.[18]
In India, by 2011, there were 91 girls younger than 6 for every 100 boys. Its 2011 census showed[22] that the ratio of girls to boys under the age of 6 years old has dropped even during the past decade, from 927 girls for every 1000 boys in 2001 to 918 girls for every 1000 boys in 2011. In China, scholars[23] report 794 baby girls for every 1000 baby boys in rural regions. In Azerbaijan, last 20 years of birth data suggests 862 girls were born for every 1000 boys, on average every year.[24] Steven Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute in Washington, D.C., has said: "Twenty-five million men in China currently can't find brides because there is a shortage of women [...] young men emigrate overseas to find brides." The gender imbalance in these regions is also blamed for spurring growth in the commercial sex trade; the UN's 2005 report states that up to 800,000 people being trafficked across borders each year, and as many as 80 percent are women and girls.[25]
Biology
Embryos that inherit two X chromosomes (XX), one from each parent, are generally identified as girls when born.
About one in a thousand girls have a
Girls typically have a
Girls' bodies undergo gradual changes during
Gender and environment
Biological sex interacts with environment in ways not fully understood.[32] Identical twin girls separated at birth and reunited decades later have shown both startling similarities and differences.[33] In 2005, professor Kim Wallen of Emory University noted, "I think the 'nature versus nurture' question is not meaningful, because it treats them as independent factors, whereas in fact everything is nature and nurture."[34] Wallen said gender differences emerge very early and come about through an underlying preference males and females have for their chosen activities.
Teenage pregnancy
Teenage pregnancy is
In developed countries, teenage pregnancy is usually associated with
Girls' education
Girls' equal access to education has been achieved in some countries, but there are significant disparities in the majority. There are gaps in access between different regions and countries and even within countries. Girls account for 60 percent of children out of school in Arab countries and 66 percent of non-attendees in South and West Asia; however, more girls than boys attend schools in many countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, North America and Western Europe.[48] Research has measured the economic cost of this inequality to developing countries: Plan International's analysis shows that a total of 65 low, middle income and transition countries fail to offer girls the same secondary school opportunities as boys, and in total, these countries are missing out on annual economic growth of an estimated $92 billion.[48]
Although the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has asserted "primary education shall be compulsory and available free to all" girls are slightly less likely to be enrolled as students in primary and secondary schools (70%:74% and 59%:65%). Worldwide efforts have been made to end this disparity (such as through the Millennium Development Goals) and the gap has closed since 1990.[49]
Educational environment and expectations
According to Kim Wallen, expectations will nonetheless play a role in how girls perform academically. For example, if females skilled in math are told a test is "gender neutral" they achieve high scores, but if they are told males outperformed females in the past, the females will do much worse. "What's strange is," Wallen observed, "according to the research, all one apparently has to do is tell a woman who has a lifetime of socialization of being poor in math that a math test is gender neutral, and all effects of that socialization go away."[51] Author Judith Harris has said that aside from their genetic contribution, the nurturing provided by parents likely has less long-term influence over their offspring than other environmental aspects such as the children's peer group.[52]
In England, studies by the National Literacy Trust have shown girls score consistently higher than boys in all scholastic areas from the ages of 7 through 16, with the most striking differences noted in reading and writing skills.[53] In the United States, historically, girls lagged on standardized tests. In 1996 the average score of 503 for US girls from all races on the SAT verbal test was 4 points lower than boys. In math, the average for girls was 492, which was 35 points lower than boys. "When girls take the exact same courses," commented Wayne Camara, a research scientist with the College Board, "that 35-point gap dissipates quite a bit." At the time Leslie R. Wolfe, president of the Center for Women Policy Studies said girls scored differently on the math tests because they tend to work the problems out while boys use "test-taking tricks" such as immediately checking the answers already given in multiple-choice questions. Wolfe said girls are steady and thorough while "boys play this test like a pin-ball machine." Wolfe also said although girls had lower SAT scores they consistently get higher grades than boys across all courses in their first year in college.[54] By 2006 girls were outscoring boys on the verbal portion of the United States' nationwide SAT exam by 11 points.[55] A 2005 University of Chicago study showed that a majority presence of girls in the classroom tends to enhance the academic performance of boys.[56][57]
