Abstract
The article analyzes the figure of the "young girl" as category that articulates age and behavior at an interface with other social markers of difference, such as gender, territory, race and sexuality. Based on an ethnography carried out in two favelas in Rio de Janeiro, I discuss tensions that weigh on "young girls": the use of short clothes, the "affront", the "fear of becoming pregnant", the accusations about usurpation of affective relationships and the provocation of older men. In conclusion I present how the relationship between performance and framing highlights a broader field of tensions related to female sexuality that revises a racialized and colonial imaginary about black girls and favela residents.
Young girls; Gender; Sexuality; Performance; Agency