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Girls:
read the article on girls below.
Girl
A girl is a female child, as opposed to a boy, a male child. The age at
which a female person transitions from girl to woman varies in different
societies; typically the transition from adolescence to maturity is taken to
occur in the late teens.
The English word (first documented in 1290) originally designated a child of
either gender. To designate between the two genders, a female child was
called a gay girl, while a male child was called a knave girl.[1] During the
14th century its sense was narrowed to specifically female children.
Subsequently, it was extended to refer also to mature but unmarried young
women since the 1530s. Usage in the sense of (romantic) "sweetheart" arose
in the 17th century.
Historically, girls faced discrimination and limitations on the roles they
were expected to play in their societies, and the United Nations targeted
discrimination in schooling to end by 2010. An ongoing debate about the
influences of nature versus nurture in shaping the behavior of girls and
boys raises questions about whether the roles played by girls are the result
of inborn differences or socialization. Images of girls in art, literature,
and popular culture often demonstrate assumptions about gender roles.
Demographics
There are 2.17 billion people (est. UNICEF, 2004) aged 18 or under in the
world, for a total of more than one billion living girls. From birth, girls
are a slight minority due to both natural factors (the human sex ratio has
been observed since the 1700s as approximately 1,050 boys for every 1,000
girls) and due to sex selection on the part of parents.
Although the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
specifies that "primary education shall be compulsory and available free to
all", girls are slightly less likely to be enrolled as students in primary
(70% enrollment vs. 74% for boys) or secondary education (59% vs. 65%). This
disparity is targeted to end under the Millennium Development Goals and has
closed substantially since 1990.[2]
Gender roles
According to feminist analysis, in all cultures, girls have been socialized
into gender roles, although the degree to which behavior is innate or
environmentally determined is greatly debated. In most cultures and time
periods of the world, girls have traditionally played with dolls and toy
cooking and cleaning equipment, while boys most often prefer toys and games
that require more physical activity or simulated violence, such as toy
trucks, balls, and toy guns. Girls are less often encouraged to pursue
sports, with the exception of sports that might be considered "feminine,"
such as figure skating, volleyball, or gymnastics; or those considered
"gender-neutral," such as tennis.[3] They may be prevented from
participating in many of the same activities that boys participate in at the
same age, as a matter of protecting them from perceived outside dangers,
such as boys and men, or anything that may cause physical injury. Sometimes
boys are presumed to be more responsible than girls, except in the cases of
caring for younger children, which is sometimes thought to be instinctual in
girls. Girls, as a group, may be perceived as being more docile than boys,
and as being less capable of rational decision making and more governed by
emotional responses.
The reasons for this perceived difference in the behavior of girls and boys
are a controversial topic in both public debate and the sciences. The idea
that differences in gender roles originate in differences in biology is
traditional, but spelled out first explicitly from 19th-century
anthropology; more recently, sociobiology and evolutionary psychology have
turned to this problem to explain those differences by treating them as
evolutionary adaptations to a lifestyle of Paleolithic hunter-gatherer
societies. For example, the need to take care of offspring may have limited
the females' freedom to hunt and to assume positions of power. Simon
Baron-Cohen, a Cambridge University professor of psychology and psychiatry,
argues that "the female brain is predominantly hard-wired for empathy, while
the male brain is predominantly hard-wired for understanding and building
systems."
On the other hand, feminists have argued that gender roles are the result of
stereotypes and socialization rather than any innate biological differences.
Owing to the influence of (among others) Simone de Beauvoir's feminist works
and Michel Foucault's reflections on sexuality, the idea that gender was
unrelated to sex gained ground during the 1980s, especially in sociology and
cultural anthropology - an idea that has taken hold in transgender groups.
