Welcome to Girl Museum’s interview series, Why We Need Girls’ Studies, for 2024. We have many exciting interviews this year with important scholars in the field to get insights about what we are all doing in this space to further our understanding of girlhood and girls’ experiences.

This month’s interview is with Dr. Halle Singh and E Lev Feinman, co-founders of the Girlhood Studies Collective, a community focused on critical work related to girls and girlhood culture.

Dr. Halle Singh is an assistant professor of Childhood Studies at Bridgewater State University. She earned her PhD in Childhood Studies with distinction from Rutgers University in May 2024. As a feminist theorist of gender, age, and capitalism, Halle works across social reproduction theory, critical cultural studies, and girlhood studies.

E Lev Feinman is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Childhood Studies at Rutgers University, where their research engages trans studies, queer theory, media studies, and girlhood studies. They also dedicate significant time and energy to mentoring, nurturing, and educating LGBTQIA+ youth through their volunteer work with Brave Trails.

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Why do you consider it important to study girlhood?

HS: Studying girlhood—through any method, methodology, epistemology, time period, or medium—offers a unique vantage point on how we understand life. We know that historically, girls have been overlooked, leading to missed knowledge and experiences. However, girls also drive culture, progress, and experience the weights of cultural transformation. They persist, resist, survive, and create. I see it as both a personal and academic responsibility to treat their experiences and productions with the same level of rigor as any other type of research.

EF: Being situated primarily in queer and trans studies, I sometimes encounter skepticism that “girlhood studies” remains relevant in a post-Transgender Tipping Point society–meaning, a society where increasing trans visibility has led to heightened public awareness of more complex understandings of gender categories and identities. However, an essential purpose of girlhood studies lies in its call for critical inquiry into what the terms “girl” and “girlhood” mean, revealing how the boundaries of these terms are continuously in-flux, and are often drawn to (re)produce and stabilize existing systems of power.

Studying the girl and girlhood is important in its own right as it fundamentally addresses the underrepresentation of a particular group. This involves exploring the contested boundaries of these categories, revealing new insights or perspectives on how the construction of and relation between age and gender is always also an examination of power. For example, I see studying girlhood (how it is defined, how a definition or understanding harms, excludes, or privileges some over others, etc.) as a critical facet toward gaining a deeper, more nuanced understanding of our present moment, when anti-trans antagonism targeting children and youth has reached unprecedented heights.

Girlhood studies is a relatively new field, yet is rapidly changing. What are the biggest opportunities for those interested in studying girlhood?

HS & EF: We have been thrilled with the interest in The Girlhood Studies Collective, but as a small team, we haven’t been able to accommodate the sheer amount of interest from scholars around the world. The past two symposiums we’ve hosted showcased novel and exciting experiential methodologies. We think participating in and creating new spaces to share and exchange scholarship and ideas should continue, and we hope to grow the Collective!

What is the biggest challenge facing girlhood studies? Do you have ideas on how we can address it?

HS: One of the biggest challenges facing girlhood studies is the need to remain flexible in how we conceptualize “girlhood” and the methods we use to study it. We have moved beyond relying largely on ethnographic methods to highlight the importance of what girls can offer. While these methods still hold value, we need a more critical interrogation of who we consider to be part of girlhood, pushing the boundaries of this concept and exploring what it can teach us about the politics of girlhood more broadly. This requires more critical theorizing around the figure of the girl, a deeper commitment to interdisciplinary scholarship, and the incorporation of approaches from other critical fields. We should continue to critically examine the rigor of our field, understand why it is often excluded from broader conversations about gender and age, and find ways to reinstate its importance across academic disciplines.

The Collective was created as a space where, regardless of whether you identify your work as being in the field of girlhood studies, scholars and practitioners are invited to share their work and critical insights about girls and girlhood. Personally, I have learned a great deal from how other approaches and disciplines conduct research. Providing space for cross-disciplinary and interdisciplinary conversations can lay the foundation for the evolution of girlhood studies.

EF: I see girlhood studies as opportunely positioned to produce necessary knowledge and strategies for resisting the current legal, political, and cultural pressures to legibly define girlhood and stabilize its boundaries. From where I am sitting, these pressures are continuing to escalate, with no promise of meaningful change in sight, so the challenge is in producing work that is proactively outward facing and responsive to our current climate. To that point, the Collective was also founded with the vision of it being, well, a collective—the power of which we hope to see leveraged through forging connections and encouraging collaborations between girlhood studies scholars around the world. This vision has informed many of the decisions we have made about the organization’s direction thus far, including the choice to host our symposiums virtually, and, in 2023, the simultaneous launch of the first symposium and of our Discord, which keeps members continuously connected to one another, as well as share their research and opportunities.

Finally, please feel free to plug any current projects or publications that you want to highlight.

HS: I am currently working on a book project based on my dissertation, “Girlhood After Dark: Nighttime, Leisure, and the Temporality of Gender.” This project explores the intersection of girlhood and nighttime, examining how girls’ experiences of free time shape and are shaped by gendered temporalities, capitalist imperatives of productivity, and clock-time.

EF: I am primarily working on my dissertation and toward the completion of my degree. We also both look forward to announcing the theme and sharing the CFP for our third Girlhood Studies Collective Symposium in fall 2025, and to hosting this event in spring 2026.