Millennium Girls: Today's Girls Around the World - Softcover

In this provocative volume, Sherrie A. Inness successfully sets the stage for a global study of girlhood and girl culture. Read against the monochromatic backdrop of so many studies that explore the lives of privileged girls in the U.S., this book is a prism of brilliant colors, shades, and textures. Stunning in its range and depth, Millennium Girls underscores the rich diversity of girls' voices, needs, and desires in the U.S. and around the world. -- Lyn Mikel Brown, Colby College, author of Meeting at the Crossroads: Women's Psychology and Girls' Development Doubly marginalized by age and gender, girls have frequently been invisible and their problems ignored or over-simplified. This important collection breaks the silence about girl's lives while also serving up the rich array of issues that confront girls in various cultures. A powerful reminder that like sisterhood, girlhood is global, this book is a must read. -- Meda Chesney-Lind, University of Hawaii at Manoa, author of The Female Offender: Girls, Women and Crime. Inness has collected a multi-dimensional view of girls that will help us better understand the complex, complicated lives they lead. For anyone commited to supporting the dreams of girls today, this book will be invaluable. -- Joline Godfrey, author of No More Frogs to Kiss: 99 Ways to Give Economic Power to Girls When we created Take Our Daughters To Work(R) Day in 1993, we hoped to bring attention to girls' lives. This book goes a long way toward showing how very rich-and very different-girls' experiences are. -- Marie C. Wilson, President, Ms. Foundation for Women Millennium Girls tells a tale that needs to be told... If you've been out of school for a while, or your university doesn't yet have a class in Girl Studies, this book will give you the low down on what the field looks like these days. And it looks pretty good. BUST Millennium Girls describes the many, real life cultures that are flourishing all around the globe. -- Celina Hex BUST, Spring 99

Riding the wave of a booming girl culture worldwide, this collection of girlsO voices across the globe invites us to learn more about their varied girlhoods. From coming-of-age rituals in South Africa to the impact of computers and popular magazines on girls in Japan and Germany, Millennium Girls offers us a broader vision of girlhood around the world. Though a universal experience, girlhood is not always carefree. Instead, as this book documents, many girls are not valued for who they are, whether socially, culturally, or intellectually. Despite the countless girls around the globe who remain voiceless, mostly white, middle-class girls in the United States and Britain have often been given their turn to speak about their lives. This emphasis on these girls, while important, cannot adequately explore the connections between them and girls around the world. In a society that is becoming increasingly globalized, Millennium Girls fills this gap, becoming essential reading for anyone interested in girls and women and the differences and similarities in girlhoods among varied cultures and societies. Around the globe, girls often face bleak realities about their lives, careers, and families. In many cases, they are still second-class citizens, doubly marginalized by their age and gender. Girls are further marginalized because their lives are rarely taken seriously or are disregarded entirely; this is particularly true for girls living on the fringes of society because of their race, ethnicity, social class, or sexual orientation. For these reasons, girls become voiceless in many cultures, both inside and outside of the United States. Millennium Girls addresses this absence and creates a space for some of the girls, who have not been allowed or given an opportunity, to speak. Voices of girls in South Africa, Japan, Germany, Israel, and the United States blend together to create a unique portrait of shared and differing experiences of girlhood.