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Janni Lee Simner
janni
21 July 2010 @ 12:31 pm
Girl/boy books, girl/boy stories  
Over on enchantedinkpot there's a lively conversation going on about the whole question of the young adult fiction and boy books. Specifically, about the question of why YA doesn't have enough books for boys.

Except ... even though the YA field talks about this issue quite a bit ... every time it comes up, I'm less convinced it's a problem.

Because yes, there is this sea-of-pink (and red-on-black) effect when one approaches the YA section. And maybe that's something to think about. But when I actually look at the YA books on the shelves--and, even more, at the middle grade books? I'm just not seeing the lack. At least not on the SF/fantasy side, which is where I do most of my reading. I don't even see it if one narrowly defines "boy books" as books with male protagonists. (Which would be something of a loss, since books like The Hunger Games have such clear boy appeal.)

What I'm seeing is a world where Rick Riordan's The Lightning Thief books are selling millions of copies, and where Kenneth Oppel's Airborn books, James Dashner's The Maze Runner, Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan, James Patterson's YA books, and countless others are also doing quite respectably ... not to mention the Harry Potter books, if it comes down to that.

It's possible I'm just not seeing how many more "girl" books there are, but I'm not convinced. Especially if one just as narrowly defines "girl books" as books with female protagonists. What I see is a genre that already publishes quite a few "boy" books constantly fretting, even as it searches for more, that it's excluding boy readers. (While fewer people seem to stop to celebrate the fact that hey! There's so much SF/fantasy out there that girls are reading now, much more than a couple generations back, and way more than in the SF portion of the adult SF/fantasy genre even now.)

Meanwhile, the children's film industry continues to think it's okay to make movie after movie with maybe one girl on stage in the entire cast, and without a single girl among the many boys in the background. Where's the outrage there? Even most so-called "girl" books have a boy or two among the main characters, and more boys in the background. If YA fiction treated boys half as badly as children's movies treat girls, there'd be no end to our hearing about it.

So why are we so much concerned about the media and genres possibly excluding boys than about the media and genres so clearly excluding girls? Even when the media that exclude girls are so blatant and unapologetic about it?

At the very least, I'd like to think that there's enough concern to go around, that we care as much about excluding our daughters from the stories we tell as we care about excluding our sons.

But that's not what I'm seeing.
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( 56 comments — Leave a comment )
Kate Elliottkateelliott on July 21st, 2010 07:48 pm (UTC)
Yes. This.

Even a good film like Inception, with an ensemble cast of 8 (plus 3 more important minor secondary characters, ll male), has only 2 females (and 2 PoC).
Janni Lee Simner: a girl and her dogjanni on July 22nd, 2010 12:45 am (UTC)
And how many women hanging out in the background, where they don't have to be women but are just extras? (I don't honestly know, having not seen this one yet.)

It's so common/accepted we just take it for granted, mostly. It's one of those things we have no choice but to see past, on some level, if we want to watch movies at all.
(no subject) - branna on July 22nd, 2010 05:54 pm (UTC) (Expand)
(no subject) - janni on July 23rd, 2010 04:06 am (UTC) (Expand)
ellarien: booksellarien on July 21st, 2010 07:53 pm (UTC)
I suspect that many girls are happier to read "boy" books than boys are to read "girl" books, so any books marketed for girls may be seen as excluding boys when the reverse isn't necessarily true. (I was amused a few years ago to see shiny new editions of some of my classic childhood favorites being marketed as "books for boys.")
Janni Lee Simner: Susan Pevensiejanni on July 22nd, 2010 12:46 am (UTC)
What's problematic to me is how often the response seems to be (not in the discussion I linked to, but in general) essentially: well, girls will read anything, so we don't need to worry about giving them strong female characters, so let's just focus on saving the boys.
(no subject) - archangelbeth on July 22nd, 2010 02:24 pm (UTC) (Expand)
(no subject) - janni on July 23rd, 2010 04:07 am (UTC) (Expand)
(no subject) - archangelbeth on July 23rd, 2010 04:30 pm (UTC) (Expand)
jorrie_spencerjorrie_spencer on July 21st, 2010 07:56 pm (UTC)
Interesting stuff. I will say that a few years ago, when both my son and daughter would visit the YA section, the stores seemed to create tables and displays geared to girls, with lots of girl-attractive covers—and a couple of boy-attractive covers.

But it's also true that I always had to work harder to find books for my boy than my girl, so this probably got exaggerated in my mind.