Obstacles to girls' access to education
In many parts of the world, girls face significant obstacles to accessing proper education. These obstacles include: early and forced marriages; early pregnancy; prejudice based on gender stereotypes at home, at school and in the community; violence on the way to school, or in and around schools; long distances to schools; vulnerability to the HIV epidemic; school fees, which often lead to parents sending only their sons to school; lack of gender sensitive approaches and materials in classrooms.[58][59][60]
Sex segregation
Violence against girls
In many parts of the world, girls are at risk of specific forms of violence and abuse, such as
In parts of the world, especially in East Asia, South Asia and some Western countries' girls are sometimes seen as unwanted; in some cases, girls are selectively aborted, abused, mistreated or abandoned by their parents or relatives.[70][71] In China, boys exceed girls by more than 30 million, suggesting over a million excess boys are born every year than expected for normal human sex ratio at birth.[23] In India, scholars[72] estimate from boy to girl ratio at birth that sex-selective abortions cause a loss of about 1.5%, or 100,000 female births per year. Abnormal boy to girl ratio at birth is also seen in Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia, suggesting possible sex-selective abortions against girls.[73]
Female genital mutilation (FGM) is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as "all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons."[74] It is practiced mainly in 28 countries in western, eastern, and north-eastern Africa, particularly Egypt and Ethiopia, and in parts of Southeast Asia and the Middle East.[75] FGM is most often carried out on girls aged between infancy and 15 years.[76]
Child marriages, where girls are married at young ages (often forced and often to much older husbands) remain common in many parts of the world. They are fairly widespread in parts of the world, especially in Africa,[77][78] South Asia,[79] Southeast and East Asia,[80][81] the Middle East,[82][83] Latin America,[84] and Oceania.[85] The ten countries with the highest rates of child marriage are: Niger, Chad, Central African Republic, Bangladesh, Guinea, Mozambique, Mali, Burkina Faso, South Sudan, and Malawi.[86]
Child sexual abuse (CSA) is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation.[87][88] In Western countries CSA is considered a serious crime, but in many parts of the world there is a tacit tolerance of the practice. CSA can take many forms, one of which is child prostitution. Child prostitution is the commercial sexual exploitation of children in which a child performs the services of prostitution, for financial benefit. It is estimated that each year at least one million children, mostly girls, become prostitutes.[89] Child prostitution is common in many parts of the world, especially in Southeast Asia (Thailand, Cambodia), and many adults from wealthy countries travel to these regions to engage in child sex tourism.
In many parts of the world, girls who are deemed to have tarnished the 'honor' of their families by refusing arranged marriages, having premarital sex, dressing in ways deemed inappropriate or even becoming the victims of rape, are at risk of honor killing by their families.[90]
Health
Girls' health suffers in cultures where girls are valued less than boys, and families allocate most resources to boys. A major threat to girls' health is early marriage, which often leads to
Girls and child labor
Gender influences the pattern of child labor. Girls tend to be asked by their families to perform more domestic work in their parental home than boys are, and often at younger ages than boys. Employment as a paid domestic worker is the most common form of child labor for girls. In some places, such as East and Southeast Asia, parents often see work as a domestic servant as a good preparation for marriage. Domestic service, however, is among the least regulated of all professions, and exposes workers to serious risks, such as violence, exploitation and abuse by the employers, because the workers are often isolated from the outside world. Child labor has a very negative effect on education. Girls either stop their education, or, when they continue it, they are often subjected to a double burden, or a triple burden of work outside the home, housework in the parental home, and schoolwork. This situation is common in places such as parts of Asia and Latin America.[93][94]
International initiatives for girls' rights
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1988) and Millennium Development Goals (2000) promoted better access to education for all girls and boys and to eliminate gender disparities at both primary and secondary level. Worldwide school enrolment and literacy rates for girls have improved continuously. In 2005, global primary net enrolment rates were 85 percent for girls, up from 78 percent 15 years earlier; at the secondary level, girls' enrolment increased 10 percentage points to 57 percent over the same period.[48]
A number of international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have created programs focussing on addressing disparities in girls' access to such necessities as food, healthcare and education.
