Shannon Hale's Essay: No Boys Allowed: School Visits As A Woman Writer

[traceria she/her]

Here is the link to the Essay.

 

I'm not sure if this should be in this section of the forum (Other Books) or perhaps General Discussion.  

 

I was reading Orson Scott Card's somewhat weekly review of anything and everything, and he mentioned Ms. Hale and her essay.  I found this really intriguing and also sad.  It's sad she's experiencing this phenomenon, but I feel even worse for the boy mentioned at the end.  (It also makes me want to go out and read her books.)

 

Since this site is filled with many different people of all ages, I'd just be interested to hear your thoughts and, if applicable, experiences.  I'll save any additional comments for the coming discussion.  Besides, I'm still kind of mulling things over.

 

(Edit for grammar.)

Edited March 6, 2015 by traceria

[Haradion Drogon]

Wow.
This is outrageous.

I have never heard a school visit, from ANYONE, where the assembly would be gender-segregated. Especially when the vister was doing an assembly/lecture on their profession and experiences.
This is simply shocking.

Can you imagine if a veteran, or rock musician or something stereotyped as being "Male" had visted in the school, and female students were excluded?
There would be cries of sexism from all directions!

But here, a school! A Place of learning. A Place of KNOWLEDGE!
Has the decrepit archaic viewpoint?

Not to mention how professionally insulting it must be as an author to be told that they didn't expect half the audience to be interested.


Wow.

This actually make me angry. 

[traceria she/her]

It makes me angry, too, for various reasons.  One of the biggest reasons is this: Those poor boys/men who could be reading stories they'd probably love and enjoy, if only the world and themselves, too, in many cases, could get over the view that these books are "girl books."  

 

And it's terrible that I'm sitting here trying to figure out how you'd get them interested without making qualifications, just like she mentions in her essay.  "Even though this has a female protagonist, you'll like it!  Really!"  So sad. 

[Blaze1616 he/him]

Although this is very frustrating, and I agree that it is a terrible shame that the boy at the end felt the so embarassed, as a very feminine boy, I understand the kid's feelings. It's not just adults, the ones who know better, the ones who shouldn't be doing this, that cause the problem. It's also that boy's peers. I was teased mercilessly for being quite feminine when I was younger. It wasn't until Junior High that my feminine interests were okay because all my friends were female, and not until High School that I finally found a group of friends who were awesome enough to not care (and also be feminine themselves). So don't just blame the adults. Though they aren't helping the problem, them acting in a much more accepting manner wouldn't solve the problem either.

 

I also want to point out the slippery slope argument that Ms. Hale used. She referred to the behavior as "rape culture." When I read that, it felt like a slap to the face. I felt it came from left field. Though I agree that excluding the boys, and treating books as "girl books" and "boy books" is wrong, prejudiced, and can harness prejudice beliefs in our youth, I wouldn't say it is "rape culture." Nothing about that situation communicates that girl's feelings don't matter. It just perpetuates the ideology that men are better. I'm still reeling from the claim of "rape culture"...

[traceria she/her]

"Rape culture" is definitely a term that carries a lot with it, and should be used very thoughtfully and probably rarely.  I probably wasn't as jolted as you, but it still felt like it came out of left field to me and wasn't necessarily a topic I would have connected to her main points.  And I agree with you that it's not just adults that feed the problem.  This feels like one of those crazy cycles that it's going to be very difficult to break out of.  In order to do so, I think it will take all parties, young peers, parents, teachers, authors, any other adults out there who may not be in the middle of things, but nonetheless are potential role models young boys and girls, publishing companies, etc., etc., to break out of the crazy cycle.

 

I was one of those people who, like you,eventually followed my own interests despite what others approved of, but it takes self-confidence to be able to do that.  Support from others is also very helpful.

 

Not, um, to bring My Little Pony into this simply because I like it, but I've seen friends of ours rib my husband endlessly over his love of MLP:FiM.  One in particular, despite the fact that he's admitted he's into what might be termed feminine things (he'll watch Project Runway with his mom, for example), will NOT tolerate MLP.  His dad was one of those guys who was very focused on macho, manly stuff, and constantly came down on his two sons whenever they strayed from a "manly" path.  So, I find it odd that he's managed to accept he has more diverse interests yet will give my husband a hard time about liking MLP, which most now know has a whole brony following.

 

Anyway, your comments, Blaze, are thought-provoking.

[ccstat he/him]

Now that you bring it up I can see how the 'rape culture' claim would seem like an over-reaching assertion, since the blog post itself doesn't go that direction. However, these are issues that Hale has brought up repeatedly in her blog, and in the context of that ongoing conversation it seemed to me to fit very well. If you are interested in what she's had to say in the past, her previous posts have often been thought provoking.

