{"id":1693,"date":"2014-03-18T07:59:21","date_gmt":"2014-03-18T11:59:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=1693"},"modified":"2014-03-26T08:02:51","modified_gmt":"2014-03-26T12:02:51","slug":"girls-books-boys-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=1693","title":{"rendered":"Girls Books, Boys Books?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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(photo: farm5.staticflickr.com)<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

Is \u201cThe Very Hungry Caterpillar\u201d a girls\u2019 book or a boys\u2019 book? Is \u201cChicka-Chicka-Boom-Boom\u201d? These are books for any child. But as children grow past the board-book stage, it doesn\u2019t take long for gender stereotyping to creep in, with princesses and cupcakes for girls and superheroes (OK, a few not-so-interesting super-heroines, too) and robots for boys. Last I knew, boys liked cupcakes, too. Too bad the ones in books are always pink.<\/p>\n

The UK grassroots (moms and dads) gender-neutral toy campaign, Let Toys Be Toys<\/a>, has launched a \u201cLet Books Be Books<\/a>\u201d effort to encourage publishers, booksellers, (and bookbuyers) to be reexamine their marketing practices and better reflect the diversity of kids interests, rather than channeling them into girl-boy stereotypes. It\u2019s gaining support<\/a>. I loved Nancy Drew until I read my first Hardy Boys adventure, and I never looked back. The \u201cboys books\u201d were just more fun!<\/p>\n

The covers of the books on the Let Books Be Books web page tell the story. The boys\u2019 covers feature adventure! Skills! (Submarines, kites, soccer, vikings, rocket ships); the girls\u2019 books? Cupcakes, butterflies, flowers, balloons, jewelry. You\u2019re nothing if not slathered in cutesy stuff. The message is clear: Boys DO. Girls look pretty. In 2014? (You can sign a petition here<\/a>, if you care to).<\/p>\n

\u201cArtificial boundaries turn children away from their true preferences,\u201d the LBBB website says. They narrow kids\u2019 perspective<\/a> on the world. A recent birthday party for a four-year-old girl provided cloying evidence that \u201cPrincesses Rule\u201d in the constricted world of gifts for diminutive females. This tiny effort may be a dragonfly wing in the hurricane of gender-based marketing, but still worth taking a stand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(photo: farm5.staticflickr.com) Is \u201cThe Very Hungry Caterpillar\u201d a girls\u2019 book or a boys\u2019 book? Is \u201cChicka-Chicka-Boom-Boom\u201d? These are books for any child. But as children grow past the board-book stage, it doesn\u2019t take long for gender stereotyping to creep in, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Girls Books, Boys Books?","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[122,63,35,104],"tags":[46,89,416],"class_list":["post-1693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book","category-marketing","category-real-life","category-the-morgue","tag-childrens-books","tag-reading","tag-real-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-rj","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1693"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1696,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1693\/revisions\/1696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}