Girls Rule, Boys Drool, uh, Rule, Too

According to my kids, I grew up a looong, looong time ago. And I guess it’s true. I was a child of the last millennium. I grew up long enough ago that I remember checking out a book from our elementary school library that had wonderful illustrations of the jobs boys could do when they grew up – fireman, mayor, astronaut, cowboy. And the jobs girls could do when they became women – mother…and…teacher. That book really was there, and I remember feeling disappointed (though, I must say, having grown up and gotten all sorts of degrees, the thing that means the very most to me is being a mother and a teacher to my children - but, back to the point...).

When I was very young, before  I was introduced to sci-fi and fantasy, I read and read and read, all of Walter Farley’s books (The Island Stallion was my favorite), and all of Marguerite Henry’s works and My Side of the Mountain, and just about any adventure book I could find.

And because of the kinds of books I read (which nearly all had boy protagonists, and if there was a girl anywhere, they were more like a sort of semi-assistant if they weren’t a downright nuisance), I came to the conclusion that boys led much more exciting lives. When I wrote my own stories, it was almost exclusively with a male protag. I even remember telling my mother how much more interesting that was than an, ew, girl.

Microscopic Freshwater Organisms

It seems strange now that I could have had that view about boy and girl characters in books, because my personal upbringing was really quite liberal. My mother had been a Rhodes Scholar and received her Master’s degree summa cum laude in zoology. She would take us to the river to collect samples to look at under the microscope, or even a few times prick her own finger (!!) so we could look at blood cells. One of my grandmothers was an author, the other designed and built homes. In school I was always encouraged to excel academically and had absolutely no doubts about my worth or ability to do so. So why, oh why, such a skewed view in literature?

Today I still read, though not as widely as I’d like to. Of the recent books I’ve finished I have to say, about 90% have had a female protag. It’s mostly MG/YA, just like a lot of the stuff I read as a kid. But I know there weren’t that many kick-butt, take no prisoner girls in lit back then. I am happy there are more now.

But…I also happen to be the proud mama of three boys. And what I hear from them is that in YA books today they feel the boys are just arm candy to the girls – sort of a semi-assistant (though usually gorgeous), if not a downright nuisance. There's too much ogling and not enough action for them to be interested (I freely admit, though I've tried to keep my male and female protag equal, my WIP falls into the swooning category - my boys won't touch it with a ten foot pole). In MG I find a lot of boy protags who are anti-heroes, the funny slacker dude (There are notable exceptions to all this, of course, such as Harry Potter).

Is it just the books I’m picking up, or has the pendulum shifted way too far the other way? One way or another, older boys aren’t reading. It’s a conundrum for the publishing industry, I know – YA romance sells and so it’s an easy choice to publish more of that even if it leaves the Y chromosome population out in the cold. I don’t want to bemoan this, or gripe. But I do hope we come to a point of gender balanced literature with enough quality stuff that everyone can find something. I’ve wondered lately if the new interactive books for all the nooks and tablets and pads might be a way to bridge this gap and bring boys back to reading.

I’m obviously kind of rambling, because I have no grandiose solutions, only observations and questions. What do you all think? Is there a gender imbalance in books today? And if there is, what solutions do you see?