ABSTRACT
Recognising the pervasiveness of violence in the lives of slum dwellers, the media NGO directed many of their efforts towards encouraging children to write, perform, and construct “solutions” to the problem of violence in their communities. Yet, tackling the problem of gendered violence produced very different outcomes for boys and girls. This chapter explores the gendered ramifications of solution making and the difficulty of constructing agentive and desirable subject positions for both boys and girls. By exploring literature on the girling of development, this chapter highlights the lived dimensions of development programmes that highlight girls’ “potential.” While girls relished opportunities to produce narratives and performances in which they could assert their strength and power, the media NGO struggled to articulate an image of masculinity that was relevant, appealing, and multifaceted enough to appeal to boys.