- Earn up to 25 percent more and reinvest 90 percent in her family.
- Be three times less likely to become HIV-positive.
- Have fewer, healthier children who are 40 percent more likely to live past the age of five.[95]
Plan International also created a campaign to establish an International Day of the Girl. The goals of this initiative are to raise global awareness of the unique challenges facing girls, as well as the key role they have in addressing larger poverty and development challenges. A delegation of girls from Plan Canada introduced the idea to Rona Ambrose, Canada's Minister of Public Works and Government Services and Minister for Status of Women, at the 55th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women at United Nations Headquarters in February 2011. In March 2011, Canada's Parliament unanimously adopted a motion requesting that Canada take the lead at the United Nations in the initiative to proclaim an International Day of the Girl.[96] The General Assembly of the United Nations adopted an International Day of the Girl Child on December 19, 2011. The first International Day of the Girl Child is October 11, 2012.
Its most recent research has led PLAN International to identify a need to coordinate projects that address boys' roles in their communities, as well as finding ways of including boys in activities that reduce gender discrimination. Since political, religious and local community leaders are most often men, men and boys have great influence over any effort to improve girls' lives and achieve gender equality. PLAN International's 2011 Annual Report points out that men have more influence and may be able to convince communities to curb early marriage and female genital mutilation (FGM) more effectively than women. Egyptian religious leader Sheikh Saad, who has campaigned against the practice, is quoted in the report: “We have decided that our daughter will not go through this bad, inhumane experience [...] I am part of the change.”[97]
Art and literature
Historically, art and literature in Western culture has portrayed girls as symbols of innocence, purity, virtue and hope.
In Europe, some early paintings featuring girls were Petrus Christus' Portrait of a Young Girl (about 1460), Juan de Flandes' Portrait of a Young Girl (about 1505), Frans Hals' Die Amme mit dem Kind in 1620, Diego Velázquez' Las Meninas in 1656, Jan Steen's The Feast of St. Nicolas (about 1660) and Johannes Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring along with Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window. Later paintings of girls include Albert Anker's portrait of a Girl with a Domino Tower and Camille Pissarro's 1883 Portrait of a Felix Daughter.
Mary Cassatt painted many famous Impressionist works that idealize the innocence of girls and the mother-daughter bond, for example her 1884 work Children on the Beach. During the same era, Whistler's Harmony in Gray and Green: Miss Cicely Alexander and The White Girl depict girls in the same light.
The European children's literature canon includes many notable works with young female protagonists. Traditional fairy tales have preserved memorable stories about girls. Among these are Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Rapunzel, The Princess and the Pea and the Brothers Grimm's Little Red Riding Hood. Well-known children's books about girls include Heidi, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the Nancy Drew series, Little House on the Prairie, Madeline, Pippi Longstocking, A Wrinkle in Time, Dragonsong, and Little Women.
Beginning in the late Victorian era, more nuanced depictions of girl protagonists became popular.
By the 20th century, the portrayal of girls in fiction had for the most part abandoned idealized portrayals of girls. Popular literary novels include Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird in which a young girl, Scout, is faced with the awareness of the forces of bigotry in her community. Vladimir Nabokov's controversial book Lolita (1955) is about a doomed relationship between a 12-year-old girl and an adult scholar as they travel across the United States. Zazie dans le métro (Zazie in the Metro) (1959) by Raymond Queneau is a popular French novel that humorously celebrates the innocence and precocity of Zazie, who ventures off on her own to explore Paris, escaping from her uncle (a professional female impersonator) and her mother (who is preoccupied by a meeting with her lover). Zazie was also made into a popular movie in 1960 (Zazie dans le Métro) by French director Louis Malle.
Books which have both boy and girl protagonists have tended to focus more on the boys, but important girl characters appear in series.
Recent novels with an adult audience have included reflections on girlhood experiences. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden begins as the female main character and her sister are dropped off in the pleasure district after being separated from their family in 19th-century Japan. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See traces the laotong (old sames) bond of friendship between a pair of childhood friends in modern Beijing, and the parallel friendship of their ancestors in 19th-century Hunan, China.
