Abstract
My first inspiration for the title of this chapter came from a fragment of childhood memory told to me by a friend, now adult. It was of her grandmother, seated at the piano, surrounded by her family, playing her favourite song, ‘Some day my prince will come ...’. Judging from the rendering of the song, it acted as a catalyst for an outpouring of unfulfilled desire and it is clear that, old as she was, her prince had not yet arrived. That an old woman can still harbour desire for romantic fulfilment encapsulates the theme which I want to explore: the way in which girls are prepared for entry into heterosexual practices, and, in particular, for romantic love. Here I intend to explore this theme by examining some aspects of the ideological preparation for adolescent sexuality in children’s fiction, particularly girls’ comics. I shall use this examination as a vehicle for discussing the relation between the psychic production of feminine desire and cultural forms and practices.
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Notes
In psychoanalysis the term phantas? is classically used rather than fantasy? This is because the term is intended to be wider usage than simple imaginary production, but relates to the ‘world of the imagination’ (Laplanche and Pontalis, 1980, p. 314)
It is significant that when interviewing nine and ten year old girls as part of my current research, the girls gave me anger and selfishness as bad qualities in themselves, some to the extent that they could not claim to possess any qualities which they felt to be good.
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© 1984 Erica Carter, Adrian Chappell, Barbara Hudson, Angela McRobbie, Mica Nava, Valerie Walkerdine, Julian Wood
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Walkerdine, V. (1984). Some Day my Prince Will Come: Young Girls and the Preparation for Adolescent Sexuality. In: McRobbie, A., Nava, M. (eds) Gender and Generation. Youth Questions. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17661-8_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17661-8_7
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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