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Laura Barton's Tomboys

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05/12/2013

BBC Radio 4 - Laura Barton's Tomboys

Laura Barton shares her fascination with the cultural phenomenon of tomboys.

Laura Barton draws on her own experiences, and those of her literary heroines, to explore the phenomenon of the tomboy.

Drawing on her own experiences and those of a literary heroine (the figure of Mick, the female protagonist of Carson McCullers' novel The Heart is a Lonely Hunter), Laura Barton shares her fascination with a way of engaging with the world that's simultaneously challenging of social norms and curiously unthreatening.

Along the way, she talks to the writer Jacqueline Wilson, the fashion expert Cally Blackman and the psychologist Melissa Hines about adolescence, sexual identity and personal freedom of expression. 

With music by Cat Power, Sufjan Stevens, Bjork and Antony and the Johnsons. Reading by Cecilia Fage.

Produced by Alan Hall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.

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