The biological viewpoint of gender roles is not that all gender distinctions
result from biology, but rather that biology has an influence. Some
feminists deny this, but many feminists agree that both biology and
upbringing have an influence on gender roles, with the question being the
relative importance of each. This conflict is often called nature versus
nurture. This biological difference manifests itself in other notable
aspects of female physiology and psychology; most notable is girls'
preference to warmer weather and climates.[citation needed]
Several studies, such as the Programme for International Student Assessment
of the OECD, have shown that, in developed countries, girls usually obtain
better scores than boys do in secondary schools in Literature and Language,
boys on the other hand tend to score higher in mathematics. However, their
choices afterwards in postsecondary school are often very different and lead
them to less socially recognized professions. Relatively few girls become
engineers, though in the USA, more do become doctors.
Etymology
The word "girl" first appears during the Middle Ages. The Anglo-Saxon word
gyrela = "ornament" may have given rise to the modern pronunciation of
"girl", if the change in meaning can be explained. Alternatively, it could
have come from the Old Low German word kerl, which would have been
consistent with its original meaning. While there is no general agreement
about the etymology of "girl", it is found in manuscripts dating from 1290
with the meaning "a child" (of either sex). A female child was called a "gay
girl"; a male child was called a "knave girl". Like many other words that
originally were not gender-specific, "girl" gradually came to be used
primarily and then exclusively for one sex. There are manuscripts dating
from 1530 in which the word "girl" is used to mean "maiden" (also originally
applied to both sexes), or any unmarried female. Within little more than a
century, however, the word began to take on implications of social class. In
1668, in his Diary, Samuel Pepys uses the word to mean a female servant of
any age: "girl" = "serving girl". Note the parallel shift in the meaning of
the word "maid".
Usage of the term
By the 18th century, there was a difference in some uses of the word between
England and the Americas. In England, a "girl" was often a serving girl,
while in the United States a "girl" was often a sweetheart or "girlfriend",
for example, in the lyrics of the popular song "The Girl I Left Behind Me".
In England, the word "girl" was also used as a euphemism for "prostitute",
as for example by Richard Steele in The Spectator.
In the United States today, the word "girl" is often used as an intended
compliment or used humorously. A woman of a certain age might be called a
girl to suggest that she looks younger than she is, or a group of women
might speak of themselves as "us girls", though all are well over the age of
maidenhood. Adult women will sometimes refer to themselves as "girls", as in
"We're having a girls' night out" or "It's a girl thing". But social shifts
generally permit only the female gender group themselves to use such
terminology without giving offense.
Some feminists consider the use of "girl" applied to any adult female to be
offensive. They claim that the word is used to insinuate a lower social
status compared to adult males. Others feel the word is used to indicate low
morals, weakness, or homosexuality. Other women consider the word as merely
a courtesy term, similar to the way that lady is used to indicate females,
even those which are not the wife of a lord. There is a parallel objection
to use of the word "boy" to describe a male over the age of puberty.
Using the word "girl" to refer to a male is usually meant to be insulting,
such as "You throw like a girl". The more insulting "girly-boy", which
originated in 1589 as "girle-boy", is used to indicate a weak or "sissy"
male. Calling a male a girl often serves as a provocation to fight (see
fighting words). While outsiders might use "girl" or "girly" as a pejorative
to refer to a gay male, within the gay community it is used as a term of
endearment.
The word girl has many synonyms, including "belle", "chick", "doll",
"girly", "gal", "lass" or "lassie", "maiden", and "miss". The slang word
"gal", as in "Buffalo gals won't you come out tonight", is a variant
pronunciation of girl.
Art and literature
Portrayals of girls may reflect their standing in the artists' culture, and
a brief overview of different views of girls in different art periods gives
a sense of girls' roles in societies around the world and at different
points in time.
Egyptian murals included sympathetic portraits of young girls of royal
descent.
Ancient Greek classical art and literature paid scant attention to female
children, though there are many poems about boys. Only Sappho's poetry
includes love poems addressed to girls.
