‘Girl Power’

The Authors: Dawn H. Currie is Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. She is author of Girl Talk: Adolescent Magazines and Their Readers (1999) and co-editor of numerous books, including Learning to Write: Women’s Studies in Development (1998, with Noga Gayle and Penny Gurstein). Deirdre M. Kelly is Professor in the Department of Educational Studies at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. She is author of Pregnant with Meaning: Teen Mothers and the Politics of Inclusive Schooling (2000, Peter Lang), which won a 2003 American Educational Studies Association (AESA) Critic’s Choice Award. Shauna Pomerantz is Assistant Professor in the Department of Child and Youth Studies at Brock University, St. Catharines, Canada. She is author of Girls, Style, and School Identities: Dressing the Part (2008).

«What does it mean to be a girl today? What are the meanings of Girl Power and how are they lived by girls? Does Girl Power offer a new space for girls to contest gender conventions? This theoretically and empirically sophisticated book answers these questions and makes contemporary girlhood intelligible. Currie, Kelly, and Pomerantz mark out the sometimes competing meaning(s) within the discourse of Girl Power, situate them in social and political context, and then analyze how particular girl communities (populars, skaters, online girls) negotiate girlhood, gender, and power. The book honors and complicates girls’ thinking and resistance to gender norms and demonstrates how girlhood is hardly a natural phenomenon, but rather a cultural production. For those of us ensconced in adult worlds, this book provides insights into girl worlds that will help us become more thoughtful researchers, teachers, parents, and friends of girls.» (Pamela J. Bettis, Washington State University; Co-editor of ‘Geographies of Girlhood: Identities In-Between’)