to be annoyed with this sexist reading advice sent home from school?

[morningpaper]

"Until the day your daughter expresses an interest in rocket science or your son gets into showjumping, you won?t go far wrong if you try them out with these kinds of books?

Boys...

• Enjoy books about their interests - especially dinosaur ones!
• Like books that are a bit scary, funny or have silly jokes.
• Often have a shorter attention span, so books you can dip in and out of may work better for them. Try comic strip books and non fiction.
• Prefer big, bold, colourful illustrations or things that can be moved or touched.
• Like reading to have a purpose, for example books that show you how to make things or tell you about things.

Girls...

• Enjoy series of books about the same characters.
• Like to listen to talking books and watch DVDs of favourite books.
• Enjoy a bit of fantasy, magic and make believe ? princesses, castles and so on.
• Like sparkle and glitter on the pages.
• Enjoy books that have props with them ? dolls, soft toys, dressing-up clothes."

MP - Girls tend to like the 'boy and girl' reading material. Boys dont.

But honestly MP I have read communications from parents who are absolutely thrilled to see their 8/9/10yo son reading a book from cover to cover and passing it around their mates, and saying they had never thought that would happen. I realise my mission for boys isn't addressing the girls issue much, but it does matter.

stephla - when I was little, glitter was confined to Christmas, and came in red, green, gold and silver- that was it. My toys and books and clothes were not covered in the stuff FFS!

jackeroo -that is very disturbing. The problem being that children cannot distingush when they are being marketed to, and when they are being told the truth. (though Bounty is terrible- all those new mums, and their hormones and insecurities -Bounty- Just say 'No'!)

mp post pf 10:09- yy. What can we do about it?

I think that is really sensible advice. Education for all doesn't have to be the SAME for all. Boys and girls particularly in the early years get fired up by very different things and have different styles of learning, far better to acknowledge that IMO. Sexist NOT to.

Some of the items on the lists aren't sexist but just daft. E.g. girls' list but not boys' has 'Like to listen to talking books and watch DVDs of favourite books'. Thought they all did.

And boys apparently like 'something to move and touch' while girls like 'props' (but presumably don't like to move or touch them).

I know that boys and girls on the whole are very different and do have diff reading preferences. So here's what my leaflet would unpunchily say:

Until more girls than boys play Top Trumps, and more boys than girls like to dress as make-believe royalty, you won?t go far wrong if you try them out with these kinds of books?

Boys and Girls ...

• Love books about their interests *Enjoy a bit of fantasy, make-believe and magic *Like to listen to talking books and watch DVDs of their favourite books

Boys ...

• Often have a very special enjoyment of books that gather facts into categories -- the highest, oldest, most powerful, etc. Seek out the book equivalents of Top Trumps cards to go with their fiction

Girls ...
[I don't know. Haven't got one]

FAQ girls like sparkle and glitter because they have had it rammed down their throats since birth!

Anna James Bond? You allow your 4yo to watch films with 15 certs? I am astonished!

Peach - either you're consiering older than me - or you were deprived I had glitter of all colours, all througout the year - although I guess lace and ribbons was more the "in" thing for me and my friends in those days

I remember the excitement of only seeing glitter at christmas too. I thought it was amazing.

(Am quite old)

so by that reasoning then my DS1 is only obsessed with cars because he's had it rammed down his throat then??? No - he had a wide variety of toys (and very few cars) when he was tiny - but the cars obsession was totally of his own doing.

EachPeach I take issue with you there. Not one bit of glitter was there in my house as a child, and glitter etc at school only came out at Christmas; LOVED glitter/sparkle as a kid - was spellbound by it; did NOT have it rammed down my throat! Just cos things are rammed down kid's throats does not mean they will LIKE them; flushing the loo, brushing teeth etc been rammed down my six year old ds's throat since birth and he STILL hates doing both!

Or what about:

"Your daughter will earn 20% less than your son over her lifetime and end up with little or no pension provision, so try to widen her horizons a little. Why not try a variety of books with your child to see what they like, rather than making a decision based on your child's genitals? N.B. You can tell if your child likes something by cues such as smiling, and saying 'oooh this is nice daddy'. You can identify lack of interest by cues such as throwing the book down, wandering off to look for something more interesting, looking sad, etc. etc. etc."

FAQ- I think we are prob similar ages actually.... but we were quite poor when I was growing up Lace and ribbons? You must have been very girly

But the reasoning re cars does not apply- toys 'for boys' come in a wide variety, whereas the 'girl aisle' in toy shops is ALL pink, sparkly, and dolly/fairy/princess orientated.

Same with my DS - he has his obsessions which he has selected on his own. They include cars and all building site stuff, sticks, climbing on things, and dinosaurs. Didn't come from us. He also loves his cuddly toys and tatty pink blanket. He's had plenty of access to dolls, toy prams, dressing up etc and they seem to leave him cold (though he does love pink).

