Posted by Nina on February 26, 2002 at -1:45:11 from 155.205.64.137:
In Reply to: Male chauvinism posted by Michael on February 24, 2002 at 19:09:12:
As the mother of five daughters and one son I contribute the following:
When my older girls were little, they had several books where machines and vehicles were the main characters: Tuffy the Little Tugboat springs to mind. Quite often I would find that they had crossed out all the 'he' 'him' and 'his' in the book and replaced them with 'she' 'her' and 'hers'. My girls noticed very early on in life that they were 'underrepresented' in children's literature - even in the late 70s and early 80s. They got very excited when they found a book with strong female central characters. (They did quite like George from the Famous 5 but were irritated by her desire to be a boy!)
My two youngest (both products of the 90s) on the other hand don't comment on gender-balanced books, they are quite used to them and more than happy with them. My son, however, did comment on S&A when we first read it together. He knew that it was an 'old' book and was (pleasantly) surprised to find it full of the kind of girls he can relate to (though the word 'dago' in PD did startle him, but that is another story).
Not sure of the point of this with regard to the subject line... but I thought I'd share it. I am not suggesting that AR was a feminist - he was just very lucky to have (and - more importantly - notice) strong female friends that he could later write about.