1 Distribution Agreement In presenting this thesis or dissertation as a partial fulfillment of the requirements for an advanced degree from Emory University, I hereby grant to Emory University and its agents the non-exclusive license to archive, make accessible, and display my thesis or dissertation in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known, including display on the world wide web. I understand that I may select some access restrictions as part of the online submission of this thesis or dissertation. I retain all ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis or dissertation. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation. Signature: _____________________________ ______________ Kelly H. Ball Date “So Powerful a Form”: Rethinking Girls’ Sexuality By Kelly H. Ball Doctor of Philosophy Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies _______________________________________ Lynne Huffer, Ph.D. Advisor _______________________________________ Elizabeth A. Wilson, Ph.D. Advisor ________________________________________ Cynthia Willett, Ph.D. Committee Member ________________________________________ Mary E. Odem, Ph.D. Committee Member Accepted: _________________________________________ Lisa A. Tedesco, Ph.D. Dean of the James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies ___________________ Date “So Powerful a Form”: Rethinking Girls’ Sexuality By Kelly H. Ball M.A. The Ohio State University, 2008 B.A. Transylvania University, 2006 Advisor: Lynne Huffer, Ph.D. Advisor: Elizabeth A. Wilson, Ph.D. An abstract of A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies of Emory University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy In Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies 2014 Abstract “So Powerful a Form”: Rethinking Girls’ Sexuality By: Kelly H. Ball Contemporary debates in feminist psychology situate girls’ sexuality as a point of both vulnerability and empowerment. This project uses queer and feminist theory to examine the concepts of girls’ sexuality that drive feminist psychologies of girlhood and the multi-disciplinary field of girls’ studies. Focusing on the girl as a liminal figure, my analysis revolves around what I refer to as the paradox of girlhood: in Western modernity, girlhood is imagined as being a pre-sexual developmental age of innocence that needs to be protected and, at the same time, a period of intense sexual desire that needs to be expressed. My dissertation contests this overly reductive picture of girlhood as a split between freedom and constraint, agency and victimization. In doing so, it complicates accepted understandings of girlhood across disciplines and within queer and feminist theories specifically, and reveals previously unrecognized assumptions about the relationship between sexuality and subjectivity more broadly. My dissertation explores the epistemic power the paradox of girlhood generates and the limits of the binarisms it exposes by examining how this paradox informs feminist scholarship on girls, and more generally, feminist and queer theories of sexuality. To accomplish this, I employ philosophical research methods, combined with secondary source analysis of scientific literature, to examine the overlapping histories of childhood, sexuality, and psychology. “So Powerful a Form” thus investigates the figure of the girl, locating her at the beginnings of developmental psychology and the proliferation of sexological categories during the late 19th century. My dissertation establishes a queer-feminist analytic lens to problematize cultural citations of sexuality as a source of girlhood empowerment. As I contend, the figure of the girl resists a simple teleological reading as always already on the way to womanhood and the concomitant promise of becoming a stable, psychosexual subject. Moreover, building upon the insights of queer theory, I read the girl as a figure whose precarious position as no longer a child and not yet a woman opens new possibilities for theorizing the relationships among subjectivity, sexuality, and girlhood. “So Powerful a Form”: Rethinking Girls’ Sexuality By Kelly H. Ball M.A. The Ohio State University, 2008 B.A. Transylvania University, 2006 Advisor: Lynne Huffer, Ph.D. Advisor: Elizabeth A. Wilson, Ph.D. A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies of Emory University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies 2014 Table of Contents Acknowledgments………………………………………………………………………………………………..1 Introduction……………………………………….……………………………………………………………..…2 Chapter 1: Conceptual Problems in the Field of Girls’ Studies: Girls, Sexuality, and Agency…………………………………………………………………………..........28 Chapter 2: The Development of the Psychological Sciences and Girlhood……………………………...62 Chapter 3: The Sexualization and Sexual Empowerment of Girls: Contemporary Feminist Debates…………………………………….