That said, I sure do wish movies weren't so slanted against girls.
Janni Lee Simner: Susan Pevensiejanni on July 22nd, 2010 12:50 am (UTC)
I do think it's true that when one first approaches the YA section, the girl marketing jumps out more. It may even be true that the displays are girl focused.

And yet there are so many boy books in there, I wonder if they're just jumping out less to casual browsers, or something. I tend to agree with rachelmanija below--while the YA section skews toward girls, that's different from there being hardly any boy books, as such discussions tend to make it seem.

The movie thing is so egregious. It's a wonder we put up with it at all, let alone accept it.
dancinghorse: Bite Medancinghorse on July 21st, 2010 08:05 pm (UTC)
Minority syndrome. Used to be the cutoff for "they're taking over, there's nothing left for Us" was below 25%. If a woman spoke 10 words for every 100 spoken by men in a college class, she was considered to be "taking over the conversation."

Did you really mean to say that girls never read sf a generation ago? Because not only did I read it in the Cretaceous when you had to write under a male pseudonym to get published, I saw plenty of younger girls and women reading sf in subsequent decades.

Girls "never" read it because common wisdom said they didn't. Books were aimed at boys. Girls read them because that was all there was. When people like Russ and Le Guin started calling people on it, there was much screaming and ranting about "women taking over", which is still going on.

All the fret and freakout over "boys aren't getting their share" simply adds up to, "Girls are getting a small portion of the market, and 'stealing' that market space from boys, who are entitled to 100%."

Anything less than 100% is deprivation.

Sorry. Angry. Fed Up. Resisting transformation into Ranty McRantyPants
Janni Lee Simner: Susan Pevensiejanni on July 21st, 2010 08:10 pm (UTC)
I did put that badly. Maybe it's more like two generations ago, and even then, girls were reading it ... just fewer of them, and they had to look past a lot of not-girl-friendly text and subtext to do it.

Wasn't "as" true, might have been closer to accurate. (Goes over to look/edit.)
(no subject) - dancinghorse on July 21st, 2010 08:13 pm (UTC) (Expand)
(no subject) - janni on July 21st, 2010 08:47 pm (UTC) (Expand)
(no subject) - branna on July 22nd, 2010 08:37 am (UTC) (Expand)
(no subject) - janni on July 23rd, 2010 04:09 am (UTC) (Expand)
(no subject) - kateelliott on July 21st, 2010 08:49 pm (UTC) (Expand)
Brian Doltontchernabyelo on July 21st, 2010 08:09 pm (UTC)
I'm wondering if this is actually some sort of skewed reflection of readership. My understanding is that - at least in YA terms - girls read more than boys (that is to say both that more girls read than boys do, and the average girl reads more books than the average boy). Someone may be extrapolating "not enough boys read YA books" (arguably true) to "there are not enough YA books for boys", which is emphatically not the same thing.
Janni Lee Simner: Susan Pevensiejanni on July 22nd, 2010 12:52 am (UTC)
Someone may be extrapolating "not enough boys read YA books" (arguably true) to "there are not enough YA books for boys", which is emphatically not the same thing.

A point, that.

I'm also beginning to wonder a little, as I'm reading comments here, whether boys aren't finding their genre in the SF/fantasy section, while girls (and many adult women, too) are finding it in the YA section, to some extent.

In which case maybe everyone's getting the books they want, just not entirely in the same places.
Patricia Braypbray on July 21st, 2010 08:38 pm (UTC)
I think part of this is the girl cooties effect. Books with boy protagonists are seen as appealing to both girls and boys, while it is presumed that a boy would never read a book with a girl as the protagonist. So even a 50/50 split would be seen as in favor of girls, since girls read everything while boys only read books about male characters.
Janni Lee Simner: Susan Pevensiejanni on July 22nd, 2010 12:54 am (UTC)
And there've been studies showing that a room that's half female--less than half female, actually--is seen as being dominated by women, too.
(no subject) - pbray on July 22nd, 2010 02:08 am (UTC) (Expand)
Kate Elliottkateelliott on July 21st, 2010 08:50 pm (UTC)
My guess would be that once they hit 14 or so the serious boy sff readers move straight into epic fantasy.
movingfingermovingfinger on July 21st, 2010 10:39 pm (UTC)
Around 12 actually, if you mean the "chunky books" fantasy and SF, because often the serious voracious readers are out of material by then!
(no subject) - kateelliott on July 21st, 2010 10:44 pm (UTC) (Expand)
(no subject) - janni on July 22nd, 2010 12:55 am (UTC) (Expand)
(no subject) - jorrie_spencer on July 22nd, 2010 01:23 am (UTC) (Expand)
(no subject) - kateelliott on July 22nd, 2010 06:12 am (UTC) (Expand)
(no subject) - jorrie_spencer on July 22nd, 2010 02:14 pm (UTC) (Expand)
(no subject) - janni on July 23rd, 2010 04:12 am (UTC) (Expand)
movingfingermovingfinger on July 21st, 2010 10:37 pm (UTC)
I do wonder how much of this is driven by parents anxious that their boys perform well in school, blaming the pink-covered books instead of asking themselves whether their sons ever see Dad (or other male role model) crack a book and sit reading, attention focused, without moving for a few hours at a time. Children of all sorts who come from reading families, will read more. If reading isn't a habit inculcated at home, and encouraged there not as a task but as a pleasure, it won't take at school or on mandated library excursions.

