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Feminism: chat

Can you recommend some books for my girls?

41 replies

ijustneedtokeepbreathing · 03/04/2024 20:10

I have three DC, and my youngest two DDs are 7 and 5.

My 5 year old is in Reception and recently has been coming home telling me that she is not a "proper girl" like the other girls in her class. This is because she doesn't like "girls' things" (children's words not mine) such as the usual pink/glittery/purple unicorns etc etc.

It is actually quite upsetting to hear her talk about how she "can't" be a girl.

I have had many chats with both DDs about how toys and games and clothes are for anyone and everyone, that there is no such thing as boys' clothes and toys and girls' clothes and toys, that DD is a simply a girl who happens to like trains, in the same way that some boys like dolls. There are many ways to be a girl.

Can anyone recommend me some fun and age appropriate books that might help these conversations?

OP posts:
indeed · 03/04/2024 20:14

The Rosie Revere, Ada Twist, Sofia Varquez books maybe? My girls loved those

MrsTerryPratchett · 03/04/2024 20:23

What are her interests? Then find books, articles, history and facts about women in those fields.

I got adept at finding female spies, ninja, scientists, pilots, warriors and so on with DD.

"A boy at school said I can't be a spy." "Well clearly that boy needs to crack a book and learn about Noor. Shall we Google her and find out more? She had a house in London with a blue plaque." And on and on.

You have to prove women can and do.

ijustneedtokeepbreathing · 03/04/2024 20:28

Thanks @MrsTerryPratchett. Currently interested in flight and space exploration. I will get on the case!

OP posts:
MrsTerryPratchett · 03/04/2024 20:31

ijustneedtokeepbreathing · 03/04/2024 20:28

Thanks @MrsTerryPratchett. Currently interested in flight and space exploration. I will get on the case!

The Night Witches and Katherine Johnson to start you off!

And Amelia Earhart of course!

MrsTerryPratchett · 03/04/2024 20:31

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Witches

MrsTerryPratchett · 03/04/2024 20:33

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecilia_Payne-Gaposchkin

MrsTerryPratchett · 03/04/2024 20:33

Sorry, carried away. Now DD is older I don't get to find cool women to show her any more.

YYURYYUCICYYUR4ME · 03/04/2024 20:44

I bought this for a friend's grandaughter and it is a great book to read together, although may be a little old for her at the moment. I much preferred lego, meccano and airfix kits to dolls and was lucky to have parents that believed in no such thing as girls / boys toys or roles and I was a mean hand with a penknife and making my own wooden model figures, at 8! A great way to show your daughter that girls don't have to follow a 'pink tribe' is to show her examples of brilliant women and their contribution to our world. My DH works with a large number of brilliant women scientists and engineers, so they are out there, just not wiggling their hips on social media, as they have far better things to be doing. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Women-Science-Fearless-Pioneers-Changed/dp/1526360519/ref=asc_df_1526360519/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=310850997089&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=6130137109172650630&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1006457&hvtargid=pla-526217420395&psc=1&mcid=df1111c9e4e93366a7e01dff26a18c2d&th=1&psc=1

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Women-Science-Fearless-Pioneers-Changed/dp/1526360519/ref=asc_df_1526360519?hvadid=310850997089&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=1006457&hvnetw=g&hvrand=6130137109172650630&hvtargid=pla-526217420395&linkCode=df0&mcid=df1111c9e4e93366a7e01dff26a18c2d&psc=1&th=1&tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-feminism-5042524-can-you-recommend-some-books-for-my-girls

ijustneedtokeepbreathing · 03/04/2024 21:02

🤣🤣 Thank you @MrsTerryPratchett. You've saved me some research time!

OP posts:
wafflesmgee · 03/04/2024 21:17

If she is going through a princess phase I would recommend "the paper bag princess" and "the worst princess", also "zog" and "zog and the flying doctors"
All have gutsy princess characters who are decent fighters/problem solvers rather than passive victims. I took this approach rather than not having princess stuff in the house at all, as I don't think that solves everything. If you have princess toys around you can control the narrative more when you play together e.g. "take THAT you baddie, watch me gallop faster than any of the knights and save the day" etc etc rather than leaving all princess related play to outside influences and then more conflicting narratives of how women should act

NoBinturongsHereMate · 03/04/2024 22:48

MrsTerryPratchett · 03/04/2024 20:31

The Night Witches and Katherine Johnson to start you off!

And Amelia Earhart of course!

Also Amy Johnson, Mildred Mary Bruce (motor racing and speed boats as well as flying), Lillian Bland (built her own plane), Betty Skelton ('fastest woman on earth'), Jacqueline Auriol (test pilot, stunt pilot and member of the French Resistance), Jerrie Cobb (flier and first of the Mercury 13 astronaut programme, along with the splendidly named Wally Flunk), and the Portuguese Paratroop Nurses.

jackles · 03/04/2024 23:03

Can't help with suggestions, sorry! But I'm another who loved Meccano, Airfix, my chemistry set... and taking things apart to see how they worked. Does their father encourage them to be curious and practical? My father was a tinkerer in all sorts of hobbies and DIY - I spent a lot of time watching and helping and he never even hinted that there were interests that weren't for girls - to be fair my mother did practical things with me too like cooking, sewing, but it was she who helped me convert my doll's pram into a go-cart...
I always wanted to be an astronaut; haven't made it yet 🙁but I literally studied "rocket science" at Uni and then worked as a physicist in the nuclear power industry.

