Anita’s desire to dress like a boy suggests that she now sees her femininity as a liability. She, like Lucinda, might one day be the target of sexual violence, and that’s understandably horrifying. However, she’s also suddenly critical of the men around her—her male playmates are drinking and throwing up, her father is planning an assassination, and her country’s leader is trying to rape her sister. Suddenly, she doesn’t feel that she can trust any men, and yet the women around her—ones she usually trusts, like Lucinda—seem vulnerable and unable to keep her safe. It’s a terrible position for Anita to be in. In an indication of just how distressing this is, Anita for the first time wishes she could be younger. For the whole novel, she has wanted to seem older than she is, but now she sees that growing up means facing terrible things.