Something that author Jacqueline Woodson echoes throughout her novel Another Brooklyn is the concept of “growing up girl.” What it means to grow up girl, how race and poverty intersect with that, how it bonds you with others who are also growing up girl. I really loved the language of this; it was as though Woodson was creating a verb out of an experience. Another Brooklyn is a collection of experiences, some autobiographical and others fictionalized, all about growing up girl.
Some of the experiences Woodson uses as examples of this concept she calls growing up girl are wholesome and heartwarming, while others reveal some of the darker aspects of girlhood. One of the lighter aspects is the deep sense of friendship that can come out of the shared experiences of girls coming of age. The love and sense of community that August finds in Sylvia, Gigi, and Angela is incredibly touching and reminds me of the friendships I cherished deeply in the middle school era of my life. These girls help each other navigate Bushwick and puberty and they defend each other fiercely. The 2014 French film Girlhood is very similar to Another Brooklyn in that it follows a young black girl who is living in an impoverished area who is brought out of her shell by three neighborhood girls. Both Woodson’s novel and the film place a strong emphasis on friendship and the ways in which having a community helps in the coming of age process. One of the darker aspects of growing up girl according to the novel is the way in which girls are sexualized at a very young age. When the girls started to mature physically “something about the curve of [their] lips and the sway of [their] heads suggested more to strangers than [they] understood” (74). The undesired attention from men is an insidious part of growing up girl, forcing children to become conscious of the way in which adults watch them with predatory eyes. Gigi’s sexual assault is an obvious example of the terrors that face girls, especially those that are growing up in a bustling urban area like New York City. Though what happened to Gigi was tragic, her friends have her back and even go with her to purchase razor blades, seeming to me like a perfect metaphor for girlhood; sharp edges might slice you, but you can learn to fight back.
3 Comments
4/12/2019 07:49:13 pm
I love this blog! Growing up girl... this concept breaks my heart personally, because obviously I didn't get to grow up doing girlhood. But this class and books and authors like these are absolutely helping fill in valuable blanks.
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Carly Larkin
4/15/2019 09:25:01 am
I think it just means you're in your girlhood now!!
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Kirsti R Toms
4/12/2019 09:30:42 pm
I really loved that you chose to write off of "growing up girl". I think it was such an important part to this book and it really makes you think about all of the expectations women are given this day in age while maturing. I also really love Jacqueline Woodsen as a writer, if you have not read her book "Brown Girl Dreaming" i highly suggest it!
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AuthorHi, I'm Carly and I don't really know how to use this website. I'm a senior Classics major with a focus in Greek language. My opinions have opinions. Archives
April 2019
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