It’s About Making Babies!

Annie at Reading Is My Superpower couldn’t connect to a male protagonist.

Ah. The gender roles our parents teach us. Girls, when I was growing up, were taught about homes and housekeeping, mostly. Dolls were mostly about play versions of child care. Few people, when I grew up, would have a boy for a babysitter – any age boy. In community and church settings the men would discuss trades and farming, women to the kitchens, sewing, who married who, etc. Boy scouts were formed to prepare for militia or military service. Notice that Girl Scouts still sell cookies. Talk about your gender stereotypes.

Adventure and military service was something boys did. Family stuff was something girls did. And that kind of social programming takes generations, not years, to overcome. Even decades after we learned better.

Historical and Harlequin romance novels and extravagant weddings prove how tenacious the bias still leans. I can’t imagine a mother that reads mostly romances *not* passing on her interest on to her daughters, if only by example of what she reads.

I think preteen and teen authors Robin McKinley and Tamora Pierce are turning the corner toward a more balanced world view, especially relating girls to adventure. David Weber, Anne McCaffrey, and Elizabeth Moon are a couple of authors following on Andre Norton’s breakthrough adventure novels with women protagonists. Mike Shepherd and others are trying, with varying success, to capture a portion of the readership Weber has established with his long Honor Harrington series. Even Harry Potter highlights Hermione as a capable character, without regard to her being a girl.

We still have the ‘mens adventures’ – womanizing and violence – and ‘horror’ bizarre sex-fests, that responsible parents will probably try to shield from their kids. But there will be some crossover of attitudes and perceptions to the next generation. (I prefer the less seamy preternatural adventures like Patricia Briggs’ Moon Called and Kelly Armstrong’s Bitten.)

I think we will need to dismantle the destructive fixation of our nation on sports to begin redressing the gender role stereotypes that still bind men and women. Until we can view sports as preparation for military service and for physical exercise – and nothing more – we will continue idolizing violent behavior toward others and polarization of genders. I see high school athletes growing up to isolate themselves from their families, abuse their wives and children, and generally have problems adapting to polite society.