The narrative of girlhood and womanhood presented in Jamaica Kincaid's "Girl" shows how, for the speakers' community, women are expected to handle all domestic duties, including serving the men, and to maintain reputations for being virtuous, morally upright, and proper. The "girl" of the title is instructed on how to iron her father's clothes, how to act toward men, how to keep the house swept and the dinner made, how to care for children, and, perhaps most strikingly, how to avoid either becoming a "slut" or how to prevent men from realizing that she is a "slut."

It seems, then, that women and girls are supposed to be subservient to men—if not in actuality then at least in appearance—and that they have something of an obligation to at least appear to be either sexually chaste (before marriage) or sexually faithful (to a husband). The woman who speaks most of the time, the older woman in a position of some authority on these matters, actually uses the word "slut" three times in this very short text, emphasizing just how important this aspect of girlhood/womanhood is: a female who engages in sexual activity outside of marriage is undesirable in every way, so much so that the baker might not even let her "near the bread" in his store. This shows that women are valued not only based on their ability to fulfill the domestic servant role but also for their virginity and sexual virtue.