But surely it should be Project Y?

[oursin]

My Attention Has Been Drawn to this: Project X: Turns boys into real readers.

Is there not something very weird about naming something that is
Truly boy-friendly in its content, design, structure, and teaching and learning approach - turns boys into readers and writerProject X, when there seems to be this assumption that it is the Y chromosome

Comments

[sartorias]

Oh, let's just drop back a century, shall we? And by the way, caning was good for our ancestors, let's bring that back too, hmmm?

[oursin]

Let's make them study Latin as the absolutely central element of education!

[oursin]

Carefully expurgated of all references to the particular vices of the ancient Greeks...

[wordweaverlynn]

It's also a movie about animal experiments.

[oursin]

Well, some boys' books - I loved the Jennings series, for example.

[oursin]

I don't know - wasn't the protag a sensitive mother's boy, unlike his more robust and manly brother? (it's decades since I read those!) At the very least I think they complicated assumptions around gender.

[egretplume]

That last bit you quoted sounds like the girls will just naturally do what they are told and follow their manly leaders? Or their husbands? Or just generally be subservient?
Yuck.

[oursin]

I think the idea is that girls will read anything, but boys are picky little bastards.

[cassandre]

At what age I wonder do boys stop reading books with female protagonists? Or more accurately, at what age are they socialised into stopping?

My three-year-old boy is completely happy with books and DVDs that star girls: Winnie the Witch, Angelina Ballerina, The Little Princess, Dora the Explorer and so on. I fully expect his tastes to narrow at some point due to cultural pressure but as long as I'm helping him select his reading materials he will not be that sort of picky little bastard!

[robot_mel]

While I can't totally hate anything that promotes reading that is Very Creepy!!!!! Talk about enforcing gender stereotypes! Especially the assuming that adventure stories will naturally be about boys - and that the only things girls can do is read about the adventures of the more daring sex! Ewww!