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Peter Paul Rubens—Portrait of a Young Girl
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The Time of the Lilacs, by Sophie Gengembre Anderson
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Little Red Riding Hood, illustrated in a 1927 story anthology
Girls' Studies
Since the 1970s, under the influence of feminist criticism of the androcentric approach in scientific studies of childhood and adolescence, a special scientific discipline studying girls, Girls' Studies, has gradually emerged.[99]
Popular culture
There have been many comic books and comic strips featuring a girl as the main character such as
In
The term girl is widely heard in the lyrics of popular music (such as with the song "American Girl"), most often meaning a young adult or teenaged female.
See also
References
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Gender feminists also consider traditional feminine traits (gentleness, modesty, humility, sacrifice, supportiveness, empathy, compassion, tenderness, nurturance, intuitiveness, sensitivity, unselfishness) morally superior to the traditional masculine traits of courage, strong will, ambition, independence, assertiveness, initiative, rationality and emotional control.
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Purdah regulates the interactions of women with certain kinds of men. Typically, Hindu women must avoid specific male affines (in-laws) and Muslim women are restricted from contact with men outside the family, or at least their contact with these men is highly circumscribed (Papanek 1982:3). In practice, many elements of both "Hindu" and "Muslim" purdah are shared by women of both groups in South Asia (Vatuk 1982; Jeffery 1979), and Hindu and Muslim women both adopt similar strategies of self-effacement, like covering the face, keeping silent, and looking down, when in the company of persons to be avoided.
- ^ Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting Archived 2013-12-03 at the Wayback Machine UNICEF, (July 2013)
- ^ FGM - Where is it practiced? European Campaign on FGM & Amnesty International (2012)
- ^ Tackling Female Genital Mutilation in the Kurdistan Region Sofia Barbarani, The Kurdistan Tribune (March 4, 2013)
- ^ World Health Organization, Female genital mutilation: an overview. 1998, Geneva: World Health Organization
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- ^ "Female genital mutilation", World Health Organization, February 2013.
- ^ "An update on WHO's work on female genital mutilation (FGM)", World Health Organization, 2011, p. 2: "Most women who have experienced FGM live in one of the 28 countries in Africa and the Middle East – nearly half of them in just two countries: Egypt and Ethiopia. Countries in which FGM has been documented include: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Togo, Uganda, United Republic of Tanzania and Yemen. The prevalence of FGM ranges from 0.6% to 98% of the female population."
- Rahman, Anika and Toubia, Nahid. Female Genital Mutilation: A Guide to Laws and Policies Worldwide. Zed Books, 2000 (hereafter Rahman and Toubia 2000), p. 7: "Currently, FC/FGM is practiced in 28 African countries in the sub-Saharan and North-eastern regions."
- Also see "Eliminating Female Genital Mutilation", World Health Organization, 2008, p. 4: "Types I, II and III female genital mutilation have been documented in 28 countries in Africa and in a few countries in Asia and the Middle East."
- ^ "WHO | Female genital mutilation". Who.int. Retrieved 2014-06-04.
- ^ Child brides die young ANTHONY KAMBA, Africa in Fact Journal (1 AUGUST 2013)
- ^ Marrying too young, End child marriage United Nations Population Fund (2012), See page 23
- ^ Early Marriage, Child Spouses UNICEF, See section on Asia, page 4 (2001)
- ^ Southeast Asia's big dilemma: what to do about child marriage? Archived 2013-10-03 at the Wayback Machine August 20, 2013
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- ^ "How Come You Allow Little Girls to Get Married?" - Child Marriage in Yemen Human Rights Watch, (2011); pages 15-23
- ^ Child marriage still an issue in Saudi Arabia Joel Brinkley, San Francisco Chronicle (March 14, 2010)
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- PMID 10453704.
Abuse, sexual (child): generally defined as contacts between a child and an adult or other person significantly older or in a position of power or control over the child, where the child is being used for sexual stimulation of the adult or other person.
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- ^ Female genital mutilation
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