Girlhood and Cultural Difference in the 20th Century

FAIN: FT-229941-15

Ashwini Tambe
University of Maryland, College Park (College Park, MD 20742-5141)

Summer research and writing on Gender Studies, Legal and Women's History.

I seek an NEH summer stipend to complete the final chapter of my book manuscript. In the book I explore transnational forces that shaped increases in the age of sexual consent for girls in the twentieth century, such as new scientific ideas about adolescence, UN legal conventions, and population control. I explain how diverse cultural notions about girls' sexual maturation were negotiated. The book contributes to understanding how the meaning and age span of modern girlhood expanded. In my final chapter I will examine the popularization of the term "girl child" in international advocacy circles. The chapter will trace the term's broad arc from the 1990 South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation Year of the Girl Child to the 2012 UN International Year of the Girl Child. I will show how the term traveled outside South Asia to frame 1990s UN activities and corporate campaigns in the 2000s and 2010s. The chapter will help contextualize the current popularity of framing formerly "women's issues" as now "girls' issues."

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