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Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6” x 9” black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. ProQuest Information and Learning 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600 ® UMI INVENTING AMERICAN GIRLHOOD: GENDERED PEDAGOGIES IN WOMEN'S MEMOIRS, 1950-1999 DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Elizabeth Marshall, M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 2001 Dissertation Committee: Professor Leigh Gilmore, Co-Adviser Approved by Professor Janet Hickman, Co-Adviser Leigh Gilmore Department of English Professor Theresa Rogers _JjAiet Hickman College of Education UMI Number: 3011112 Copyright 2001 by Marshall, Elizabeth Anne All rights reserved. UMI UMI Microform 3011112 Copyright 2001 by Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Copyright by Elizabeth Marshall 2001 ABSTRACT In "Inventing Gendered Childhoods" I examine memoirs written by women in the 1990s who came of age in postwar America in order to trace how girlhood developed as a separate category from childhood. Although girlhood is often posited in scholarship and everyday life as the time-bounded period of adolescence, I argue that it is better understood for the purposes of Education research as a cultural space and identity that girls are compelled to occupy, and in which they are trained through various means. I demonstrate that the meaning of childhood as a gendered experience emerges in a range of cultural locations and institutions, including but not limited to schools. Through memoirs such as Susanna Kaysen's Girl, Interrupted, Dorothy Allison's Two or Three Things I Know For Sure, and bell hooks' Bone Black, women make visible a range of surreptitious cultural lessons and in the process re-read and counter the repressive girl-rearing practices that framed their own coming-of-age. In particular, women memoirists offer alternative pedagogies that blur the line between adulthood and childhood, tutor us about the insufficiency of the time-bound and gendered identities that the school imposes, and finally disperse the work of "pedagogy" throughout the culture. This project contributes to the debates around girls and education by offering an alternative archive for feminist reflections on girls and schools in the form of women’s memoir. ii Dedicated to Tim and Mimi 111 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A fellowship from the AERA-Spencer research foundations, and the Elizabeth Gee Dissertation Completion Award from Ohio State’s women’s studies program provided me with the financial support to focus on researching and writing this dissertation. Thanks to; Randy Donelson for dinner, gossip and movies, Lisa Weems for her intellect and trips to the MAC counter, Cynthia Tyson for her irreverent sense of humor, Stephanie Kleban for introducing me to Michael, Louise Douce for her wise advice, and my friends and family in the Northwest, especially Angela and my sister Katie. This project would not have been possible without my dissertation committee. Thanks to Janet Hickman who taught me everything I know about children’s literature and how to teach it. For encouraging me to undertake this non-traditional project, for reading and re-reading various drafts, and for introducing me to yoga and lattes, I thank Terry Rogers. A big thank you to my dissertation director Leigh Gilmore for her generous intellectual contribution to this work, and for her kindness and support throughout the writing process. Finally, I want to thank my fiancée Michael Meneer who offered me encouragement when I needed it the most, and who understood and supported my decision to remain in Columbus until I finished this project. iv VITA 1990...................................................... Bachelor of Arts, The Evergreen State College 1992....................................................Masters In Teaching, The Evergreen State College 1996-present...................................... Graduate Teaching and Research Associate The Ohio State University PUBLICATIONS Refereed Articles Rogers, T., Tyson, C. & Marshall, E. (2000). Living Dialogues in One Neighborhood: Moving Toward Understanding Across Discourses and Practices of Literacy and Schooling. Journal o f Literacy Behavior, 32, No. 1, Columns Enciso, P., Rogers, T. & Marshall, E. (1998-2000). Connecting Children With Literature in Classrooms and Communities. Column published quarterly. The New Advocate. Reviews Marshall, E. (1999). Review ofSometimes I Can Be Anything: Power, Gender and Identity in a Primary Classroom, by Karen Gallas. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 14, No. 4. Reports Bertelson, C., Epling, S. Larison, I, Marshall, E., & Melragon, M. {1991).Cultural Mosaics: An annotated bibliography of multicultural resources for the K-12 classroom. Columbus, OH: M.L. King Center Educational Reports. HELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Education TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract .......................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgments........................................................................................................... iv Vita....................................................................................................................................V Introduction: The Invention of Gendered Childhood .....................................................1 1. Wounded Girls: Rethinking Pedagogies of Injury Through Women's Memoir.. ..7 2. Red, White, and Drew: The Case of American Girlhood .................................... 35 3. Dangerous Passage: Pedagogies of Mental Illness .............................................57 4. The Daughter's Disenchantment: Incest as pedagogy in Fairy Tales and Kathryn Harrison’s The Kiss ............................................................................... 78 Bibliography ......................................................................................................................117 VI INTRODUCTION THE INVENTION OF GENDERED CHILDHOOD Don't pretend to be something you're not, but don't be who you are. You can never say no, nor can you really say yes. You must keep everything inside. Life is a partnership: it talks, you listen. Learn to look like you're listening. Hide your blood. Think pink. Marcia Aldrich, Girl Rearing In this project I examine memoirs written by women in the 1990s who came of age in postwar America. Women’s retrospective reflections on the experience of adolescent girlhood offer a site for examining what I will call the invention of gendered childhood. I use this phrase to emphasize that neither gender nor childhood is a natural category, and to differentiate the pedagogies through which girlhood is produced from those that generate the general category of childhood. As it is articulated in materials as diverse as sex-education curricula and girls' series fiction, and produced in locations as various as the family and popular culture, girlhood names a cultural space and an identity that girls are compelled to occupy and in which they are trained through various pedagogical mechanisms. For the purposes of this project, my understanding of pedagogy goes beyond the confines 1 of formal schooling. I concentrate on everyday educative practices within a broad context in order to investigate the invention of gendered childhood in American women’s postwar memoirs and to explore the complex mechanisms that produce the cultural category of girlhood. Let me place this project in the context of Education research in order to demonstrate what my focus on memoirs will contribute to this important area of inquiry. Studies of girls in Education divide into two general research emphases: one focuses on how educational institutions and practices produce and sustain gender discrimination, its harm to girls, and its possible remedies. The other addresses the construction of the girl in texts such as children's literature. Both emphases grow out of a broad cultural project informed by feminism and developments in Education that seek to attend to the under-scrutinized lives and representations of girls.