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Re: Yet another gender roles question...
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From: Christina McTighe <christina.mctighe_at_gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 16 Aug 2013 14:07:00 -0400
Not at all, I think. And it's so incredibly frustrating.
I'm in library school right now, so I've been paying close attention to our library collection here and have been making note of a few things.
A few days ago, I had a conversation with a three year old regular patron. She was looking at the pictures in a super hero easy reader, and at the end, there was a picture of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. She showed it to me and pointed out Superman and Batman. "And who's that?" I asked, pointing to Wonder Woman. "No one," she said, "That's just a girl."
We have 14 books on puberty for girls, and 3 for boys (as stated in the title of the book). Every book that we have about being organized is specifically titled as being for girls. A majority of our non-fiction titles about friendship are titled towards girls (dealing with mean girls, dealing with internet stuff, etc).
I was shelving a book on Vikings (the people, not the team) today and all of the various "types" of vikings were labeled on the cover, like "Chieftain" and "Poet." The only woman pictured was labeled "Wife."
I've watched boys literally drop books on the floor and jump away from them once they've found out the main character is a girl. When I've called on a girl in a library program, I've had boys yell, "A girl? I HATE GIRLS." I asked a group of kids at a program to name things that make a good friend and the first thing one of the boys said was "A boy."
It's painful, and I don't know how to fix it. I don't know how we, as a chain of adults from author to publisher to librarian to parent, who should all know better than to perpetuate this sort of thing through what we write and publish and buy and read to our children, can fix this.
Girls like gross stuff and boys like to cuddle; girls like sports and boys like crafts; girls like spiders and boys like kittens, but you'd never guess it to look at our (collective) shelves.
Bummed-ly, Christina
-- Christina McTighe christina.mctighe_at_gmail.com 440-328-5194
Received on Fri 16 Aug 2013 02:07:00 PM CDT
Date: Fri, 16 Aug 2013 14:07:00 -0400
Not at all, I think. And it's so incredibly frustrating.
I'm in library school right now, so I've been paying close attention to our library collection here and have been making note of a few things.
A few days ago, I had a conversation with a three year old regular patron. She was looking at the pictures in a super hero easy reader, and at the end, there was a picture of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. She showed it to me and pointed out Superman and Batman. "And who's that?" I asked, pointing to Wonder Woman. "No one," she said, "That's just a girl."
We have 14 books on puberty for girls, and 3 for boys (as stated in the title of the book). Every book that we have about being organized is specifically titled as being for girls. A majority of our non-fiction titles about friendship are titled towards girls (dealing with mean girls, dealing with internet stuff, etc).
I was shelving a book on Vikings (the people, not the team) today and all of the various "types" of vikings were labeled on the cover, like "Chieftain" and "Poet." The only woman pictured was labeled "Wife."
I've watched boys literally drop books on the floor and jump away from them once they've found out the main character is a girl. When I've called on a girl in a library program, I've had boys yell, "A girl? I HATE GIRLS." I asked a group of kids at a program to name things that make a good friend and the first thing one of the boys said was "A boy."
It's painful, and I don't know how to fix it. I don't know how we, as a chain of adults from author to publisher to librarian to parent, who should all know better than to perpetuate this sort of thing through what we write and publish and buy and read to our children, can fix this.
Girls like gross stuff and boys like to cuddle; girls like sports and boys like crafts; girls like spiders and boys like kittens, but you'd never guess it to look at our (collective) shelves.
Bummed-ly, Christina
-- Christina McTighe christina.mctighe_at_gmail.com 440-328-5194
Received on Fri 16 Aug 2013 02:07:00 PM CDT
