When my husband read my earlier post about gender and reading, he vehemently disagreed with everything I said. Rather than having this be a one-sided conversation, I offered him the chance to share his piece in response to the boy cave/gendered reading idea. While I still disagree with the notion we should offer separate spaces or push the idea that gender matters, he makes a really thoughtful argument I can’t help but share.
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In 1928, when Virginia Woolf wrote “A Room of One’s Own,” based on her lectures and arguing that “women must have money and a room of her own to write fiction,” her explicit point was to illustrate the need of women authors for independence but more implicitly, the need of women in general to rise above their impoverished place in society. That they have, at least in relative degree to 1928. To deny that sexism still isn’t in the board room, the classroom and, indeed, the library would be simply ludicrous. Yet, you must concede, women have come a long way in their pursuit of equality, and progress continues to be made every day.
The pursuit of equality, in fact, has been so successful that women are, if not welcome, at least an increasingly familiar sight in many areas long dominated by men such as the board room and classroom. Whereas there was no female Supreme Court Justice prior to 1981, there are now three. In 2010, twelve Fortune 500 CEOs were women versus 2000 when there were only three. My point again is not to say that women have reached full equality, but rather that progress, while perhaps slow, is still occurring.
This should be celebrated. However, simultaneously, the rise in the status of women has not so much achieved equality and equilibrium between the sexes as it has encroached on mens’ status. Over the last half century, books ranging from the beat classic One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest to non-fiction Guyland explore the modern male psyche as an increasingly confused, wayward place that has been deprived of key psychological needs by the fact that women have somehow been injected into all spaces. In order to achieve equality, men are made to cater all of our actions to a sensibility which is not ours naturally. What this did, initially, was bring about sorely needed equality, but while it continues to exist in the same form it did 40 years ago that makes men cater and not resist.
Our code of conduct is increasingly narrow both by the entrance of women and the conflict we have between our social construct of masculinity and what society expects. Boys are told not to fight or play in the house, and when faced with a conflict, we are not entirely sure how to respond. Rites of passage used to be commonplace, but not so any longer (“too dangerous” or “too stupid”). Our age-old role models, our fathers, are increasingly rare. Thus, our ideas of masculinity and what it means to be a man are increasingly convoluted. We compensate, invariably, by seeking to find out what is masculine. Some men go to the extreme and rebel, hoping brute strength makes them a man. Some join mens’ social groups, one of the few bastions left to confer amongst ourselves. Some simply search and fail. The point is that, without a firm sense of identity, we struggle. I, myself, try to form strong male friendships which, in tandem with my marriage, ground my sense of self. Though, when I first relocated somewhere as an adult and had no male friends yet, I was very much lost.
This all brings me to possibly one of the most unfortunate losses in identity: the loss of space. Our homes are one of the greatest losses of all. Prior to modern architecture, men and women did both have their spaces. Now, with homes designed to be open, men ended up being the losers. We retreated to the less desirable places in the home – my dad practically lived in our basement. As a boy, I had my room, but even that had limitations that my mom enforced. I distinctly remember the woods being where my friends and I could play and be “boys,” without the constant guard of the parental big brother.
This all leads me to the case of “the Cave,” a boys-only reading space in a public elementary school. The library is to the boy much as the “Victoria’s Secret” is to the grown man. It can be an utterly terrifying place. Part of that is how we are socialized, it’s true. But, that’s ultimate irrelevant when it comes to practical considerations. This is not our place – never was, never will be. Why? We were told that girls, who are “made of sugar and space and everything nice,” read. Add to that the fact that boys inherently learn better through interaction versus reading, and you there you have it. Books, the library, the whole kitchen sink isn’t for us.
I think “the Cave” is an awesome idea because it not only brings boys into the library, it gives them a space they don’t really have and can’t really have. Further, it makes that space inviting by appealing to a boy’s interests, particularly gross things but also adventure and action, those things that many of us, later in life want so desperately to have when we’re wearing ties and driving mid-price sedans. It also exposes boys to books that they almost certainly would not have been exposed to before. One parent in the Cave article remarked about how her son’s reading interests grew beyond Harry Potter. Awesome. What possible problem could you have with this place?
Well, many of you reading this, including my wife, believe that gendered books and gendered space are bad things which create inherently hostile environments. On the contrary, they make some of us more comfortable in a world in which we are afraid to even think about stepping out of line. The terms “boys book” and “girls book” are, of course, simplifications as there are many diverse tastes. But, boys have very few safe things that are universally agreed to acceptable, and they cling.
