Newsletter 1

Let’s Stop Shaming Little Boys Who Read About Girls

Rachel Smalter Hall Jun 18, 2015

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Rachel Smalter Hall

Staff Writer

Rachel Smalter Hall may be a professional Book Rioter, but she still hangs out in the public librarian clubhouse. Two of her top three loves include audiobooks and knitting, and her favorite song is Cold Hearted Snake as performed by Alyssa Edwards and Coco Montrese on season 5 of RuPaul’s Drag Race. She co-runs a boozy book club in Lawrence, Kansas, in her spare time. Twitter: @rach_smalls Website: Rachel Smalter Hall

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I recently took my infant son to a gathering where he played happily on the floor, the center of attention in a ring of adults who were all interacting with and admiring him. Then I mentioned that his new favorite toy is bright pink. The men in the circle chuckled awkwardly and exchanged glances, and then someone joked: “so does that mean he’s gay?” I see this kind of gender policing happening so often, so early, for little boys.

In a related issue, when Nicola Griffith posted her astonishing data showing that books about women don’t win awards, it begged the question: why don’t men seem to care about women’s stories? Why don’t judging panels value the experiences of women? And yet I’ve heard this offhanded sentiment from friends of mine who are men: “I guess it’s a pretty good story — even though it’s about a girl.”

The root of the problem, I believe, isn’t simply that men don’t care about women or can’t imagine women’s experiences. It’s that they are actively shamed — even as infants! — when they show interest in anything perceived as “girly” or as a compromise to their masculinity. They’re not supposed to like pink, or dolls, or dresses, or princesses, or stories about girls. They hear it first from their caregivers and authority figures, and then from each other once they’ve internalized the message.

It happens all the time. The children’s author Shannon Hale shook my world when she shared that many elementary schools don’t allow boys to come to her assemblies because some of her books have the word “princess” in the title. Children’s bookseller Danika Ellis shook it again when she pointed out that there’s really no such thing as girl’s books and boy’s books. Indeed, how can children learn empathy when they hear that the only experiences that should matter to them are the experiences of people who look like them? When we tell little boys that they aren’t supposed to like books about girls?

When I talked to several children’s librarians about this problem, they told me that when caregivers show non-gender preferences towards books, then neither do kids. “In the library, the hardest sell is always the caregiver,” said one librarian. “If I had a dollar for every, ‘But this book is about a girl. He won’t like this.’” How quickly little boys internalize this message and start policing each other.

With my own son, you can bet he’ll always have my blessing to play with whichever color toys he likes. And for his bookshelf? My librarian friends have helped me put together an incredible reading list of picture books starring strong, smart, creative, funny, courageous, and compassionate girls.

It’s all part of my larger goal to teach my son to value girls’ experiences and to grow up able to relate to the interior lives of women. You’re welcome — encouraged! — to share these books with the little boys in your lives, and to suggest your own picks in the comments. Let’s teach boys to care about women’s stories.