"Market Girls and Modern Women: A History of Social Reform in Lagos, Nigeria

Abosede George will present an overview of her dissertation, "Market

Girls and Modern Women: A History of Social Reform in Lagos, Nigeria

1925-1950", which she is writing within the Institute for Research on

Women and Gender (IRWG). Her project, as described on the IRWG

website, "emerges from a concern with the criminalization of girl

hawkers (mobile sellers of petty goods) in Lagos the 1940s and the

attempts of Nigerian and British colonial elites to eradicate them.

The girl hawker problem, as it was called, attracted the attention of

British officials and Yoruba women philanthropists, stimulating

conflicts between the two over child labor, the cultural function of

girlhood, and the direction of development work in Southern Nigeria."

Dessert will be served! Please come ready to respond to and discuss

Abosede George's research and broader issues of gender in society.