In “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, the mother provides her daughter with numerous expectations about how a girl should behave. Reflect on a specific gender expectation within your culture that has been challenging for you to navigate. Then describe one clear example of this expectation and explain why it has been difficult for you. Keep your response concise, vivid, and focused on your personal experience.

 Prompt: In “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, the mother provides her daughter with numerous expectations about how a girl should behave. Reflect on a specific gender expectation within your culture that has been challenging for you to navigate. Then describe one clear example of this expectation and explain why it has been difficult for you. Keep your response concise, vivid, and focused on your personal experience.

Prompt Response: A specific gender expectation in my culture that has been challenging for me to navigate is that when you're a girl, you must always respect your father's wishes. One clear example of this expectation is that after walking Stone Mountain, my father treated the family to IHOP. Everything seemed well, the waitress had given us our meals. But my father allowed my sister to grab a piece from my dish without acknowledging my opinion. It was difficult for me because, despite always giving the basic courtesy to ask for permission for things that they owned, my family/father could cross my boundary without a second thought. So, from that history, I snapped, why couldn't they ask me instead? Of course, I had to be the one to apologize to my father and my sister, and she got to eat some of my food.

Summary: In class, everyone read “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid to themselves and did 7 questions. 

Reflection: Reading "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid made me feel disgusted. Despite women fighting for so long for equality, there are still women and girls being controlled by men and suffering in different regions. 

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