The idea of the books is to capture the interest of girls, and each one of the above mentioned books has a brother geared towards boys. However, that is exactly the problem. Unlike the book Girl Power: Young Women Speak Out! or Girl Wise: How to Be Confident, Capable, Cool and in Control, these books were conceived and designed alongside a male counterpart. They were written to differentiate girls from boys according to their interests.
Let's compare the supposed girl interests with the boy interests. The following are from How to Be the Best at Everything and the Daring/Dangerous books.
Books marketed to GIRLS vs BOYS chapter topics:
How to look best in your photos/How to survive in space
How to do a perfect handstand/How to rip a phonebook in half
How to make a friendship bracelet/How to be a VIP
How to be a natural beauty/How to be a Wimbledon champion
Pressing flowers/Making a water bomb
Four Square/How to play stickball
Spanish terms of endearment/Navajo code talkers' dictionary
Making a cloth covered book/Making cloth fireproof
There is more than one problem here. The most immediate and obvious problem is how the books reinforce the strict gender roles embedded in American culture- roles that ultimately inhibit women from achieving positions of power and encourage men to be insensitive war mongers unable to communicate (except, apparently, in Navajo.) For kids these gender roles make it unacceptable for girls to join in certain sports, or for boys to touch anything pastel. How often have we heard, "No, honey, you don't want the pink one, pink is for girls." Well, sure it is, if you make it so.
The second qualm I have with these books is that many of the topics are just for KIDS! As a fifth grade teacher in East New York, Brooklyn I will swear on For Boys Only: The Biggest, Baddest Book Ever, that boys. make. friendship bracelets. Trust me, I have a confiscated collection in my desk drawer right alongside the tech decks.
By divvying up these activities into boys and girls we only limit what our children explore. While in theory they show a world of fun things to do, all I see is the other world the reader is being excluded from. The natural curiosity of children leads them to be interested in topics that transcend gender-specific books. Despite having kid-friendly information and design, I cannot, in good conscience, put books like these in kids' hands.
Great post. I too have had similar thoughts about these kinds books and how they do reinforce gender roles in the eyes of the reader.
ReplyDeleteThere was a great article the other week in the NYT about same-sex parenting and how this idea of gender roles is much less prevalent in their children. It's called "The Way We Live Now." For some reason couldn't past the link here :(
Check it out.
Will do, thanks for the heads up!
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