“Girl”: Gender Inequality, Double Standards, and Slut Shaming

            Gender distinctively separates people since birth. Pink blankets go to the new born girls and blue blankets go to the boys, thus beginning the difference between the two. The differences continue throughout life and many stereotypes arise from this great divide. Women are expected to be caring and quiet, while remaining prim and proper. Men, on the other hand, are seen as strong macho-men who are to remain stoic and unemotional in tough situations. Another example of the different stereotypes surrounding gender is their attitude towards sex.

A double standard exists between men and women when it comes to sex. If a man has sex, then it is no big deal; but if a woman was to ever have sex, then she would be defiled forever and immediately branded a slut. This is slut shaming. Slut shaming is most prominently used against women and generally by other women to make them feel bad, a sort of bullying for being promiscuous. Men face very little of this bashing when it comes to their sex lives.

Jamaica Kincaid’s short story “Girl” tackles these inequalities and double standards.  The short story details a mother advice to her daughter that varies from helpful and practical to undiscerning and even attacking the daughter’s actions and behavior through small remarks. The girl for the most part listens to the mother and only interrupts twice to defend herself or to ask a questions. The advice all mostly involves tricks and tips for being a good house wife and how to take care of a house along with a future husband or her current father. By the end of the short story, the mother expects the daughter to have learnt and understand a woman’s place in society, her job in a household, and the dangers of her sexuality.  The style the short story is written in, the symbols that are included, the tropes that are implied, and the fact that gender plays a huge part of her story all help Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” convey her message against gender inequalities, double standards, and slut shaming.

The style which Kincaid writes this short story and gets her plot across to the audience can be described as out of the ordinary. The story contains no clear beginning, middle and end like most short stories have. The story rather resides in the syntax and tone of the mother and the reaction of the girl to her mother’s instructions. The story also reads more like a poem then a short story. It almost appears to be poetry written in prose. Kincaid could be doing this to downplay the actual advice the mother is giving and highlighting the meaning behind them, much like poetry is to be read between the lines. The audience is lead to read in-between the words and advice the mother is giving and to find the story. The existential situation that the mother and daughter are in at the beginning of the story cannot be seen until later on in the story when more information is given. The tone and syntax are made the most important part of understanding this short story and Kincaid makes her audience see that.

Another reason Kincaid seemingly write poetry in prose could be that the story is meant to be read with a tempo like a poem. This effectively speeds up the mother’s voice. The speed Kincaid gives the mother voice changes the tone to something more urgent. Another stylistic tactic Kincaid uses to give the mother an urgent tone is the fact that there are no clear sentences; rather imperative remark after imperative remarks that are connected by semicolons. It is one continuous sentence; the mother is not taking a break. This urgent tone in the story is translated onto the mother making her seem insistent and frantic. The mother probably finds it vital to teach the daughter as fast as possible the ways to be a proper lady and to keep her away from sex and being a slut. Despite the urgency, the mother still fits on the bullying and slut-shaming as if it is that all she cares about. The bullying is the only thing that gets across to the daughter and the audience, and Kincaid’s message becomes more visible.

The mother’s voice speaks mostly throughout this story, but it contains two lines which the daughter either defends herself against her mother’s harsh judgment or asks a question regarding her mother’s advice. Both times that the girl speaks, Kincaid reveals an important symbol in her story.  The first time the girl speaks, she denies her mother’s claim that she sings Benna, a “Caribbean folk-music style,” (118).  Benna that is mentioned in the story is probably a type of music that the mother is not familiar with or comfortable with, hence her not wanting her daughter to sing it. For this reason, Benna could be a symbol for feminism. Feminism is an idea that the girl is embracing and the mother is afraid of. The mother would rather stay with something she is comfortable with, not singing Benna and not accepting feminism. She is stuck in her old ways and is unwilling to change her weltanschaang. The mother would much rather keep the status quo and force her idea onto her daughter.

The way that the girl reacts to her mother accusations that she sings Benna reveals another potential tenor for the music. The girl says, “but I don’t sing Benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday school,” (118) at least two lines after the mother last brings it up and about four lines after she asks.  This delay suggests that the girl was fixated on it while her mother talks about other things. This means that the girl just might sing Benna and probably during Sunday schools. She felt the need to deny the claim and remain innocent to her mother, even though the mother is clearly not buying it. All of this leads to Benna being a vehicle for the girl’s blooming sexuality. The mother does not want to her to have any kind of sexuality but the girl is probably influenced by other things including her friends at Sunday school who are convincing her to try new things, including singing Benna and sex.