……………………...…………...95 Chapter 4: From Instinct to Agency: Foucault, Causality, and Feminist Critiques of Sexual Violence…………………………...133 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………………………….159 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………………………….162 List of Tables Table 1……………………………………………………………………………………………………………....37 Table 2………………………………………………………………………………………………………………41 Acknowledgments The completion of this dissertation would not have been possible without the generous support of the Laney Graduate School, who supported me financially through the five-year Arts and Sciences Fellowship and the one-year appointment as a Dean’s Teaching Fellow. I am also grateful for the fellowship support of the Emory University Women’s Club as I completed my dissertation research. The Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies has become an incredible intellectual home. I am honored to have been a member of this community over the past six years. Berky Abreu, April Biagioni, Chelsea Long, and Sandra J. Still served as important touchstones as well as logistical gurus as I moved through the program. Special thanks go to the core and affiliate faculty who have supported my development as a scholar and teacher: Irene Browne, Cathy Caruth, Thomas Flynn, Carla Freeman, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Jonathan Goldberg, Dalia Judovitz, Ivan Karp, Cory Kratz, Michael Moon, Beth Reingold, Deboleena Roy, Pamela Scully, Holloway Sparks, and Kimberly Wallace-Sanders. Professor Mab Segrest, who was a visiting fellow at the James Wheldon Johnson Institute, profoundly changed the course of my research by sharing her passion for archives. I am delightfully indebted to the “sideways growth” that Kathyrn Bond Stockton sparked around questions of childhood and sexuality during our work together at the School of Criticism and Theory. She continues to be a remarkable interlocutor on all questions concerning the promises of queer theory and the promises of time. My committee members, Mary E. Odem and Cynthia Willett, offered challenging, inspiring, and indispensible feedback on the dissertation. The co-chairs of the dissertation and my advisors, Lynne Huffer and Elizabeth A. Wilson, have an impressive capacity for sharpening the analytical skills of young scholars. I am grateful for their consistent guidance during my growth as a scholar; I look forward to the many conversations yet to come. Their patience and insight is reflected in the contours of this dissertation. My growth as a scholar at Emory was immensely enriched through my work at the Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library. I am grateful for the invigorating curiosity and good cheer of Christeene Alcosiba, John Bence, Elizabeth Chase, Kate Donovan, Gabrielle Dudley, Randy Gue, Melanie Kowalski, Sarah Logue, Susan McDonald, Sarah Quigley, Kathy Shoemaker, Virginia Smith, Kate Stratton, and Dorothy Waugh. Alongside these communities at Emory, my academic progress was nurtured and affirmed through the mentorship of the following professors: Jill Bystydzienski, Lissa Ellen Cox, John Furlong, Katherine Jones, Christine “Circket” Keating, Linda Mizejewski, Catherine Orr, Mary E. Thomas, and Rebecca Wanzo. Professor Kimberly Miller has served as my primary academic and intellectual mentor since 2002. I am humbled daily to know her as a rigorous teacher, brilliant scholar, generous mentor, fierce feminist, and steadfast friend. She set my world on fire in 2002. This dissertation is dedicated to her. 2 Introduction Contemporary debates in feminist psychology situate girls’ sexuality as a point of both vulnerability and empowerment. This project uses queer and feminist theory to examine the concepts of girls’ sexuality that drive girls’ studies and feminist psychology. In doing so, it hopes not only to complicate understandings of girlhood but also, more broadly, to reveal previously unrecognized assumptions about the relationship between sexuality and subjectivity. Focusing on the girl as a liminal figure, my analysis revolves around what I refer to as the paradox of girlhood: in Western modernity, girlhood is imagined as being a pre-sexual developmental age of innocence that needs to be protected and, at the same time, a period of intense sexual desire that needs to be expressed. I take my title, “so powerful a form,” from Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s description of girls’ sexuality in her essay “Jane Austen and the Masturbating Girl” (Sedgwick 1993a). This phrase serves as a symbol for the emergence of the girl at the nexus of