Famous Five and sex role stereotypes

[Ineedacupofteadesperately]

Bloody hell. Been reading the Famous Five books with DD. On the one hand, it gives rise to a lot of discussion, and she loves the mystery element but on the other I'm wondering whether to stop reading them and turn to something a bit more empowering.... it's not surprising that George "wants to be a boy" (mentioned literally every bloody chapter) because everyone's constantly going on about how Anne loves doing everyone elses' shitwork because she's such a girly girl.

In the last one I read Julian (extremely bossy and annoying, according to DD), Dick and George go off on an adventure while Anne does the washing up, clears up after breakfast and makes the beds. Not bloody surprising George wants to "be a boy". DD and I discussed how George doesn't really want to be a boy she just wants to go on adventures and not have to do the housework (which they've gaslighted Anne into thinking she likes).

It wasn't THAT long ago that these books were written. Scary stuff. What was Enid Blyton thinking? Was it meant to be critical of sex role stereotypes?

I’m always disappointed re-reading books from my childhood. I bought lots of Point Horror and Sweet Valley High books from a charity shop to read again recently. What a pile of shite. I discovered an amazing blogger called Red Lemonade who does brilliantly funny recaps from a modern POV. They also do a 50 shades recap (the worst 3 chapters of a book I’ve ever read). Hilarious.

Try Swallows and Amazons, IIRC the girls are quite involved in the adventures.

I've not read any Enid Blyton, I was a Biggles fan!

When I've been speaking to people about the current trans insanity, I've found that the Famous Five books have been a useful shortcut for explanation. I'm almost 50 and most of the people I've been speaking to are older than me. All the women I've spoken to, without exception, wanted to be George and no one wanted to be Anne!

Ah, I say, but nowadays, if a girl wants to be like George, she won't be described as a tomboy, she'll be told she actually IS a boy, and fast-tracked onto puberty blockers, to be followed up by testosterone and a mastectomy. And schools, psychologists and medical professionals are going along with this - even when the parents are pushing back, and are happy for their daughter to be tomboy, to be free to be who she is.

Go George!

There’s very, very little in the way of books and films from my childhood and the past in general that isn’t riddled with problematic ideas so I can’t get too bothered about Blyton’s stereotypes in particular.

In fact, I’m less worried about things from the distant past (bearing in mind that I am from the olden days according to the eldest DC ) than the toxic crap of now which is harder to see for what it is.

IMO opinion they were a product of their time, and they may well be judged as inappropriate now, but I don't agree that they should now be edited to agree with modern culture. Otherwise where would we stop?

Oh and I always wanted to be George too, but I was more of a Secret Seven fan myself

Try the Swallows and Amazons series - everyone cooks, and the female pirates are "ruthless"

It's not just the gender stereotypes either. I read the St Clare's and Malory Towers books ( boarding school) aloud to my daughter and had to change quite a lot: "Jennifer's ugly freckles", "Celine was as deceitful as French girls usually are"!

I suppose as someone said they were a product of their time. They were considered very stereotype even when I grew up in the 1970's and were prohibited at the library, probably just because of the sex role stereotypes you describe, thus considered 'bad literature' in that regard, but that didn't stop us children from getting and reading every book however, usually by forcing our parents to actually buy the books for birthdays and Christmases instead.

That is interesting mixture. It would have been the early 90s when I read a lot of Blyton. However they were passed down from older siblings and cousins

Going against the grain here but I love that they are a product of their time, sexism and all, and believe they can be read to our children both for enjoyment (as a child I loved EB's adventure writing) and also as eduction (about how far women's rights have come etc).

I have no idea why the Famous Five books are so well known - the Find Outers ones are much better as a PP said!

True, the Find-Outers and the Secret Seven were way better than the Five. Were there just more TFF books?

I'm not sure what's wrong with social history. Shall we just pretend the slave trade didn't exist?

Oh! I disagree with all of the negativity about the Famous Five (and have to stifle a giggle at all the cries of 'safeguarding!')

