Ankle Bracelet

  It’s pretty, this little bracelet. Looks like many bangles I see young girls wearing. Would you want to wear it? You only have to sign away your life. This ankle bracelet was worn by a girl slave in Niger. And she lived within your lifetime. Originally...

Ana Sandoval

  Can you imagine being in high school and discovering that a mining company is coming to destroy your home? That’s what happened to Ana Sandoval, a young land rights defender in Guatemala, who dared to stand up and protect her community. As a teenager, Ana...

Ladd Girl

  She seems so happy. Both of them do, actually. They look like any two schoolgirls, having a laugh in the hallway. But that’s not just any school. The young girl in this photograph was a member of the Ladd School for the Retarded in the 1980s. She was...

Girl’s Circumcision Headdress

  This headdress was worn by a Maasai girl less than fifty years ago. Native to southern Kenya and northern Tanzania, the Maasai are a semi-nomadic people, known for living alongside animals and an aversion to eating game and birds. Because of their lifestyle,...

Girl of Beads: Ndebele Doll

  We like to think of dolls as soft and cuddly, even the plastic ones are meant to be “cute”. These are constructed, typically by male designers, and marketed to girls to teach them what and how they should behave. This sounds a bit extreme, but bear...

Pants for Protest

  For centuries, it was a taboo for European and American girls and women to wear pants, until the 1970s. Crocheting, knitting, sewing: the art of crafting your own clothes goes back ages and was very common during most of the 20th century. Most girls learned...

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