Girls and Girlhoods at Threshold of Youth and

Gender
(Book Review- Chapter 1 to Chapter 7 by Ms. Sakshi Goyal)

Women’s work is not only invisible, but her life is a misery. Every
aspect of her life suffers. When a girl is born, she is accepted with a
compromise and later her life becomes a compromise itself. And
when one of them raises her voice against the compromise, she is
criticised by the society which is pre dominantly male oriented.

I am extremely thankful to the editors and the contributors of the

book who have so beautifully brought out the different aspects of
Girlhood. It is so nicely articulated in the foreword of the book that
“Girlhood is seldom considered as an important phase in itself in
India”.

Chapter 1 on “The adolescent Girl in India” by Sonal Shukla and

Pradnya Swargaonkar reflects why a girl always stays behind in
comparison to a boy further leading to the disadvantaged position of
the women in all institutes of national life. The chapter starts with a
historical background of the adolescent girl in India showing her
marked absence. I feel inclusion of the historical background at the
beginning of the book makes the book so meaningful, as it is very
important to know the history of the issue that we are trying to
address. It emphasises on Phulmani Dasi case that resulted into a
national level controversy in the pre-independence period regarding
'age of consent' and led to rasing of marriageable age of girls. It is
so surprising that nationalist leaders like Bal Gangadhar Tilak
vehemently criticised and opposed this change.

I feel this chapter is a journey which takes us through the reasons of

disadvantaged position of a girl in the society like female
infanticide, Child Marriage, Ill Health, Malnutrition, Myths about
Menstruations, Nutrional Deficiencies, and low levels of education,
perceived notions and violence against women as a result of which
girls face a systematic disadvantage over a long range of human
development indicators including health, nutrition, labour force
participation, and the burden of household tasks.

I feel that it brings out an important cause i.e. no consensus on

“who is an adolescent girl” that result into absence of specific
policies and in statistics on girl. Girls are bracketed with women,
children and youth.

Under myths about menstruation, I love the line “Women employed

in pickles business do not stop working during menstruation but
belief about pollution survives.” It so shows on one side according to

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the society pickles will get spoilt even if her shadow falls on it and
on the other side just because you want cheap labour, you are
making her work during menstruations also. Then don’t the pickles
get spoilt?

It brings out the importance of girls education and how lack of

education deprives girls and then consequently women of self
confidence, self esteem and choices to live meaningful life. There is
a need beyond primary education and simple facilities like clean
toilets, potable drinking water and quality of teaching in order to
avoid dropout rates of girls.

There is a need for affirmative action by not only by the state but
also by Voluntary organisations, NGOs and the society at large.
Special programmes like Masum in Pune district, Bal Kishori of
Vacha in Mumbai, Jagori in Delhi and Sidhbari and Shaishav in
Bhavnagar are a welcome step.

Chapter 2 by Ms. Prabha Tirmare has emphasised the need to

introspect factors responsible in upbringing of girl child to ascertain
her identity and status in society. It shows how from early childhood
itself girl children are taught behaviour pattern which leads to
gender stereotyping. A girl child has not only to sit, stand, walk,
talk, eat and sleep in a certain way but has also to express her
feelings of joy and happiness, sadness, frustration and anger in a
typical way. By following this typical process of socialization, that
conveys that boys are supreme, girls are made into subordinate
beings.

The chapter throws light on the torments a girl child faces in form of
sexual abuse, foeticide, infanticide, selling them for prostitution,
devdasi system, dowry deaths, etc. It reasons the existence of such
practices that these are accepted by the masses with questioning
their origin and purpose. It sarcastically captions child marriage as
“Little wives little mother.” It brings out hard hitting statistics that
every 6th death is due to gender discrimination. In a country like
India where girl is considered an embodiment of Goddess Lakshmi,
there are practices like selling of girls to foreign buyers. If this
continues the day is not far when India will be a poor country. If our
country cannot respect women, you think any nation will respect us.

The chapter reinstates the fact that the work of girls is usually
invisible because it is located in the domestic sphere. It makes a
beautiful compilation of factors in the process of Socialization of girl
child as 10 Fs (Formative Factors).

1. Feudal Societies
2. Families and Shelter
3. Foods

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 4. Formal Educations
5. Fashion, Clothing and ornaments
6. Fairies and other tales
7. Folk songs
8. Festivals
9. Fun Games
10. Films

It brings out the micro and macro level reforms made to improve the
status of the girl child. It concludes by stating that in the modern
world, there is a need to develop youth as equal human beings
without any discrimination and for this the recipe needed is “
without finding the sex, dress them in pink and blue, give them doll
and mecheno, teach them humanity, teach them to protect
themselves from the oddity, boost their confidence.”

