Books for boys are emasculating?

"Who wants to join me in the "Give me a break!" corner?".... I DO! 

Yeah, wow is right. Boys don't NEED to be the heroes to keep their masculinity. That is honestly pretty disrespectful to boys, it underestimates them, they are not SUCH simple, weak creatures that they need that sort of overdone extreme reinforcement. There should be heros, leaders, examples. Our kids need them. Men and women heros alike. But not having a bias of male hero princes saving weak princesses trapped in towers will NOT make my son any less confident or secure in his manliness. For real. Just shaking my head over here.

Caroline

http://morningsidemom.wordpress.com/

 My first thought was "err...the boys that read are not really considered that "masculine" in the first place"

Besides, YA is an artificial construct. If a child can read and wants to read YA, they can read adult books, where there is of course, plenty of "masculine" energy. 

Lilmom, my kids read a lot. Boy child actually prefers books on cd but...but my 12 year old probably outreads 90% of the U.S. adult population. Need to entertain her for a day? Hand her 6 or 7 YA books and she is good to go. 

For finding great books for both girls and boys (as well as adults), I highly, highly recommend Chinaberry books. (http://www.chinaberry.com/) Every book is screened for sexism, violence, etc. They are positive, wonderful books without being fussy or narrowminded. (ok unless you are really anti environment) 

Oh crud...I stopped by thinking I would grab  the link...instead I am daydreaming in beautiful books. 

~TW
Retro-Food

The points you made about feminism and masculinity in regards to heroism
were interesting, especially when you relate it to books.

Because of traditional male and female stereotypes, it seems that people
have developed false perceptions. The reason I say this is because as times
have changed, we need to start realizing that women have good qualities just
like men. It is definitely true about what you said in how the media portray males
as always being the heroes and comes to the rescue of the girls, even in books.
That's a good point too, how you mentioned that males would be ashamed if a
girl came to their rescue or weren't mentioned as the hero. This is all because
of how the media have always portrayed males. We really should turn the tables
and sometimes allow the women to be heroes to demonstrate a women’s' equality
with men today. In fact, women are heroes in many different ways when you look
at the whole big picture.

Although women may not necessarily be as strong as men from the physical
body building aspects, women have demonstrated their ability to be strong in
other ways such as being independent by working and supporting themselves and
their children and in some case their families. I think a woman who can do
those things by taking care of her family and bringing in an income would fit
in the category of being a hero. Therefore, there are many ways in which women
can be heroes if we think about real life situations.

I think women are also better than communicating than men and are able to
listen when a family member or a friend has a problem. Women can also be
supportive of their husbands or significant others and their children when they
are going through a crisis. Really, I think women have always been heroes even
in the old days. Women took care of the home, raised the children and worked
hard. I don't think you can ask for better heroes than that. I also believe
that nowadays people do not care that much about gender roles as much as we
used to, especially when you see men performing traditional jobs of women and women
performing traditional male jobs. So really, it doesn't matter. We just need to
start turning things around. Hopefully, someday the media can recognize this
too, that not just men are the heroes.

Having debated Glen Beck on GMA in October, I must say that I am hardly surprised. But for those of you who may actually have sons who aren't super jocks or stereotypical alpha males (or for those of you who want to teach your kids that there are all kinds of people out there), there is a great book called, Oliver Button is a Sissy. Seriously, that's the title. And it's about a boy who is a wonderful dancer and doesn't fit in with the rest of his peers. Needless to say, it all turns out well in the end. 

Fondly,

Logan Levkoff, Ph.D.

Sexologist & Sexuality Educator

Author, Third Base Ain't What it Used to Be 

I was almost surprised until I saw you were talking about Glenn Beck.  This is the same guy who was asking why it's racist to call black people "monkeys," of course he has a problem with children's literature that isn't blatantly misogynistic.

-- Mz. Jack Scheerer