Running for Their Lives: Girls, Cultural Identity, and Stories of Survival / Edition 1

by Sharie A. Inness, Tahera Aftab, Mah-Rukh Ali, Ayanna Anamoor, Afia Begum

Overview

Girl Power has become the rallying cry for a new generation of girls as they navigate—on their own terms—the perilous yet exhilarating journey from girlhood to adulthood. Though this transformation is often difficult for middle-class white girls growing up in the United States, it is unimaginably more difficult for girls, often in developing countries, who contend with such life-threatening issues as poverty, abuse, and civil war. Indeed, girl power is a luxury these girls can’t afford. Consider the young Thai teenage girl who must work in a button factory in order to save some money for her daughter. Think about the poverty-stricken young girl who is raped in rural Pakistan, and whose rapist is never brought to trial. Consider the journey of the African girl who is adopted and brought to the United States, yet discovers that she is not accepted because of her race. These stories and other equally painful sagas will resonate with readers of this collection, whose chapters will give these and other disenfranchised girls a place to speak, a place to express some of the pain, emotional and physical, of their journey through girlhood.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780847698516
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	02/09/2000
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.84(w) x 8.98(h) x 0.48(d)

About the Author

Sherrie A. Inness is associate professor of English at Miami University. She lives in Fairfield, Ohio. She is the editor of, most recently, Millennium Girls: Today’s Girls Around the World (Rowman and Littlefield, 1998) and Delinquents and Debutantes: Twentieth Century American Girls’ Cultures (NYU Press, 1998)

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 ChapterAcknowledgments
Chapter 2 ChapterIntroduction: Girl ProblemsSherrie A. Inness
Chapter 3 Acknowledgments
Chapter 4 Introduction: Girl Problems
Part 5 I: Dancing the Bashenga: Girls Confront Racism
Chapter 6 1 Coming to America: Not the Movie by Eddie Murphy
Chapter 7 2 From Foutou to French Fries: Life on the Edge of African and American Cultures
Chapter 8 3 “Mommy I just want to fit in!”: An African Girl’s Story
Chapter 9 4 Childhood Misconceptions: Reflections of a Biracial American (Colored) Girl
Chapter 10 5 Mah-Rukh Ali: Profile of a Norwegian
Chapter 11 6 Fighting Shame: A Somali Single Teen Mother in Canada
Part 12 II: Don’t Look Down: Girls Living on the Edge
Chapter 13 7 A Tightrope Made of Sari Silk: The Delicate, Perilous World of Girlhood in India
Chapter 14 8 Afia’s Story: A Guide to Survival
Chapter 15 9 A Tryst Missed: Girlhood in Pakistan
Chapter 16 10 Horizontal Rain: Road from Sarajevo
Chapter 17 11 Charley Lauren’s Story: Growing-up in the Shadow of Mental Illness
Chapter 18 About the Contributors

Editorial Reviews

Stunning and unforgettable. A darkly glittering array of voices.

Rickie Solinger

Running for their Lives makes a significant contribution to girls' studies by moving well beyond the field's traditional context of white, middle-class Western female youth and exploring the experiences of girls who are multiply disenfranchised not just by sex and age but also by race, class, ethnicity, and nationality.

Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society

Running for their Lives makes a significant contribution to girls' studies by moving well beyond the field's traditional context of white, middle-class Western female youth and exploring the experiences of girls who are multiply disenfranchised not just by sex and age but also by race, class, ethnicity, and nationality.

Signs: Journal of Women In Culture & Society

Running for their Lives makes a significant contribution to girls' studies by moving well beyond the field's traditional context of white, middle-class Western female youth and exploring the experiences of girls who are multiply disenfranchised not just by sex and age but also by race, class, ethnicity, and nationality.

Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society