“Her poem explains behaviors that have happened for centuries but are not topics of daily conversation.”
There is a certain cultural taboo around talking about the discrimination you experience in everyday life. For young girls especially, our instinctive reaction is to shrink back from talking about these experiences, and especially when the discrimination is based on something considered to be “inappropriate” for a given age group such as sex or sexuality. But when we avoid the subject, we risk denying the lived experiences of girls and withhold from them the opportunity to process and heal from what has happened to them.
In Cutting like a Razor: Female Children Address Sexism and Sexuality through Poetry, Nadjwa E. L. Norton describes this phenomenon and the ways education systems can combat discrimination by using poetry and other forms of creative expression as a vehicle for taking care of themselves. Giving girls a space to reclaim their narratives is imperative to their ability to heal and grow from whatever they experience.
- Christina Ducat: She is a senior in the Applied Psychology and Global Public Health program with a double major in Politics. She works on the ROSES Advocacy team which aims to connect juvenile justice system-involved girls to community resources and to empower them to advocate for themselves both within the justice system and in outside areas of their lives.
Further Reading:
Norton, N. (2011). “Cutting like a razor: Female children address sex and sexuality through poetry.” Curriculum Inquiry 41(1), 433-455.
Christina is a senior in the Applied Psychology and Global Public Health program with a double major in Politics. She works on the ROSES Advocacy team which aims to connect juvenile justice system-involved girls to community resources and to empower them to advocate for themselves both within the justice system and in outside areas of their lives.