I know boys who read; they've been read to all their lives, and reading and books are important at home. And I know boys who don't read, and the parents there are nonreaders. Maybe a magazine.
Janni Lee Simner: Susan Pevensiejanni on July 22nd, 2010 12:56 am (UTC)
I do wonder how much of this is driven by parents anxious that their boys perform well in school, blaming the pink-covered books instead of asking themselves whether their sons ever see Dad (or other male role model) crack a book and sit reading, attention focused, without moving for a few hours at a time.

There may well be something to this, even if it's not the whole story ... easier to blame those girls and their books than to blame the man you live with, perhaps?
movingfingermovingfinger on July 21st, 2010 10:42 pm (UTC)
By the way, unless someone actually backs up "YA is biased toward girl readers with girl protagonists" with numbers, and with more than one objective study proving that "boys will not read girl protagonist stories", it's really not worth getting het up about this. Anecdote ≠ data.
Janni Lee Simner: a girl and her dogjanni on July 22nd, 2010 12:58 am (UTC)
Except that the topic keeps coming up, and informing how we think about the YA genre, even without that data.

I'd love it if someone would gather solid info, on both counts. (And gather the latter by really talking to the kids and showing them stories, not by asking their parents--because it's always parents, not kids, who tell me that boys won't read female protags, in my also-anecdotal experience, anyway.)
Rachel M Brown: Bleach: Parakeet of DOOMrachelmanija on July 21st, 2010 11:17 pm (UTC)
OH BOO-HOO
That whole discussion annoyed the hell out of me. Oh woes, girls have ONE section of the bookshop that MIGHT be largely aimed at them! Think of the poor boys who aren't thoroughly dominating it like they dominate every other section (okay, except romance)!

My perception is that MG skews male, and YA skews female. But it's not like there's no YA lit aimed at boys. There's lots. It's just that boys MAYBE aren't in the majority - and I'm not even sure about that. It's like that phenomena where women who speak half as much as men are perceived as speaking twice as much as men.
Janni Lee Simner: Susan Pevensiejanni on July 22nd, 2010 01:00 am (UTC)
This is a really important point--that a genre skewing one way or the other is different from a genre being aimed entirely or even mostly at one or the other, even ignoring--and you're right that we shouldn't ignore--that the skew itself is not even entirely clear.

Oh woes, girls have ONE section of the bookshop that MIGHT be largely aimed at them! Think of the poor boys who aren't thoroughly dominating it like they dominate every other section (okay, except romance)!>/i>

It's a discussion that comes up regularly in the YA/MG fields, and more and more, this is my reaction, too.

Especially if boys really are simply getting their fix from other sections of the bookstore--adult SF/fantasy, nonfiction--which may well be true. Though the original discussion is trying to, I'm realizing that we can't look at YA in isolation, because it isn't read in isolation.
Re: OH BOO-HOO - kateelliott on July 22nd, 2010 06:13 am (UTC) (Expand)
(no subject) - janni on July 23rd, 2010 04:13 am (UTC) (Expand)
Re: OH BOO-HOO - malinda_lo on July 22nd, 2010 03:17 pm (UTC) (Expand)
Emma Bull: Thinkcoffeeem on July 22nd, 2010 03:01 am (UTC)
Here's a good article from New Scientist reviewing the latest findings on the differences in girls' brains and boys' brains. Summary: not enough to make much difference. Social pressure imposes most of the gender differences on kids...so why are publishers, writers, bookstores, and librarians still thinking in terms of "boy books" and "girl books" when books have the power to make that distinction irrelevant?
Kate Elliottkateelliott on July 22nd, 2010 06:13 am (UTC)
Thanks for the link.
(no subject) - janni on July 23rd, 2010 04:35 am (UTC) (Expand)
Amandabranna on July 22nd, 2010 08:31 am (UTC)
I happen to agree with much of what rachelmanija and dancinghorse have said.