1. Blyton's books were written at the beginning of every day feminism. Her books are the very first steps of girls being equal to boys in very day life. She doesn't write about a 'done deal', she writes about a time of real, but slow change.

1. Her male characters are often total stereotypes, of the kind of men that made Blyton's own life such a misery. She revels in writing their every selfish act... remember misogyny wasn't 'a word' them, so Uncle Quentin was just being a normal boorish man! And bloody hell did she make sure readers could not miss that. She takes great care to write him as unpleasantly 'alpha male' as she can. He's a total wonder, a great warning to all!

Reading them these days makes me wince, but they are a sodding good reminder of 'how things were' and 'how far we have come'. Maybe the poster of the 'Feminism has gone too far' style posts today should read them and have a god think.

Well I did the same thing but went a bit overboard in placing the girls as the extroverts and the boys as the meek introverts. Thinking of Juli-Ann cooking a cleaning and Dick as the sissy scaredy cat made for some fun re-reading. Also aunt fanny was giving spankings to the boys as she thought they were always getting the girls in difficult situations.

I re-write them as I go and explain but not all of it is bad. George can do everything the boys do and is often braver, stronger, more capable. She does the rowing to Kirrin Island for example. She is also rash and thinks she needs to do things alone.

I like her character and use Anne's character to explain it's ok to be scared and she likes doing the homely stuff as it makes her feel grown up, but she is equally capable, she is just the youngest and the older ones look after her. She is also clever and observes things more than the others do.

Maybe that's a bit of spin but my DS loves the books and I'm fairly critical of the parents who seem to bugger off and leave their kids to it when they are meant to be with them when they are home from boarding school!

No one I knew wanted to be Anne. Everyone wanted to be George. I think George was a great role model for the time.

I loved Enid Blyton books growing up and almost every girl I knew wanted to be George, or Timmy...
Tried to read her books to DD and found them unreadable! Really awful, clunky repetitive language.

Childhood was never that free - even of the time they would have been fantasies for what children would like to be doing.

Of course Anne would not have been leading the charge, not just because she was female but also because at the start she was about 9 to Julians 13. She suffered the double whammy of being both a girls and the youngest sibling who has to try and 'earn her way' onto the big children's adventures.

Anne was taking in part in these adventures at an age when Julian was still at home/school and hadn't even met George.

Enid Blyton was, I think, having a laugh and seeing what she could get away with in her books.
Hence calling the two Faraway Tree children Dick and Fanny, writing a younger children’s book called Mr Pink Whistle, and using the thinly disguised name of her own married lover, a surgeon called Darrell Waters, as a character in Mallory Towers - Darrell Rivers.
I don’t believe she had any love of sex stereotyping - she was anything but a devoted housewife/mother, spending all her time on writing (and having an affair!)
One of her daughters said mother cared more about her fans and readers than her own children.

[quote boatyardblues]I saw the thread title and my heart sank, thinking the TRAs had retrospectively transed gender non-conforming, free-wheeling George. It’s kinda nice that’s not the case, though I give it

@OlennasWimple

Try the Swallows and Amazons series - everyone cooks, and the female pirates are "ruthless"

Susan and Peggy do most of the cooking, but the others have to help, and they're both First Mate of their boats, essential crew on the sailing and adventure side too. More girls than boys in the main books, which is unusual even now. As far as I know this didn't stop boys reading them avidly - my brothers certainly did before me.

@QuentinSummers

It's not just dick getting renamed Rick. Fanny is now frannie. I think there might have been an unfortunate sentence somewhere

I sometimes think that Uncle Quentin is a bit of a quaint.

“Queint,” as a noun, literally means “a clever or curious device or ornament” (Middle English Dictionary) or an “elegant, pleasing thing” (Riverside Chaucer). When used to refer to a woman’s genitalia, it is both a euphemism and a pun." skepticalhumanities.com/2011/01/18/chaucers-cunt/

Apologies for misspelling queint in the first line of my post.

The FF books are a bit rubbish. I've discovered and read all of M.E. (Mary) Atkinson's Lockett family books. " she was especially good at creating un-stereotyped and interesting characters". en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._E._Atkinson