[HPforGrownups] Gender balance If HP were a girl

[Dave Hardenbrook]

No: HPFGUIDX 14886

At 11:31 AM 3/21/01 +0100, Sofie 'Melle' Werkers wrote:
>Hm. I don't think so. I think the main reason so few boys read books with
>girl protagonists is the same as why *I* never really read them. They tend
>to be, well, ... boring. At least the ones that were available to me when I
>was young. Girl protagonists have a tendency to be goody-two-shoes whose
>biggest worry seemed to be to keep their parents together or help some poor,
>starving family or whatnot.

You make a good point.  The lack of appeal of books with girl heroines
is probably more the fault of the authors with their pre-defined ideas
of sex roles than of the readers.  True, there will always be the
offspring of male chauvanist pigs, trained to dismiss such heriones
as "Too butch"; but I think in general, "Jo March, Space Adventurer",
"Polyanna vs. the Polymorph", and "Rose Campbell and the Oatmeal
of Fire" would have probably been gobbled up by boys.



                                                 -- Dave