Little girls are tiny, adorable, vulnerable and innocent, but when the little girl comes from the working class, she is something else. Just what she is, how we see young girls, how they see themselves and how popular culture mediates the view is the subject of this book. The study looks at girls on television, in films, in advertisements and popular songs and figures such as Annie and Shirley Temple in any number of her plucky poor girl roles. Walkerdine takes the reader into the homes and confidences of working class girls today and explores their portrayal and manipulation as part of the production of civilized femininity. At the centre of this work is the issue of how girls are taught to think of themselves and how their depiction puts them in their place. This concern leads to questions about television and parental control, about Freud's seduction theory and the origins of fantasy, about the political and erotic meaning of the gaze our culture trains on the little girl and about academic's approach to the subject.