In European art, some early paintings to feature girls are Petrus Christus'
Portrait of a Young Girl, circa 1460, Juan de Flandes' Portrait of a Young
Girl, circa 1500–1510 (shown at left); Frans Hals' Die Amme mit dem Kind in
1620; Diego Velázquez' Las Meninas in 1656; Jan Steen's The Feast of St.
Nicolas, circa 1660; and Johannes Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring and
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.
In American art, paintings that feature girls include Mary Cassatt's 1884
Children on the Beach and Whistler's Harmony in Gray and Green: Miss Cicely
Alexander and The White Girl (shown at right).
As in art, portrayals of girls in literature can reflect the social norms of
the time at which they were written. Many novels begin with the childhood of
their heroine. Examples include the titular protagonist of Jane Eyre, who
suffers ill treatment; and Natasha in War and Peace, who is sentimentalized.
Other novels include Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, which has a young
girl as protagonist; and Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, a controversial book
about the relationship between a girl and a grown man. Memoirs of a Geisha
was written by Caucasian American Arthur Golden. However, it has been deemed
an accurate representation of geisha life in the early 20th century Japan.
The book starts as the female main character and her sister are dropped into
the pleasure district after being separated from their family.
Most early children's stories focused on boys, with the notable exception of
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll, whose photographs of
little girls are part of the history of photographic art.
Popular culture
European fairy tales include some memorable stories about girls, including
Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Rapunzel, Hans Christian Andersen's The
Little Match Girl, The Little Mermaid, and The Princess and the Pea, the
Brothers Grimm's Little Red Riding Hood, and others.
Children's books about girls include Little House on the Prairie, Alice in
Wonderland, Pippi Longstocking, Dragonsong, and A Wrinkle in Time. Books
which have both boy and girl protagonists tend to focus on the boys, but
important girl characters appear in Knight's Castle, The Lion, the Witch and
the Wardrobe, The Book of Three, and the Harry Potter series.
There have been many American comic books and comic strips featuring a girl
as the main character, such as Little Lulu, Little Orphan Annie, Girl
Genius, and Amelia Rules. In superhero comic books, an early girl character
was Etta Candy, one of Wonder Woman's sidekicks. In the Peanuts series (by
Charles Schulz), girl characters include Peppermint Patty, Lucy van Pelt,
and Sally Brown.
In Japanese animated cartoons and comic books, girls are often protagonists.
Most of the animated films of Hayao Miyazaki feature a young girl as the
hero, as in Majo no takkyūbin (Kiki's Delivery Service). There are many
other stories with girls as protagonists in the Shōjo style of manga, which
is targeted to girls as an audience. Examples include The Wallflower, Ceres,
Celestial Legend, Tokyo Mew Mew and Full Moon o Sagashite. Other genres of
Japanese cartoons often feature sexualized and objectified portrayals of
girls.
Sexualization of young girls in art and entertainment is a common theme
across all eras and mediums. However it is especially prominent, or at least
more explicitly visible, in modern cinema and television. Some famous
examples of this include Taxi Driver, The Blue Lagoon, Léon: The
Professional, and Pretty Baby - films dealing with young girls in adult
situations, typically under extraordinary circumstances. An older, and
perhaps most notorious example is a book by Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955)
, that centers around a complex romantic relationship between a scholar and
a young girl as they travel across the United States.
See also
Look up girl in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
* Lady
* Female infanticide
* Girl group
* Girl Guides
* Girl Power
* Boy
References
1. ^ Reader's Digest Ltd. (1989). Facts and Fallacies - Stories of the
Strange and Unusual. Reader's Digest Ltd. Page 239. Reader's Digest Ltd.
(1989). Facts and Fallacies - Stories of the Strange and Unusual. Reader's
Digest Ltd. Page 39. ISBN 0864380879.
2. ^ The State of the World's Children 2004 - Girls, Education and
Development , UNICEF, 2004
3. ^ Lisa Harrison and Amanda Lynch, Sex Roles: A Journal of Research -
Social Role Theory and the Perceived Gender Role Orientation of Athletes,
2005
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