Chapter 3 by Ms. Cynthia Stephen talks about the commitment of

the government to the girl child. It starts the chapter with an
important outcome from the census showing that the girl children in
India show a tendency to become endangered species. It shows girl
child in macro level policy like Beijing Platform for Action (PFA),
CEDAW, United Nations declaration on Rights of the Child, etc. It
covers the constitutional provisions for girl child in Indian Legal
framework.

It shows that though Gender has been mainstreamed at the policy

level at the centre and efforts at gender budgeting is visible even at
the state and district level in certain states; but resistance to bills
relating to women in parliament, existing violence against women,
etc show lack of proactive implementation by the state. It
supplements the chapter by a compilation of relevant extracts from
official reports in connection with the issues of the girl child.

The chapter emphasises on the moral and constitutional obligation

of the government to its future citizens and especially to the most
valuable human resource: the vulnerable and precious girl child, who
will carry the future of the country in their very bodies.

Further in Chapter 4 by Dr. Daksha Dave talks about Declining Sex

Ratio in India. It shows the trends on declining sex ratio across
census years and different states. The data is conclusive of the fact
that Sex ratio in India is adverse to women. It very well highlights
the socio cultural factors like:

- Sun Mania
- Female Feticides
- Female Infanticide
- Change in Sex Ratio at birth and

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- Low levels of female literacy; as the reasons for declining sex ratio
in India. It further brings attention to the consequences and makes
recommendations to bring about improvement in the existing
situation.

The drop in child sex ratio is a reflection of the worsening status of

women in our country. Time has arrived to declare a crusade against
all these above factors, both on individual and collective level, to
stop elimination of unborn daughters only because of their sex.
China as a result of its policy of only one child per couple to control
population today is facing problem as the proportion of young
population is less. If Indian society continues to prefer boy to girl
child then the day is not far where there will not be sufficient girls to
marry boys. But the irony of the situation is that it is the women and
girls only who have to face the consequence of it in form of
increased violence against them.

Chapter 5 titled “Education and Health of girl child in Urban India”

by Prof. Dr. Vibhuti Patel reveals that in India, compared to their
male counterparts, girls are statistically less in number, less
educated, less healthy and are more vulnerable to neglect,
exploitation and abuse.

The chapter brings out the disappointing fact that the girl child is
perceived as a burden to be passed on to another family. Important
contribution of the chapter is that to HIV AIDS and STD among girls.
In our country millions of adolescents live or work on street, and
many are forced to sell sex under extremely barbaric and unhygienic
conditions that increase their exposure to STDs.

Chapter 6 by Dr. Dolly Sunny talks about one of the most formidable
problem i.e. of Child labour in India. It defines and gives the
interstate disparities of child labour in India. It categorises the
reasons for child labour into demand side and supply side factors.

In the sphere of Girl child, the chapter makes an important

contribution under the head of sex discrimination in child labour.
Male child labour is preferred to female child labour, since male
children are considered to be stronger. Girls are engaged in low paid
or no wage unskilled jobs which do not necessarily lead to skill
formation that may help in enhancing future productivity.

The chapter throws light on the negative effects of child labour. It

has adverse effects on the career and health of children and hence it
endangers the human resource development and prosperity of the
country. It covers the measures of protection from exploitation and
beautifully concludes by lines of Nobel Prize winning poet, Gabrial
Mistral of Chile who rightly puts it- “we are guilty of many faults, but
our worst crime is abandoning the children, neglecting the

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foundation of life. Many of things we need can wait. The child
cannot. Right now is the time his bones are being formed, his blood
being made and his sense being developed. To him, we cannot
answer, ‘Tomorrow’; his name is ‘Today’.

Rekha K. Talmaki in Chapter 7 titled “Trafficking of Tribal Girl Child”

defines Trafficking and brings fore an extremely distressing fact that
the percentage and intensity of trafficking is quite high among tribal
girls between the age group of 12 to 18. For the convenience and
better understanding of readers it categorises intensity of
trafficking in different stages.

Upto Chapter 7, the book covers the profile of an adolescent girl and
how her upbringing determines her identity and status in society. It
talks about Government’s contribution towards girl child. It covers
issues like declining sex ratio, education and health of girl child. It
throws light on emerging issues like Child labour and Trafficking of
tribal girl child.

To enlighten you further on Girls and Girlhood I would want to pass

on to Ms. Rachna Amarnani to take you further with the book review.