However...
my favourite colour is pink. (Hangs head in shame)

WeightoftheWorld · 03/04/2024 23:08

I'm also here for suggestions, my DD had similar when she started reception. However recently she seems to have stopped saying this type of thing which is good. She did tell me she liked playing football with the boys recently and that only her and one of her other girl friends would play, so I'm thinking of raising that with her teacher to see if there's anything he can do to gently encourage girls football in reception, do you think that would be ok? I'm not a parent who raises stuff with the teacher often btw but he seems lovely and is also the PSHE lead and I think he'd be up for raising the profile of female footballers to the class or whatever if I raised it.

My DD likes those little big dream books, we get them out of the library. She loved learning about Rosa Parks, Maya Angelou, Vivian Westwood etc in them.

Like you I also just do the constant drilling in of everyone can like and play with everything etc etc.

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 03/04/2024 23:09

My Body is Me, by Rachel Rooney.

And later on, My Period, by Milli Hill.

CastlesinSpain · 03/04/2024 23:42

WeightoftheWorld · 03/04/2024 23:08

I'm also here for suggestions, my DD had similar when she started reception. However recently she seems to have stopped saying this type of thing which is good. She did tell me she liked playing football with the boys recently and that only her and one of her other girl friends would play, so I'm thinking of raising that with her teacher to see if there's anything he can do to gently encourage girls football in reception, do you think that would be ok? I'm not a parent who raises stuff with the teacher often btw but he seems lovely and is also the PSHE lead and I think he'd be up for raising the profile of female footballers to the class or whatever if I raised it.

My DD likes those little big dream books, we get them out of the library. She loved learning about Rosa Parks, Maya Angelou, Vivian Westwood etc in them.

Like you I also just do the constant drilling in of everyone can like and play with everything etc etc.

It works both ways - at primary school my son and one of his friends hated football and used to play hockey with the girls.

NoBinturongsHereMate · 03/04/2024 23:49

This is a US site, so the histories and biographies tend to lean in that direction but it's a pretty good range of topics. www.amightygirl.com/books

DinosaurOfFire · 03/04/2024 23:56

If you are reading to her, then the famous five/ magic faraway tree/ wishing chair, other Enid Blyton books. Her girl characters tend to vary from reluctant adventurers to all-out challenging gender stereotypes (for e.g. in the Famous Five, Anne and George are complete opposites but both participate in adventurers equally with the boy cousins.). I also second the Worst Princess. Roald Dahl can be good too- Matilda, the BFG etc.

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 04/04/2024 08:18

This isn't a book recommendation, OP, but more of a practical comment.

You say that when your daughter says she can't be a girl, you tell her that girls can like football instead of dolls or what have you, i.e. she doesn't have to conform to stereotypes.

That's an important part of the conversation, for sure, but have you actually spelled out what a girl is, and what a boy is?

It's not clear to me from your OP whether you also have a son or just daughters, so perhaps your daughters have never had a bath with a little boy.

As someone who grew up in the 80s with a little brother, I was never confused about what girls and boys are. My mum told me that my brother was a boy because he had a willy and I was a girl because I didn't have one.

Perhaps if your girls haven't grown up sharing baths with a brother or the occasional male cousin, they find it more difficult to conceptualise this, particularly in the current climate where it seems primary schools are doing everything they can to avoid explaining biological sex in clear terms and some are encouraging small children to believe that they get to choose whether they want to be a boy or a girl.

If this is the case, then in addition to all the wonderful books recommended in this thread to show your girls they can do whatever they like and don't have to be limited by their sex, I would be looking out for an age appropriate book with clear illustrations to help them understand what boys and girls actually look like underneath their clothes.

And beyond books, even if your girls aren't girly girls and don't particularly like playing with dolls, it might be useful to buy a couple of anatomically correct dolls, one with female genitalia and one with male genitalia, and just play with them a couple of times so you can explain that this one is a girl and this one is a boy, and the girl baby has the same body parts your daughters have, whereas the boy baby has different body parts. I would also use anatomically correct language to talk about this. Don't infantilise your daughters. Tell them that boys and men have a penis and girls and women have a vulva and a vagina, and inside the body a uterus which is where a baby can grow. And once you've had that conversation, if one of your daughters talks about being a boy, you can say something like, "It's OK to like the same things that the boys at school like. If you want to play football, that's fine, we'll find a football club for you. But the boys are boys because they have a penis, not because they like football. Remember the book?"