But there's another point that really bothers me here. Apart from whether or not it is true that boys don't read books with girl protags or books perceived to be "girly" (whatever that means) due to a cover art, whether it be a pink background or a girl's face on the cover or anything else of that sort), why is the solution everyone immediately jumps to "we must create more boy-centered/packaged books for boys" instead of "we must work with our sons to get them past their prejudices and expectations?"

If it is true that girls will read and love books that have a dearth of female characters or contain problematic female characters, and the converse is not true of boys, there is no reason to believe that the difference is anything but a product of socialization. So, y'know, why is the first response to reset back to the status quo instead of _fixing the socialization_? I find this particularly weird when a common response to complaints by women or POC about the lack of certain types of characters in other genres is to tell the women or POC to adjust their perceptions or expectations.

This has intersected weirdly in my brain with a more general train of thought about privilege, which is that when you remove some of the privilege, it is reasonable to expect that the privileged group will, at some point during the transitional period, come to do less well relative to the larger group than it did when in full possession of privilege. Is that really such a terrible thing? If boys can only do their best right now when the system is strongly skewed in their behavior, then we are failing to give them the tools they need to function in the absence of privilege. I can't see that encouraging a continued dependence on that privilege is adaptive for boys (or young men) in the long term.


Amandabranna on July 22nd, 2010 08:32 am (UTC)
Ugh, that last line should have read "strongly skewed in their favor."
(no subject) - malinda_lo on July 22nd, 2010 03:19 pm (UTC) (Expand)
(no subject) - janni on July 23rd, 2010 04:24 am (UTC) (Expand)
(no subject) - malinda_lo on July 24th, 2010 01:31 am (UTC) (Expand)
(no subject) - rachelmanija on July 22nd, 2010 05:32 pm (UTC) (Expand)
(no subject) - bondgwendabond on July 23rd, 2010 12:46 am (UTC) (Expand)
(no subject) - janni on July 23rd, 2010 04:15 am (UTC) (Expand)
~twilight~_twilight_ on July 22nd, 2010 09:17 am (UTC)
Just a "me too" post of agreement here.
Gwenda Bondbondgwendabond on July 23rd, 2010 12:45 am (UTC)
I have been thinking much the same, but haven't had the time to post. So thank you for this.

Also, I really think some of it stems from the bias against romance, and how books with substantial romantic elements (even if they're not full-blown romances) and their readers always end up getting dismissed--no matter if they're teenage girls or adult readers. Which is something that drives me crazy.
Janni Lee Simner: a girl and her dogjanni on July 23rd, 2010 04:21 am (UTC)
A point that.

Even in the comments, there was a lot of visceral "ick" reaction to "all those Twilight clones."

And you know, even if not every romance being published matches with my personal tastes either (and why should every book published match my personal tastes?), romances of all sorts have a valid and important and real place in this genre, and are also providing stories for readers who want and need them.

And those readers are as entitled to good stories as as someone looking for a boy-centric epic fantasy is.

If the whole discussion of meeting boys needs could take place without specifically denigrating romance ... I'd still have disagreement there, but I'd be a little less uneasy, just the same.

Why is a girl's being-swept-away-by-a-supernatural-being wish fulfillment fantasy less valid than a boy's epic-fantasy-quest-saving-the-world wish fulfillment fantasy?

Even aside all those girls who'd like more chances at saving the world epic fantasy style themselves, thanks very much.

Edited at 2010-07-23 04:22 am (UTC)
Yuanwingstodust on July 31st, 2010 01:44 am (UTC)
Amen to everything in this post.

(came by here after having read Bones of Faerie, btw. I really loved it! Yours was the first fairy/faerie book I've been able to wholeheartedly enjoy in months! =D)
Janni Lee Simner: Bones of Faerie leafjanni on August 1st, 2010 03:44 pm (UTC)
So glad you enjoyed Bones--thanks for telling me so!

And thanks for commenting on the post, too. :-)
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