GIRLHOOD: A STATE OF BEING

Girlhood - ’the state or time of being a girl’.  

image: Little Women, Wilson Web

In her classic novel ‘Little Women’ Louisa Alcott writes: “Up in the garret, where Jo's unquiet wanderings ended, stood four little wooden chests in a row, each marked with its owner's name, and each filled with relics of childhood and girlhood ended now for all.” 

Greta Gerwig’s new adaptation of Little Women has a fragmented narrative.  Framed through Jo’s perspective as an adult, the story cuts between the past and the present.  It destabilises this sense of finality, the sense that there is a particular moment that childhood or girlhood abruptly ends. If girlhood is a state - a way of being that exists at a particular time - does it have to be restricted to an apparently defined time period between being a child and being an adult. Where do those states begin and end? After all, our memories aren’t wooden chests, filled with relics. And remembering is itself a creative process. Memories of girlhood are dynamic, rather than static, with images blurring and coming into focus differently, in different circumstances.

Perhaps girlhood is an inner state of being, sparked by events and people around us?  

What does ‘girlhood’ mean for you? Email Jess at girlhood@fringeartsbath.co.uk and share your experiences though this blog and/ or the exhibition.