Boys Vs Girls

This week I read a blog post by the fabulous author Shannon Hale (here’s the link: http://oinks.squeetus.com/2015/02/no-boys-allowed-school-visits-as-a-woman-writer.html ). Ms. Hale did a school visit and to her amazement and disappointment, found that boys over a certain age were not allowed to attend her presentation. It was assumed that only girls would be interested.

The question was posed as to why we assume that boys won’t like books with girls as main characters.

Is it certain assumptions about the kinds of things that girls like in their stories? You know, roooomance….loooooove……ooeygooey-ness?   It made me think of that line in the movie The Princess Bride: 

Growing up, I read Little House on the Prairie, Nancy Drew, and Encyclopedia Brown, Hardy Boys, Choose Your Own Adventure… okay, to be fair, I read the backs of shampoo bottles, soup labels, instructions to everything…. If it had words on it, I was all-in. Now, it’s Dean Koontz, my scriptures, stuff I read from ANWA sisters, and after being nagged about it for a couple of years, TWILIGHT. The latter was the most “lovey-dovey” of books I’d read for a long time. I’m not much interested in kissing books.

My brothers…. They certainly didn’t read the same books I did, but they weren’t very interested in reading back then—at least not like my sister and I, who practically read our way through our local library every summer. 

My kids…. Well, they all read Harry Potter, but only my daughter reads Nancy Drew (she’s crazier about ol’ Nancy than even I was!).  Even my son who loves to read, is not into books that aren’t about animals, or soldiers, or sports, or monsters, or Wimpy Kids™. 

But he’s a boy. Just like I wouldn’t drag him out to go see a ballet, or a Hannah Montana movie (back in the day), I wouldn’t expect him to like girly books.  

But should I? Is it just that girl-centered books tend to talk about girly stuff and boy-centered books talk about boy-y stuff, and each plays to the interests of their focus group?

Or is it something deeper? The blog talks about rape culture and how these assumptions being made play into that. She says:

The belief that boys won't like books with female protagonists, that they will refuse to read them, the shaming that happens (from peers, parents, teachers, often right in front of me) when they do, the idea that girls should read about and understand boys but that boys don't have to read about girls, that boys aren't expected to understand and empathize with the female population of the world....this belief directly leads to rape culture. To a culture that tells boys and men, it doesn't matter how the girl feels, what she wants. You don't have to wonder. She is here to please you. She is here to do what you want. No one expects you to have to empathize with girls and women. As far as you need be concerned, they have no interior life.

Wow. That makes it sound much more sinister than the old nursery rhyme about boys being all snakes and snails and puppy-dog tails, and that they just aren’t interested in girly stuff. 

Have we been perpetuating this culture all along, since…. I don’t know, the days of Moby Dick vs. Pride and Prejudice?

Do I need to get my boys reading more books with girls in the female role? Am I harming them by just letting them read whatever they want and being happy that they are reading at all? Part of me thinks that this is a large part of why people don’t think that boys will read girl books…because they think that you have to use stuff they like to bribe them to read.

What do you think? 

Dear Not-Quite-Tween Daughter: A Conversation on Modesty

by Merry Gordon

Dear Not-Quite-Tween Daughter:

It’s early, I know. The fact that you’re a girl barely registers with you. You still smell of recess and little kid sweat and school cafeteria and it’s all I can do to get you to brush your hair once a day. Knots of whispering females are cropping up under the bleachers at snack time to trade secrets and lip gloss, but you’re still out there on the soccer field kicking the collective rear of every boy in your grade—you are not the kind of girl who’ll be sidelined by your gender, and for that I’m grateful.

But a time will come in the none-too-distant future when we will bond over PMS-fueled ice cream benders and watch YouTube videos on how to best conceal a surprise zit on class picture day. You’ll borrow my mascara in the mornings, steal your dad’s razor to shave your legs for the first time…and eventually you might try to sneak out of the house wearing an outfit that raises an eyebrow. Maybe you’ll wriggle into your seat at church and tug on a too-short dress or shake your hair over a strappy shirt. It’s possible you’ll test boundaries; most kids do.

And if this happens, your father and I will both take a deep breath.

He will sit down, clean his gun collection and make a mental note of any boy over the age of twelve who has so much as glanced at you in the past six months.

I will put on my best MomFace and consider my next move.

What I won’t do is tell you ‘modest is hottest’. This is why:  I spent years preventing your Hannah Montana-loving eyes from seeing the “Wrecking Ball” music video. I steered you away from hyper-eroticized fashion dolls. The last thing I’m going to do is confuse you with a cute catchphrase implying that covering up will make you physically desirable.

I also won’t force you to change your outfit. I don’t own your body. You have been endowed with the sublime gift of agency, and I will not, even in that lovingly passive-aggressive way mothers have, attempt to take that away from you.

Oh, we’ll still have words about modesty and why it’s important—don’t get me wrong.

But maybe before it gets to this point, we should sit down and have an honest conversation that doesn’t dodge the tough stuff and couch doctrine in platitudes. I owe you that.

So here goes…

Let me tell you something. I have great legs for a woman my age. I could still rock a mini like it’s nobody’s business.

I just choose not to.

Maybe you’ve heard someone say that women should be modest because they don’t want to tempt boys into immorality, but that’s not what makes me pass up the Daisy Dukes and bandeaus.

I don’t dress modestly because I feel some kind of obligation toward male moral agency—and I don’t want you dressing modestly only so Johnny keeps his eyes on his math notes instead of on your backside. Making men the sole focus of modesty gives license to the idea that they are no more than club-wielding cavemen incapable of controlling their carnal urges, and I have a little more faith in humanity than that.

Here’s why I choose to cover up. I dress modestly because I believe that one way to close the gender gap is to stop giving so much importance to the thigh gap. My contribution to the world goes beyond cleavage:  I will not objectify myself. But most importantly, I choose modesty because I understand my divine nature. I believe that my body is a temple. I believe in glorifying God with my body—and with my spirit, which is the far harder lesson. I believe that modesty is more than what I wear.

You are ten now, all scabby-kneed body joy and breathless with hope. But I can’t keep you little forever:  crushes and stick-on nails are just around the corner. They lurk there in the shadows, with Temptation and Doubt and all the other trials that cross the path of teenage life and make you wonder if it’s worth it to hike up your skirt a little for the attention.

Before that time comes, a promise:

I will show you how to be beautiful and not merely hot.

I will teach you that your body is a miracle, not something to be afraid and ashamed of.

I will talk to you about sleeves and necklines, but also about modesty in thought and in word, the kind of grace that calls attention to your divine potential as a daughter of God and helps you focus on what is truly meaningful in life.

All of my love forever,

Mommy