Regarding her work (since someone above mentioned they wanted to check it out), Book of a Thousand Days is one of my all time favorite stories. It is a fairy tale retelling, which I'm a sucker for anyway, set in Mongolia with some beautiful characterization. Her more recent Dangerous was also fun, and on the raphic novel front Rapunzel's Revenge is delightful.)

Edited March 6, 2015 by ccstat

[Orlion Blight he/him]

I think there are a couple issues being discussed here in this essay that are conflated as one. In one case, is an idea that schools teach almost exclusively books with male protagonist. I can only speak of my schooling, lo these many years agone, but that does not seem to be the case. And since a lot of the books I read growing up seem to be universally recognized, I think it is not so widespread a problem. Some examples: Z for Zachariah, Tuck Everlasting, Knight in the Attic, Witch of Blackbird Pond, The Diary of Anne Frank, and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry; and those are what I can recall from the top of my head during these grades (in fact, I recall reading A Stranger is Watching by Mary Higgins Clark for seventh grade! Come on!) I'm sure there are exceptions, but I think there are diverse gender protagonists in school reading. 

 

The other issue talks about "girl things" and "boy things". It's the assumption that though girls may like to read something called "Princess Diaries", boys not want to (boys might not even be the audience for the book!). Same thing with whatever Captain Farts-A-Lot book they have nowadays for boys. This is in part due to gender expectations, but some books are geared to a specific audience. This gets trickier, but best thing to do may be to treat these presentations in a more general light (like Ms Hale correctly does and points out). There is no need for school or author or student to complicate matters... I mean, just have the assembly about writing so the kids get a break from class to learn about the career. All assembled do not have to be fans (and never were when I grew up... I imagine one author would come by to try to convert us into new fans!)

[SmurfAquamarineBodies he/him]

I personally dislike the term 'rape culture' because it implies, to me, that the person who says it thinks only females can get raped, which is definitely not true. Having been raped myself, by a female, I can definitely tell you that it is possible for a male to get raped.

 

As for the actual essay, I don't know. I never experienced anything like that directly. I've never been teased about reading books with female protagonists. My dad saw me reading books about females and he never told me or even implied that he didn't like me reading them. My friends were more disgusted by the fact that I read almost constantly than anything else.  

 

As far as recommending books, I just grab the book and throw it at whoever I think would enjoy and tell them to read it. If they ask what it is about I would reply in the most broadest of terms. Example, Mistborn got reduced to, "some chick, who has magic powers, fights some bloke, who is basically a god."

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

Like many of the others who read this essay, I thought her use of the "rape culture" allegation was a bit unfounded at best. It certainly didn't seem to jibe with the rest of the essay—which was excellent and thought-provoking, as well as sad. 

 

Although I can see the points in the argument that shaming boys for reading "girly books" leads to a lack of male empathy for women, I think the more apparent tragedy Hale hints at in her essay is that we're shaming boys for liking certain things. By unwittingly discouraging boys from reading "princess" books, we're reinforcing those gender stereotypes we spend so much time talking about erasing. 

 

My brother is not what you would call….I tried to think of a word that doesn't carry a ton of emotional and social baggage, but I couldn't, so I'll just describe him. He wants to join the US Marshall Service. He reads Guns and Ammo. He goes for hikes through the desert and is a trained martial artist. He watches superhero movies and action flicks, and when I mentioned Gail Carson Levine's The Two Princesses of Bamarre, he casually tossed off that he had read it and liked it. 

 

Honestly, there's no reason why he, or any other guy, shouldn't enjoy that book. It features two interesting protagonists, one of whom must fight demons and monsters to save her sister. There's even a badchull male fairy at the end. What's not to love? Yet he's in the minority, because it has Princess in the title and two princesses on the cover. 

 

Frozen is another movie he liked. Again, what's not to love? Two princesses, one with ice powers and one brimming with adorkable charm, a manipulative sociopathic villain, and loads of humor. It's a fun movie, and a tearjerker at that, but why is it billed as a movie for girls? Because there are princesses in it? 

 

I do believe that girls' entertainment is marginalized in our society. I won't quibble with that. But I will also point out that it is keeping boys from enjoying things they have no reason not to enjoy—and that this reinforces the idea that boys should only like action movies and other "manly" things. Shaming boys for liking princess books only reinforces those gender roles we're realizing can be harmful. 

