Girl, Woman, Other Essay Questions

Who is Amma, and why is she important?

Amma is the middle-aged director of the London National Theatre, mother of Yazz, best friend of Dominique, and childhood friend of Shirley. Amma is the first character introduced in Evaristo's novel, and rightly so, for many of the later characters introduced have personal relationships with her, and even those characters who do not know her on a personal level ultimately end up linked to Amma or her theater work in some way—that is, to the premiere of The Last Amazon of Dohamey. Though there is no one protagonist in this tale, Amma is perhaps the thread that links all the other characters.

Why the title, "Girl, Woman, Other"?

All the characters who get their own titular subchapters or vignettes in the novel are female-identifying, at some point. In fact, except for Morgan, who identifies as genderfree (or "other"), the characters are all women. The gender identities of the titular characters explain the use of "girl," "woman," and "other," but the order in which the three words are placed seems to also convey meaning.

Evaristo's novel is fundamentally one that traverses generations. Each chapter details the lives of at least one mother and her daughter. In the case of Chapter Four, three mothers' tales are told. In the case of each mother-child pairing, the experiences of the mother inform the beliefs, opportunities, and experiences of the daughter—the "girl." In each case, the women nurture and raise the girls, who in time become women themselves. The newly-become women have their own girls, boys, or others, and the cycle continues. The order of these words in Evaristo's title hints at this intergenerational exchange: the women's tales always bleed into their children's.

What is "feminism" in the novel?

Almost as soon as we meet Amma, we learn that she is a feminist. Then, we read about Yazz, who though she disparages her mother's feminist politics, is arguably herself a feminist. Then we find out about Penelope's own brand of feminism. Then Morgan's. Though all these philosophies share the name of "feminism," they all seem to be a different brand of feminism. How could that be?

Thinking about Feminism as a historical movement, with first, second, third, and fourth waves, all with different defining values and goals, may help us answer that question. These different waves were defined by different needs of the feminists at the time. The first-wavers, for example, were preoccupied with women earning the right to vote. Having secured the right to vote, feminists began to fight for other women's rights. The second-wavers, for example, fought for the liberation of housewives—the freedom for women to enter the workforce. Knowing this, it makes sense that different generations of feminists in Girl, Woman, and Other would have different worldviews and goals. Penelope, who was born in the forties and subsequently falls in with the second-wave feminists, fights for her right to not just be a homemaker, but also a career woman. Meanwhile, Amma, who falls into the third-wave feminists, is concerned with intersectionality and the expressions of sexuality and individuality to combat issues of sexism, racism, and sexual assault. Yazz and Morgan, on the other hand, would be considered fourth-wave feminists. Though hard to define (because we are still in the fourth wave), the fourth-wavers seem to take the goals of the third-wave feminists and take them even further with the help of the internet—re-examining, for example, our fundamental assumptions about what gender and race even are.

Feminism in Girl, Woman, Other reflects the historical changes that the real feminist movement has undergone. The Feminism of Evaristo's novel seems to change flavors with each generation, just as it does in real life.

What is Penelope's relationship with race?

Throughout the course of the novel, Penelope identifies as a white woman. Born in the forties to two seemingly blue-blooded Brits, Penelope inherits her mother's beliefs in white superiority. Indeed, Penelope's mother, Margaret, was raised on a South African plantation, where her father brutally whipped the "lazy" and "savage" natives. These deeply ingrained beliefs, fed to her as a child, feed into her day-to-day thoughts—Penelope frequently disparages black and Asian people throughout the novel on the basis of oversimplified stereotypes.

However, when she is in her seventies, she grows curious about her birth parents (Margaret was her adoptive mother). She takes a DNA test to see if it will lead her to a living relative. To her surprise, it does, and perhaps even more shockingly, she discovers that she is about 1/8th African. When reunited with her mother, who, as it turns out, is Hattie, Penelope pauses to consider that her mother certainly looks part-African (while she herself is white-passing). However, as she catches herself thinking about Hattie's skin color, she pauses to reflect on why she cares in the first place: she's just been reunited with her mother after over seventy years...why should skin color matter? And it no longer does, at least, not in that moment. Over the course of the novel, we see that though Penelope may be stubborn and strong-minded, it is not too late for her to relinquish her prejudices.

What role does education play in Girl, Woman, Other?

In Evaristo's novel we see both sides of the education coin: educators and those being educated. For the educators, Shirley and Penelope, education represents the opportunity by which well-meaning individuals can help underprivileged children succeed in life—at least at first. However, as the years pass and the structures of a dysfunctional education system wear at the two schoolteachers, Shirley and Penelope both become jaded, grumpy, and tired educators that no longer believe in the idealistic mission that led them into the profession.

Many students described in the novel have similarly disheartening encounters with the education system. LaTisha, Carole, and Morgan, for example, all have relatively negative experiences at grammar school. In particular, while a teenager, LaTisha does not understand the purpose of wasting her brainpower on trivial exercises. Morgan is bullied out of school by her peers. Carole is sexually assaulted while in school, and hates the teachers. However, certain positive experiences also arise from education.

Carole, for example, may have hated grammar school and the strict Mrs. King with a passion, but Oxford was a life-changing, positive experience for her. A similar case is found in Yazz, for whom university is a place to debate, grow, and help her achieve her dream of becoming a journalist.