There was some fascinating study with boy and girl monkeys recently where they selected toys mainly along stereotyped gender lines. There does seem to be a genuine gender effect. But I think the thing is to use this kind of knowledge to understand children and help them learn - in cases where it does help - but without it turning into prescriptiveness or anything limiting.

"Your daughter will earn 20% less than your son over her lifetime and end up with little or no pension provision" ... now I wouldn't say that to anyone! And I hope that won't be the case when our daughters grow up. It doesn't have to stay that way.

And I actually think we need to tease out issues of pinkness, glitter, enjoying fantasy and dressing up, from issues of actual discrimination and sexism. Because I don't think any of that pink/glitter stuff needs to hold any girl back, even if she does like them - any more than liking silly jokes and information in snippets and making sticks into toy guns needs hold a boy back. There are far worse things to worry about, like the way girls are encouraged to fret about their bodies.

It is a heap of wanky twonk written by a patronising dimwit.

I think the first sentence may have been an attempt at a jolly reverse-the-stereotype remark about how your young children won't have chosen their career yet. But it's bollocks and yes I do get MP's point.

oh I was very girly - still remember the bobbin and lace set thingy I got my birthday when I was about 8 .

I don't think we were terribly well off........I'll have you know I've got proper Northern working class roots

Morning Paper - I have girls and boys. Maybe if you had a boy who was slow to read etc you would welcome with open arms anything that tried to get boys interested in reading rather than getting all pursed lipped about it?

I think that the advice was very irritating. However there is a real need to get boys to read for pleasure. I got my DS hooked with Anthony Horowitz and the adventures of Alex Rider, I most certainly didn't suggest Bethany the Ballet Fairy by Daisy Meadows!
I haven't got any girls but I would imagine that they must be popular or there wouldn't be a series!
The problem is that girls enjoy boys things but boys don't enjoy girls things to the same extent.
Culturally people are quite happy to take their DD down to the local shop dressed as Bob the builder but they wouldn't be happy to take their DS dressed as a fairy. (It isn't something that bothered me).

MP - I have 3 boys and I am with you. I am appalled at your op. I wonder at book shops with endless glitter and sparkle and hunt to find 'normal' books - novels by the Butterworths, Dick King Smith, Swallows & Amazons etc. I don't want them reading twaddly series (yes, Horrid Henry, I mean you ). I admit they'll probably never weep over Anne of Green Gables but I want them (and my nieces) to be reading things like Charlotte's Web, The Hobbit, Stig of the Dump, Littlenose, Mrs Pepperpot and the like. (Oh, and some decent novels for ds1 from school wouldn't go amiss rather than flipping ORT still going in P4).

going away slight from the theme of gender specific books. Does it really matter what our DC are reading? Surely we want them to enjoyingi reading, and the actual "quality" is of little consequence - especially at a young age. There's plenty of time as they get older for them to appreciate the "finer" authors in life, but got with so many children not reading anything surely it doesn't matter they do read?

I think it does matter what they read to a certain extent. I know reading is escapism and fantasy but it does put ideas in children's heads.
Books that are well-written, whatever their subject, are important for children's language development. Books that encourage sound morals and values are important, along with a sense of responsibility.

I am so angered by stories where things that go wrong are always the fault of a malevolent force or character- rather than the characters actually having a responsibility for what happens. When things go worng in life- it usually is not the fault of anyone but ourselves.

Yes I think it does matter although obviously fostering an interest in reading per se is essential in the first part

but lots of people are moved at a young age by things they read

I doubt that reading The Rainbow Fairies series has inspired anyone to do a great deal with their lives or to a deeper understanding of the human condition

The main thing is that you make a wide variety of things available though

well true I can't say that reading almost everyone of Enid Blyton's books when I was younger inspired me a great deal, or the Lord of the Rings, or Emma for that matter, but I enjoyed reading them (else I wouldn't have read most of them over and over again - LOTR barring - that's just too long to read again and again and again )

I have a tenuous connection with the toy industry (and kids' publishing) through work and this gender-division stuff drives me nuts.
It's great that so many of you have written to Leapfrog. I believe that they have completely forgotten anything that they ever knew (as "real life people", parents, aunts/ uncles or memories of being kids themselves) about the flexibility of kids' interests and possibilities. In their work lives, they work in an industry where their whole mission is to kowtow to retailers who screw the most money out of us by crude and extreme gender profiling. It's complicated as to why this works out as most profitable, but for now at least, it apparently does. I would suggest any of you who care and have time write to the big retailers' head offices too, as they are the people who call Leapfrog's tune.
Separately, gender issues aside, the idea that everything has to be diluted and made crude to be appealing to children is inherently patronising, and I think many of them can smell that and feel insulted in some subliminal way and this is as likely to put them off as any other outcome. Real activities - real reading, music, sport, craft, etc - are perfectly suitable for children at the right level with the right support, and give children a proper sense of autonomy, achievement, self esteem because they know they are doing something real.
They don't need to be fed pap.