[Curiosity he/him]

I read three or four of her books before 6th grade, and I enjoyed them quite a bit. My favorite is still The Princess Academy. I do recommend her work, specifically The Goose Girl, Enna Burning, River Secrets, and The Princess Academy (first book). After this point, I didn't know she wrote anything more, since I never found anything more in the library... But I did find this wacky book about evil librarians that convinced me to try a guy called Sanderson. 

 

Ahem. To the point.

 

I am quieter, homeschooled guy who read a lot when I was younger. Whatever I liked, I reread. A lot. I distinctly remember checking out The Princess Academy from the library at least twice. And I read it two or three times every time I checked it out. Concerning the "girliness" of the book, I do remember thinking at first that it was about a girl going to school with a lot of other girls. And maybe I shouldn't be so excited about it. But then I realized that there wasn't anything wrong with the book. There wasn't anything in it that would give my mother second thoughts about her son reading it. The characters weren't "girly", anyways. No, they weren't dressed in pink and holding tea parties. Yes, they picked flowers and played games, but they didn't talk like aliens or anything. They were reasoning, feeling, human beings. They were people. And their experiences and feelings mirrored mine to a great degree.

 

No, I never talked about these books with other guys, but that's because, at that point, they didn't have any interest in talking about them. I have always been a little detached from "normal" guys. While the other boys went to play baseball, I listened to the moms talk and tried to contribute to the conversation. (Although lack of socialization for homeschooled kids is often a concern of non-homeschoolers, the sheer volume of time that my mom spent chatting with other homeschool moms convinces me that the moms need socialization even more than the kids do.  ) My personality and natural aptitudes lent themselves to a more intellectual, emotional set of pursuits than the expected "mud and guts" flavor. But the girls were off playing house half of the time, and in a war with the boys the other half of the time (about the number of crabapples each side had), neither of which were appealed much to me. I wanted peace and a game of Clue.

 

Specifically addressing the essay:

 

I think that Hale has overreacted a little bit. Yes, the school made a poor decision, the nature of which baffles me. But it made me more sorry for the boy who didn't get to go. Because authors are so COOL! They've told you a story! And it was so cool! I want to meet them and tell them it was cool and hear how you made it! 

 

... But now it didn't work out.  I'm more sorry for the kid who was pressured into being stereotypical than I am angry at the school. It's a quiet sorrow, a confusion over the imperfection and brokeness of the world. Another example of this is the fact that my university has a strict no drugs, drinking, or smoking on campus rule. And yet it plays music that says, "I've got to be high all the time" in the dining halls.   

 

Why? Doesn't anyone see the contradiction? We're human beings who often can't see past our own noses. This is one reason why I personally believe Biblical Christianity, since it explains those contradictions and the solution to this. 

 

So in conclusion, although the term "rape-culture" isn't necessarily warranted in this situation, I would see this policy change in my school.

[Blaze1616 he/him]

Not, um, to bring My Little Pony into this simply because I like it, but I've seen friends of ours rib my husband endlessly over his love of MLP:FiM.  One in particular, despite the fact that he's admitted he's into what might be termed feminine things (he'll watch Project Runway with his mom, for example), will NOT tolerate MLP.  His dad was one of those guys who was very focused on macho, manly stuff, and constantly came down on his two sons whenever they strayed from a "manly" path.  So, I find it odd that he's managed to accept he has more diverse interests yet will give my husband a hard time about liking MLP, which most now know has a whole brony following.

 

MLP has two things going against it. First is, like Hale's essay points out, MLP has always been percieved as a girl thing, and so boys liking it is "funny" and something to harass/joke about. Second is that the show is seen as a kids' show. As such, adults who enjoy it are also subject to harassment/jokes. So, as adult males who enjoy the show, we're walking targets. Doesn't stop me from wearing my Brony bracelet though. Hopefully your husband isn't discouraged either.

 

 

I was one of those people who, like you,eventually followed my own interests despite what others approved of, but it takes self-confidence to be able to do that.  Support from others is also very helpful.

 

That's what really breaks my heart with this situation. Self-confidence becomes more rare as children age. The school's decision to not include boys reinforces the idea that those books are "meant" for girls, which only hurts the self-confidence of any boy who may have wanted to read them (or may have already read them). It's a shame.

[Two McMillion he/him]

On the "boys don't read books for girls" thing:

 

When I was a kid, my mom wanted me to read "good" literature, which to her meant reading newberry medal stuff. One day she went to the library and brought back Caddie Woodlawn, which I at first steadfastly refused to read because it was about a girl. Somehow my mom managed to persaude me that I should read it regardless, and I ended up really liking it, but I always remember that whenever I hear someone say that boys don't read "girl" books.