When I was in third grade, I must have been a brave kid, because one day, during reading time, I marched over to the shelf of books and got the Baby Sitter’s Club. I didn’t have the slightest interest, and I may have even done this on a dare. It was awful – I had no interest. But I read the thing, possibly to see what would happen (I’m still slightly a troublemaker, as my wife will tell you). Here’s what happened: I was ostracized by boys and girls alike for a few days. Neither side found this acceptable. It gradually faded, as these things do. But I learned a lesson – step too far outside of the realm of acceptable, and you’ll pay. So, argue with me now, books are not gendered.
Now, I was asked to comment on some of the more popular YA books of the last few years that I read at my wife’s request and comment on their gender appeal. So, I’ll discuss them here briefly:
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The Hunger Games: The full series is not inherently gendered, though I think there is more girl appeal overall. There’s a lot of themes that many boys would find alien: (I) sisterhood, (ii) a female character struggling with her emotions with two male characters and (iii) the idea of media sensationalization. True, there is a significant amount of action, which even I, as a grown man, enjoyed. But, we have to realize that, at some point, boys are not Katniss.
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Glow: Glow, inherently, is a girl’s book. The book does a good job of moving between the plight of the boys and the drama of the girls’ capture, and in doing so, attempts to appeal to those traditional archetypes: the girls escape by cunning, the boys in-fight. Do you see a pattern? Girls read, boys fight. How much more interesting this could have been had the boys been captured and the girls abandoned to fend for themselves.
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Divergent: I loved Divergent, as would, I suspect many boys. Why? Can you see the appeal of going from a life of rules and order to one in which there is danger and excitement? This book does an excellent job of merging the likes of boys and girls. Yet, with a female lead character with emotions for a boy, is still foreign.
Books are, in some way, inherently gendered for women. That’s because boys are not naturally drawn to reading entirely in and of itself. In a study done in Wehrwein, Lujan and DiCarlo (2006), researchers found that among undergraduate physiology students, the majority of women preferred one dominant learning style while men preferred a combination of learning styles including visual, auditory, reading and kinesthetic learning. Thus, a book is sometimes but not always thing that everybody wants, but boys are less likely to prefer it alone. Yet, given the space and given the chance to start within my comfort zone, I can be brought to read even YA, which is not my interest at all. I suspect many boys would feel the same way about reading in general.
My wife and her colleague, Liz Burns, make some valid points about gender equality, and I see their argument. It would seem patently unfair to cater to one group, such as boys, while not providing a separate area for girls. What may not be so obvious is that the intimidation of that girls’ area would be far worse for a boy than vice versa. The point made in the article about the Cave – that placing items in the girls’ area would inherently cut access – is true. It is the modern inverse of placing Woolf’s books in a Roaring Twenties barbershop.
Over 80 years ago, Virginia Woolf demanded a room for a woman’s one. Nowadays, it’s us guys asking. Can you let us have it? And once we have it, let’s both respective our separate spaces while having a very large common space.
Still trying to wrap my head around my thoughts, but I do want to say that I remember the boys in my fourth-grade class going through a Babysitters Club phase and borrowing all the books from us girls. We thought it was awesome.
And I'm curious as to what E would say about the boys in my Anime Club who are requesting My Little Pony for our next meeting. Does that make them any less male?
"E": No, it doesn't. "Man" shouldn't be defined in contrast to "woman." My argument isn't that boys shouldn't read "girl books" or somehow consume "girl media." My point is that we have no clear sense of self and society does not allow much deviation. So, many guys play it safe.
It seems to me as though, while you do raise some good points, you're really not offering any solutions to the problems of certain books being 'girl books.' You mentioned that, even with Divergent, which you really enjoyed, you found Tris' female feelings to be alien to your own experience, as though this is a negative thing.
As a woman, I often read books written by men for predominantly male audiences. Do I find all the extra testosterone alien? Perhaps, but does that mean I can't enjoy the book, or perhaps even learn something about the other kinds of folks inhabiting the planet? Heck no!
Reading books about other kinds of people, written by other kinds of people, can give you a sort of window into other kinds of experience which the man cave of socially acceptable boy books likely will not do.
You pointed out that the girl books label does not stop you, but your examples were books forced on you by your wife and a book you may have picked up on a dare, the latter of which lead to your being shunned by childhood society for a time. Am I supposed to be encouraged by this experience?
Actually, I have no problem with the cave itself, but I don't see why the collection of books needs to be split. Why can't the books stay in one place? A boy can go pick out a book and then head into the cave. That way he can still pick up a Sarah Dessen novel if he wants to, without everyone knowing that he went into the girl books section. Just my two cents.
I think he brings up an interesting point about what he's reading and it was something I alluded to this morning. He isn't a fiction reader, so it's not about YA or not YA. He's a non-fiction reader (and a big one at that). So it's simply a matter of his preferences.
I'll let him respond elsewhere.