Little Women and feminism (or why boys don't read "girl's books")

[MipMipMip]

Really interesting article. It uses Lityle Women as the basis but it's about far more than that.

lithub.com/why-dont-more-boys-read-little-women/?single=true

I loved
Little women and read it over and over. I wanted to be Jo. Also watched the film loads of times. I can understand boys not wanting to read it but it is a wonderful book

Interesting. I have read my son Heidi, Laura Ingalls Wilder, The Worst Witch, but now he is 9/10 I do wonder whether or not to introduce Anne of Green Gables and Little Women.

It's the way girls should read boys' stories but not the other way round. Why?

Have to admit I enjoyed Little Women and eventually tracked down the sequels- which I abandoned! It was Met and the cooking upset did for me....

I loathed it. And the various television adaptations.

I’d rather spoon my eyes out than read little women.

Haha fair enough.

What did you think of the article?

I'm not a huge Little Women fan but I think the article raises interesting issues with the ways we think about girls and boys cognition. If there are many girls who enjoy the 'sharks and gross stuff' traditionally given to boys, then why not accept there are boys who will enjoy more introspective or emotionally intelligent texts we usually give girls. Also, the girls in girls fiction are gutsy and brave but the girls in boys fiction are often a side character, a sister etc. Both sexes will benefit socially and academically from being exposed to a variety of texts.

I agree teenage boys probably don't want to read teen romance books traditionally aimed at girls. However I think for younger children it doesn't matter so much.
For example my son has enjoyed The Worst Witch, the 'Sophie' books and The Secret Garden amount others that I would say are more traditional 'girls books'
Personally I think any book you have to study seems boring as you pull it apart so much. I'm now grateful I didn't have to study To Kill a Mockingbird as I finally read it a few years ago and adored it. Pretty sure I wouldn't have done as a text to study.

I read and enjoyed all four books as a youngster. Despite the fact that 3 is mostly about boys and 4 is, IIRC, more about young men than young women.

There is a serious point to the article but Little Women isn't a book I'd die on a hill to save.

The book my son most enjoyed having read to him was Charlotte's Web which never seems to be thought of as a girls' or a boys' book. He also loved a beautiful version of The Snow Queen (illustrated by P J Lynch) which of course has a rather silly boy who has to be rescued, a very feisty heroine, a girl leader of a robber band, a rather assertive princess, several wise women and the Snow Queen herself, who doesn't suffer any ill consequences of her bad behaviour.

I'm with ILoveDolly on this - I personally have never liked Little Women. However, if I substitute a book I love - Pride and Prejudice - I think it would be possible to argue that over the course of my adult life, I've watched it get down-graded from great work of literature to "proto-chick-lit", so the arguments in the article apply mutatis mutandum to pretty much any work written by a woman.

My DS has enjoyed quite a few books with female protagonists in it, so long as the female protaganists are kicking arse, and we both lost patience with the Maze Runner books (which I think aim to be the "boy" version of the Hunger Games) round about the same point in book two, when the author started to shoe-horn in a love triangle.

Also, the girls in girls fiction are gutsy and brave but the girls in boys fiction are often a side character, a sister etc. Both sexes will benefit socially and academically from being exposed to a variety of texts

I'm not sure, in the context of children where parents are still selecting what they read/ have read to them, what would constitute "girls' books" and "boys' books".

YA books tend towards horror and SciFi, which I don't think are gendered.

Having said that I'm happy to treat Ernest Hemingby as "boys' books"- I've never come across a woman who liked him.

Hemingway obviously.

I think it would be possible to argue that over the course of my adult life, I've watched it get down-graded from great work of literature to "proto-chick-lit", so the arguments in the article apply mutatis mutandum to pretty much any work written by a woman

I think that is something of an exaggeration.

My 12 year old DS isn't into gender specific books. He will happily read books with a female protagonist and likes series like 'His Dark Materials'. I was a 'gender non-conforming' girl and I liked the same kind of books, well still do, I often read his books and he reads mine. I can understand any child not wanting to read 'Little Women'.

Ive said this before but it is relevant

Ds1 (19) had a massive sort out of his 'younger' books about a year ago. Just kept the ones he really enjoyed or were older

Probably talking about 50+ books

Gave them to ds2 (now 15) to look through and he took a large pile

Weirdly all the ones ds2 took had a male protagonist. He didnt take one book with a female lead

Except....one of the books he took was the start of the Zom-B books. Its only right at the end of the book that you find that the hero is a girl called B...his mind was blown

I just thought it was strange that ds1 would read any book as long as it was exciting and ds2 almost without thinking was just picking 'boys' books

God, Hemingway is ghastly isn't he? Mind you, I cannot read Death in the Afternoon without hearing Tom Lehrer singing "When it's fiesta time in Guadalajara..." (the internal Tom Lehrer soundtrack improves the experience of trying to read Hemingway, I find).

I really hate the phrase chick lit

Its made me start calling similar style 'mens' books cock lit

It does not go down well in polite company...or when children are around

So I always thought George(ina) from the famous five was by far the coolest of them. Apart from her dog, obviously. She clearly was not your stereotypical girl. I would have had no interest in a stereotypical girl character - Anne was my least favorite character. If you want boys to read about female characters you need more like Eleven or Katniss, or a bit less known, Hanna from the movie Hanna (Saoirse Ronan). Same for games, by far my most played character in Diablo 2 was the assassin from the expansion pack who was a woman. I see no reason why "boy's books", i.e. stories that seem to appeal to boys can't be with female (lead) characters. But to actually have boys read "girl books", I think that wouldn't work so well.

I read pretty much anything as a kid - from the faraway tree to science fiction - I just wanted some adventure, and didn't care if it was a boy or girl character.

For some reason though, boys seem much more invested in this - which is weird - girls get objectified, but manage to be fine reading about men or women. Whereas boys box themselves into masculinity and socially enforce it much more harshly. I wonder if it's two sides of the same coin - girls learn to think of themselves from an external viewpoint, so are more open to these differing viewpoints, whereas boys stay very much the centre of their own world.

Or I could be overthinking and talking rubbish. I'm not sure.

It's true that I wouldn't have thought of introducing my boys to LW, but we've done the Swallows and Amazons series (all 12 of them), which has a few contrasting (and important) female characters, and Harriet the Spy, and the Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler with of course the famous twist at the end, and Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf, and Mrs Pepperpot, and When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit. Among others. So I think they're well au fait with the idea of female protagonists. I have also pointed out sexism in other things.

Am actually wondering now whether to read them Ballet Shoes.

Anne was my least favorite character

This is odd - I always thought George was terribly selfish, and they'd never get anywhere if they didn't have Anne looking after them...

His Dark Materials was a big hit with my son- far more so than Harry Potter.

I don't think anyone could say the Pullman books don't appeal to both sees.

Oh fgs sexes.

I must check out the Tom Lehrer.