I got curious about the etymology of girl.
It did not always mean female—
originally girl meant small, ignorant,
lacking heft, intellect. Some philologists
say that girl once connoted
worthlessness, any living creature
considered weak, whether human or animal.
Others wager the word’s source more obscure.
No one knows the first time
a human girl decided to starve herself,
go further toward the vanishing
people want from her.
The penance of fasting, taken up
by those longing to be saints and the word girl
emerge at about the same time and place: Medieval
Europe. Starving yourself is old
hat, it goes back, transcendent.
Along the lines of girl also, call-girl, match-girl, girlie.
Catch-words for the discardable.
Finally, at age 15,
after a year of boundless fasting, I stopped
starving myself. But it took decades
after that to lose the habit
of silence, hunger’s match.
From Dolls (2Leaf Press, 2021) by Claire Millikin. Copyright © 2021 by Claire Millikin. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.