[LMB] (OT) Gender: New question

[Peter H. Granzeau]

At 12:43 AM 11/25/2007, CatMtn at aol.com wrote:
>
>II don't recall the boys' books being "girl unfriendly," but more "girl
>nonexistent."  It didn't stop me from identifying with the most interesting
>character, usually whoever did the most exciting things.  I never 
>wanted to  be a
>boy, but that might possibly have been because I was encouraged to 
>try  anything
>I wanted to do--playing with all kinds of toys from erector sets to  dolls,
>hunting, fishing, and majoring in a science; so I didn't envy boys the  way I
>would have if forced into what the list women seem to feel is a more
>traditionally feminine role.  I'm still feeling rather stunned that 
>I seem  to have had
>more freedom to choose my own way in the 1930s and 40s  than a lot of girls
>and women are talking about having many years  later.  I wasn't the 
>only female
>in my town and college who had  that freedom; I was not even one of the more
>extreme ones.

I always thought that, as a book went, "Bone Dance" by Emma Bull had 
a most interesting take on "gender".  One didn't realize for much of 
the book the identity of the protagonist/narrator, so male readers 
(including me) thought of the character as male, female readers 
thought of the character as female.

>  One point I'd like to make, though, ladies of the list--do me a favor and
>please lay off the guys on the list.  Most of them are, as far as I can  tell
>without having met them in person, almost painfully politically  correct in
>their attitudes toward women, and it seems unfair to attack all 
>men  when the men
>in the group you're complaining about them _to_ are  about as nice a bunch as
>I've ever known.  I get the feeling that several  of them feel like they're
>being attacked personally, and IMO, they  don't deserve it.

Maybe we don't deserve it, but we have either learned to live with 
it, or have left the list.


-- 
Regards, Pete
pgranzeau at cox.net