NigelTheCrab · 04/04/2024 08:26

Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls. I recently found it in a charity shop and gave it to my niece who's 8. She loves it. Each page has a remarkable woman from modern day back to Tudor times and from all parts of the globe. There's a little description about each woman, what they've done and the adversity they've faced. Some of the women it features from memory are Simone Biles, Coco Chanel, Serena and Venus Williams, Ada Lovelace and loads more amazing women you've never heard of. I'm genuinely thinking of buying myself a copy!

cuckyplunt · 04/04/2024 08:30

I read the Famous 5 to my DD but swapped everything Dick did for everything Ann did. So he was mothering about dinner and she was climbing down wells on ropes.
She did unfortunately still fall in love with Julian and I remember having a massive argument in the car once because I referred to him as a pompous prig.
Happy memories!

DontBuyANewMumCashmere · 04/04/2024 08:40

'Fantastic women who changed the world' has a section on Valentina Tereshkova (space) and Amelia Earhart (flight), iirc, and my tomboy daughter loved that.

There is also Lottie doll, which is like Barbie but a million times better, she does have loads of outfits but they're all adventure outfits, snorkel suit, space suit, fossil hunter kit etc
And I got the hair brushing kit reluctantly, but on the packaging they made a big thing about Lottie being 'on the go' and needing to have her hair tied back so she's ready for adventures etc, made it a much better concept than just brushing her hair to make her look pretty for Ken...

Lottie has several versions of herself (we have about 5 dolls, two of which are boys, and a dark skin coloured friend who has a cochlear implant) so we have had a lot of adventures.

I mention all that because there are two Lottie doll adventure books, which are pretty good for tomboys of that age - you don't really need to know about the dolls to appreciate the books, just that she might be 'turned off if she thinks they are normal boring dolls :)

HighQueenOfTheFarRealm · 04/04/2024 08:56

As well as books, go on YouTube and show her a womens football match, women astronauts and astronomers, women scientist and women explorers.

Is your older Dd more 'girly'? If so, that's what might be influencing her.

IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads · 04/04/2024 09:50

A Mighty Gitl is a fantastic resource for books and other things to support mighty girls!

For fiction, there is a series of chapter books aimed at around 7-10 year olds, about a little girl called Ramona Quimby. They start when she is 4, and go up to when she is 10 ish. It's just her take on life, school, friends, her big sister, her grumpy cat etc.. they are set in the US and the first one was published in the 1950s, but felt modern when I read them in the 1980s, and were still relatable when I reread them to dd a couple of years ago.

Ramona books by Beverley Cleary

ijustneedtokeepbreathing · 04/04/2024 09:58

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 04/04/2024 08:18

This isn't a book recommendation, OP, but more of a practical comment.

You say that when your daughter says she can't be a girl, you tell her that girls can like football instead of dolls or what have you, i.e. she doesn't have to conform to stereotypes.

That's an important part of the conversation, for sure, but have you actually spelled out what a girl is, and what a boy is?

It's not clear to me from your OP whether you also have a son or just daughters, so perhaps your daughters have never had a bath with a little boy.

As someone who grew up in the 80s with a little brother, I was never confused about what girls and boys are. My mum told me that my brother was a boy because he had a willy and I was a girl because I didn't have one.

Perhaps if your girls haven't grown up sharing baths with a brother or the occasional male cousin, they find it more difficult to conceptualise this, particularly in the current climate where it seems primary schools are doing everything they can to avoid explaining biological sex in clear terms and some are encouraging small children to believe that they get to choose whether they want to be a boy or a girl.

If this is the case, then in addition to all the wonderful books recommended in this thread to show your girls they can do whatever they like and don't have to be limited by their sex, I would be looking out for an age appropriate book with clear illustrations to help them understand what boys and girls actually look like underneath their clothes.

And beyond books, even if your girls aren't girly girls and don't particularly like playing with dolls, it might be useful to buy a couple of anatomically correct dolls, one with female genitalia and one with male genitalia, and just play with them a couple of times so you can explain that this one is a girl and this one is a boy, and the girl baby has the same body parts your daughters have, whereas the boy baby has different body parts. I would also use anatomically correct language to talk about this. Don't infantilise your daughters. Tell them that boys and men have a penis and girls and women have a vulva and a vagina, and inside the body a uterus which is where a baby can grow. And once you've had that conversation, if one of your daughters talks about being a boy, you can say something like, "It's OK to like the same things that the boys at school like. If you want to play football, that's fine, we'll find a football club for you. But the boys are boys because they have a penis, not because they like football. Remember the book?"

Thank you @MissScarletInTheBallroom .

I have a 13 year old DS too. My elder DD shared baths with him when they were both little, but while my youngest DD did when she was a baby, that stopped before she was old enough to remember what a boy's body looks like, I think.

I have been v candid with both girls about their bodies - ie this is your vulva, inside is your vagina, inside your uterus a girl can grow a baby when she is grown up etc. But I guess I haven't explained a boy's body to them! A book and/or doll is a good idea.

I suppose what I really want DD (and all three of them, I suppose) to appreciate is that she is a girl but that makes absolutely zero difference to what she can play with, wear, do etc.

OP posts:
ReineMarieGamache · 04/04/2024 10:00

I was just about to suggest following A Mighty Girl on Facebook but I see @IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads has beaten me to it 😊

An absolutely fabulous resource of all sorts of mighty women

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