Macey's Fox chapter choice reflection

I chose to read “Chapter 11: Men Who Weep, Boys Who Dance The Gender Agenda Between the Lines in Children’s Literature.” The chapter began with the startling statistic that 85 percent of the main characters in stories for children are male. When Mem first heard this statistic, she was as shocked as I was. She tried an experiment with her college level students, in which they were asked to write a children’s story. To her surprise, most of the students’ stories were about a male main character. When the students were told the purpose of the assignment, they were also shocked and curious as to why they chose to make their characters male. All of the male characters could have easily been female.

I have never thought about the gender of the main characters very much, so I was very surprised to read this chapter. I think it’s sad that we are raised in a society where literature teaches us to fall into certain gender roles. Males are expected to be strong and manly. They never cry and they must always be the provider for their entire family. Women, on the other hand, are the nurturers. They stay at home and take care of the family. They are portrayed as helpless.

Mem writes her stories quite the opposite because she is aware of the sexism in our books today. Her females are the heroes and providers and her males cry and dance. I admire Mem for writing her stories the way she does.

Learning this fact was a huge wake up call for me, and I will definitely be more aware of gender assignments as a reader as well as a writer.