In which gender politics makes me late for work
This blog post is relevant to my interests:
http://www.maureenjohnsonbooks.com/2010/09/22/sell-the-girls/
I manage to get through every day at work without stabbing anybody, but when this subject comes up, it is sometimes quite a close run thing. I am seriously thinking of printing this out and hanging it on the wall.
We watched Gareth Malone's Extraordinary School for Boys - at least, I watched the first episode, and then I hid while Jessie watched the second because I couldn't take it any more. The idea that boys will not learn to read without first having the opportunity to climb some trees in school time. The idea that school needs to involve fun and risk and emotional engagement - but only for boys. The idea that all the girls are fine and thriving in the classroom environment and do not need to be given any extra fun. The idea that boys thrive on competition and, implicitly, girls don't (pretty heartily disproven, surely, in the bit where they have a boys-v-girls debate and the girls prepare obsessively and then win). I understand that sometimes, strategies that look like rewarding failure are good and can work, but the concept of taking the boys out of a classroom and sending them to do MANLY things like cutting up wood and playing dangerous outdoorsy sport, while the girls stay put inside being quiet and doing girl things - like, y'know, READING - gives me the creeping horrors.
I just - when did boys and girls stop being the same? When I was a kid, growing up white and middle class with not massively right-on parents [Edit, because on rereading this is a bit disingenuous: they were pretty right-on, they are definitely left of centre politically - but I'm measuring them against for instance Jessie's parents who are genuinely political hippies and made some attempt to regulate her childhood culture-consumption accordingly], one of the most important things I learned was that girls and boys were basically equal in all things. When did people stop telling their children that?
Even more tragically, the linked post is fantastic, but it mostly talks about classic literature, the kind of stuff you read at school when you're a bit older. You can imagine how much worse it is when you're talking about the 5-7 early readers market. Books for boys and books for girls are more and more becoming totally separate animals, both in terms of marketing and in terms of content. The received wisdom is that even when they're five, girls will read anything but boys won't touch books with female protagonists or anything debatably 'girly' on the cover - WHEN THEY'RE FIVE - and more and more I'm coming across the idea that to sell well to girls, you need to market it to GIRLS, with PINK and SPARKLES and as little hint as you can that there might be anything adventurous or unfashionable going on in the story.
And you know what, it's prevalent enough in publishers and booksellers (and the parents who buy the books and encourage their children to think these are OK choices are not exactly blameless either, though I deeply suspect they are less guilty than booksellers) that if I didn't work pretty much on this basis, I would not be doing my job properly.
More links I don't have time to read right now but will at some point and may print the best ones out and turn them into a little booklet entitled If You See Rosie Going Pale And Making Dying Faces During A Meeting, This Is Quite Likely To Be Why.
http://tammypierce.livejournal.com/40594.html
http://justinelarbalestier.com/blog/2009/06/12/theyre-just-girl-books-who-cares/
http://hannahmosk.blogspot.com/2010/07/boy-problem.html
http://sarahkellywright.com/?p=202
This entry was originally posted at http://opportunemoment.dreamwidth.org/427358.html, you can comment here or there.
http://www.maureenjohnsonbooks.com/2010/09/22/sell-the-girls/
I manage to get through every day at work without stabbing anybody, but when this subject comes up, it is sometimes quite a close run thing. I am seriously thinking of printing this out and hanging it on the wall.
We watched Gareth Malone's Extraordinary School for Boys - at least, I watched the first episode, and then I hid while Jessie watched the second because I couldn't take it any more. The idea that boys will not learn to read without first having the opportunity to climb some trees in school time. The idea that school needs to involve fun and risk and emotional engagement - but only for boys. The idea that all the girls are fine and thriving in the classroom environment and do not need to be given any extra fun. The idea that boys thrive on competition and, implicitly, girls don't (pretty heartily disproven, surely, in the bit where they have a boys-v-girls debate and the girls prepare obsessively and then win). I understand that sometimes, strategies that look like rewarding failure are good and can work, but the concept of taking the boys out of a classroom and sending them to do MANLY things like cutting up wood and playing dangerous outdoorsy sport, while the girls stay put inside being quiet and doing girl things - like, y'know, READING - gives me the creeping horrors.
I just - when did boys and girls stop being the same? When I was a kid, growing up white and middle class with not massively right-on parents [Edit, because on rereading this is a bit disingenuous: they were pretty right-on, they are definitely left of centre politically - but I'm measuring them against for instance Jessie's parents who are genuinely political hippies and made some attempt to regulate her childhood culture-consumption accordingly], one of the most important things I learned was that girls and boys were basically equal in all things. When did people stop telling their children that?
Even more tragically, the linked post is fantastic, but it mostly talks about classic literature, the kind of stuff you read at school when you're a bit older. You can imagine how much worse it is when you're talking about the 5-7 early readers market. Books for boys and books for girls are more and more becoming totally separate animals, both in terms of marketing and in terms of content. The received wisdom is that even when they're five, girls will read anything but boys won't touch books with female protagonists or anything debatably 'girly' on the cover - WHEN THEY'RE FIVE - and more and more I'm coming across the idea that to sell well to girls, you need to market it to GIRLS, with PINK and SPARKLES and as little hint as you can that there might be anything adventurous or unfashionable going on in the story.
And you know what, it's prevalent enough in publishers and booksellers (and the parents who buy the books and encourage their children to think these are OK choices are not exactly blameless either, though I deeply suspect they are less guilty than booksellers) that if I didn't work pretty much on this basis, I would not be doing my job properly.
More links I don't have time to read right now but will at some point and may print the best ones out and turn them into a little booklet entitled If You See Rosie Going Pale And Making Dying Faces During A Meeting, This Is Quite Likely To Be Why.
http://tammypierce.livejournal.com/40594.html
http://justinelarbalestier.com/blog/2009/06/12/theyre-just-girl-books-who-cares/
http://hannahmosk.blogspot.com/2010/07/boy-problem.html
http://sarahkellywright.com/?p=202
This entry was originally posted at http://opportunemoment.dreamwidth.org/427358.html, you can comment here or there.