Gender and Kids: An Experiment

As demonstrated by my barely-changed version of Mr. Strong, I really struggled with the “queering” of the children’s book.  It really has nothing to do with a sense of deep-seated nostalgia, and certainly not a respect or reverence for the genre.  I just find that all matters related to child rearing are particularly delicate, impossibly complicated, and profoundly significant.  While a few whimsical, gender-reinforcing books will probably make no difference, I do believe that the long-term social conditioning that children receive can be absolutely defining and impactful.  Considering all of the mediums and outlets that we get exposed to, the implications are pretty scary to me.  So naturally then, I was afraid quite afraid to do anything too risqué, which, I suppose, shows you just how socially conditioned I am.

So, on a quest to find a children’s book that stars a queer child, I did a bit of Internet searching for a book that addressed gender binaries and queer children.  Surprisingly enough, I found the highly-praised My Princess Boy, which features a main character is a boy who loves dressing up in princess clothing, tiaras, etc.  Based on the book jacket, the aim is to teach acceptance and tolerance. Actually, the salesperson at the bookstore commended my purchase, saying it was a fantastic kids book.  I read it once and thought it was definitely unique in addressing such a touchy subject matter. But I had some reservations (which I’ll get to at the end of the post), so I decided to test it out on my niece, Nona.

A few things about Nona:

• She is the youngest of three, with two older brothers.  She is 5, with a 6½ year old and 8-year-old brothers
• She flatly refuses to wear anything pink, preferring camouflage and sports apparel.
• Since she could compose intelligible phrases, she has insisted that she was a boy and should becalled “Bobby.”  Only recently, upon starting kindergarten and being socialized with other children, has she openly referenced herself as a “girl.”
• She loves wrestling, very physical play.  She plays soccer, tee-ball, and ice hockey. 

I thought she’d be a good test subject, given she has a similar disposition to the main character,. Unfortunately, she didn’t really pay much attention to the book after about 3 pages). At the end, we recapped, and I asked her if she liked the Princess Boy.  I was expecting that, at very least, she could relate to a child wanting to be something he/she isn’t.  She said, “No. He has no face. And I don’t like pink” (which was quite prominent in the entire book).

After thinking about this for a few days, I’ve realized that there are some serious flaws with the book.  First, the book was written by a loving parent, from her perspective, and didn’t do much in terms of actually engaging a child.  More importantly, the overarching message I got, aside from parental love, was tolerance, not revision.  Since our Butler discussion on Monday, I’ve realized that, like she suggests in Chapter 1, we have to push not just for tolerance, but for a radical revision of how we define humanity to begin with.  By reinforcing that the Princess Boy's pleasure when dressed up in princess clothing is not normal and requires an open heart and mind, it feels like perhaps the author is unintentionally reinforcing his “queer”-ness.  It's as if she's confirming that wearing pink really is for girls but we should be tolerant if boys wanted to wear pink, instead of questioning why boys can't wear pink to begin with.  And none of the characters had faces drawn in.  I'm not sure why this bothered me so much, but it did.  Perhaps it felt a little less human, a little more...creepy.

Don’t get me wrong, books like this don’t really exist, and the fact that the subject is being worked into children’s books would probably give Delany some hope. I just think the book doesn’t really go far enough.  Maybe it’s a good first step, but is it (and will it) ever be enough?  I can’t imagine how difficult it is to create a book without gender bias and binaries, but apparently, it’s nearly impossible.

To end this post, here’s a link to a recent article showing just how far off we are when it comes to children’s books.

Gender Bias in Children's Books - NY Times 

- terese

p.s. For demonstration (and entertainment) purposes, here's my book critic, Nona, doing one-armed push-ups in her camo pj pants.