I found an Overland article some time ago called ‘The Wildness of Girlhood’ (2019) by Bonnie Mary Liston. This article was able to capture experiences I could only dream of describing. She writes;

“There is a period in many little girls’ lives, around the age of ten, where they go completely wild. Not in the sense of Girls Gone Wild, which depressingly clogs up the search results, but in the most natural sense of the word – feral and free.

Not every little girl experiences this at the same time. Not every little girl experiences this at all, and some little girls don’t get to be girls when they are little – womankind is not a monolith – but enough, I think, would recognise this phenomenon. I’m talking about the girls who become obsessed with horses, or wolves, or witches, and who knew themselves to be wild creatures like those. They vanish outdoors, hiding in trees, sticking their hands in the dirt, making potions from mud and sticks. They escape into complex worlds of their own imagining, shared between other little girls or solitary kingdoms.”

Liston B M (2019) The wildness of girlhood, Overland <https://overland.org.au/2019/07/the-wildness-of-girlhood/&gt;

There is something raw about this idea of girlhood. A connectedness, a phenomenon as she calls it, which speaks to some kind of universal truth. Ideas surrounding gender, girlhood and sexuality are under constant construction, and will remain so indefinitely. But why do we skim over this period of girlhood?

“she stands on the threshold of red wellies
left outside the back door…”


Memoli M (2023) Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing: Reframing Girlhood and Sexuality within Contemporary Revisions of Little Red Riding Hood

Memoli (2023)

A snippet from Chapter Two’s (of my thesis) introductory poem. We wear our wellies to splash in puddles and play outside. We stomp through the water with our gumboots- berries and rocks and flowers stashed in coat pockets too big for our baby bird bodies. It is a particular kind of nostalgia- the transformative aspect of growing up, from young girl, to young woman. The colour of the wellies, red; a visceral and phallic kind of symbolism, alluding to ones first menstrual bleeding, marking the beginning of womanhood (or does it?). The wellies have been left outside the back door, never to be worn again. One day we stopped going outside to play. why?

I ponder how we can describe childhood innocence without triggering the terms’ previous assumptions and connotations. By this I mean, when we think of ‘innocence,’ particularly in the context of ‘children,’ we are likely to think of them alongside terms and phrases such as; naïve, ignorant, ‘sexual innocence.’ ingenuous, trusting, purity, unspoiled, curiosity, wonder, adventurous, a lack of ‘corruption’ or ‘experience.’ In some ways we think of this negatively, particularly growing older, where we are ‘too innocent’ or ‘too naïve for the real world.’ We must have this ingenuous nature beaten out of us before we are eaten alive. We will not survive in the real world. You do not get anywhere by being kind, and believing the best of people. You should not smile. Give us a smile, love.

But I think perhaps we overlook this liberating wildness; this savage, unapologetic and raw curiosity. The spark for living. I believe it is a strength we bury through metamorphosis. The cocoon of puberty and societal expectations. Perhaps some rediscover this power later in life, when we are too old to care or be bound by invisible strings and negative self-beliefs. The world often feels like the wrong-sized shoe in our young adult years but perhaps we were always meant to run barefoot?

“We age out of wildness and straight in puberty, where our anger is on ourselves, and our bodies, and our mothers, and I don’t know what else. We’re part of the world again, and sometimes we forget being wild altogether, and sometimes we remember it fondly like Cathy in Wuthering Heights, as something we cannot recapture: an innocence killed by the stressful minutiae of adulthood.”

Liston B M (2019) The wildness of girlhood, Overland <https://overland.org.au/2019/07/the-wildness-of-girlhood/&gt;

Oh how I wish I could embrace my inner wild child once more. Instead I cling to the anger of being forced to let her go. Raging against the rules that broke down my spirit piece by piece. That forced me into wearing dresses and brushing my hair. That taught me I could not embrace my femininity as a power, a strength. Maybe I needed the new Barbie movie when I was younger- to guide my restless, aching heart. I longed for the freedom of the outdoors, the wind on my skin, flying and tumbling and scraping knees. Before broken bones taught us to be cautious. I want to embrace the world like I have never been hurt before. With a recklessness that could level mountains. A passion to rival the seas. A fiery self-belief that is louder than the roaring wind. Perhaps I crave a return to nature, but what is nature? What is our nature?

“I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free. Why am I so changed? I’m sure I should be myself were I once among the heather on those hills.”

Bronte E (1847) Wuthering Heights, Transatlantic Press, 138

I wonder if we will ever be able to reclaim such things, so freely? To reclaim a kind of autonomy which contributes to all freedoms? Not just sexual ‘wildness’ and ‘freedom,’ but to acknowledge the power of one’s wayward fairy-tale. To be a wolf in the woods. To wander and wonder.

“Her mother told her
she could grow up to be
anything she wanted to be,
so she grew up to become
the strongest of the strong,
the strangest of the strange,
the wildest of the wild,
the wolf leading the wolves.”

Gill N (2018) Fierce Fairy Tales & Other Stories to Stir Your Soul, Trapeze, London, 29.

To all the wild girls out there, do not just stray from the path, obliterate it.