The other time the girl says something to her mother is at the end of the short story when the mother mentions squeezing the bread to test it for freshness. The girl responds with, “but what if the baker won’t let me feel the bread?” (pg 119). The mother then gets irrationally angry and says “you mean to say that after all you are really going to be the kind of woman who the baker won’t let near the bread?” (pg 119). This reaction to a simple question makes it seem out of place. The bread baker and his bread are a vehicle for society in general. They are part of the town and its citizens that stand for it as a whole. The fact that she cannot touch the bread, her situation in question, symbolizes her not being a part of the functioning society. If she becomes a slut, then society would disown her and not let her “feel the bread”.

The bread maker and his bread could further symbolize her mother. The outburst the mother gives is due to all the advice she has given to her daughter that has not sunk in yet. The mother is adamant about keeping her daughter ‘pure’ and she is afraid that she might be too late. Along with society disowning her, so would her mother if she continues to be promiscuous and turns into a slut in her mother’s eyes. A mother is the most important person to a daughter and the fact she would disown her for this could frighten the girl into disowning her own blooming sexuality for a life just her mother’s just to please her.

The fact that society would not accept a woman who is comfortable with her sexuality enough to explore it signifies slut-shaming. This is a trope that Jamaica Kincaid uses in this short story. The girl who is just now discovering her sexuality is instantly being discriminated by both her mother and the bread maker, who symbolizes society; and this is just for discovering it. Kincaid uses her story and this trope to effectively show how absurd and ridiculous slut shaming against a woman can be. The judgment put on this girl by so many reminds me of the part in the bible when Jesus is presented with an adulterous women and pestered with questions to know what to do with her. (NIV, John 8:6). According to the New International Version, John 8:7, “When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her”. Who are people to judge someone for their sins when they have their own? The mother really has no right to judge and the bully her daughter when she has her own sins. It is very likely that the mother went through the same thing as her daughter when she was her age.

Throughout the story, Jamaica also includes a feminism trope through the mother’s and daughter’s conflict. The mother has a thesis that a woman is a being-for-others. She believes women are supposed to be “sweet flowers that smile in the walk of men” (Wollstonecraft) and that a household are a patriarchy; her antithesis is her daughter’s sexual blooming that is starting to threaten her ideology about the relationship between men and women. Her daughter is starting to see the cage they are stuck in and the mother does not like this. The mother’s synthesis is to teach her what she knows to hopefully keep her in control and in ‘her place’. A woman with the morals of a man is not a ‘proper women’ according to the mother. The unevenness in gender treatment is the very problem that feminism tries to close. Kincaid uses her example of the mother and daughter to highlight this problem and bring feminism alive to her audience in this short story without ever having to say that the story was about feminism.

With the talk of gender inequality and the great divide, the genders in this story are critically important to the progression and meaning of it. How would the story change if the genders were reversed? The story would be about a father teaching his son how to do household chores as a punishment for his sexuality while calling him a slut. This version sounds absurd to an audience who is not use to the same treatment given to men and women. The fact that the reverse is so absurd gives Kincaid’s story more clarity and meaning. The feminist and gender equality ideas behind the story are exemplified by how strange the opposite of the story. The judgment women go through becomes more unfair and ridiculous.

The gender reversal strategy and double standards when it comes to gender reminds me of another short story this could be applied to. John Updike’s “A&P” takes place in a grocery store where a young male cashier follows three girls in swim suits as they look for something they need (Norton, pgs 409-414). The young male cashier starts off with a condescending and judging tone with saying, “You never know for sure how girls’ minds work (do you really think it’s a mind in there or just a little buzz like a bee in a glass jar?),” (pg. 410). This immediately begins the question of how gender would change this story. Would a girl think the same thing about a guy? The girls who enter the stores in their bathing suits are also given the mentality of men, as they do not care they are dressed with the bare minimum; which is a reason why the cashier is so fixated and intrigued by them. If three men had walked into the store in their swim suits, would as much attention be given to them? Probably not, it would be shook off as they just got back from the beach. The girls are given unfair and unequal judgment simply based on their gender, just as the girl in Kincaid’s “Girl”.

Jamaica Kincaid’s short story “Girl” holds important mimesis about feminism, gender differences, and slut-shaming. Gender differences are still alive today but are getting better. Despite the improvement, women are still getting paid less, are expected to have children, not have careers, and go into the housewife stereotype. Will this gender divide ever close all the way or are men destined to be treated as superiors above women?