Pretty much all my female relatives, friends, co-workers, classmates, random women on the street, etc. have complained to me at one point or another that every male relative, friend, etc. they know attempts to “teach” them how to do something by taking over. And that the likelihood of this happening is directly proportional to the skill’s relationship to traditional guy stuff.

If I had a nickel for every time my parents alone had this argument….

Luckily for me, while I tended to prey victim to the “this is for boys!” line, I was standing my ground on learning to do things the proper way by first grade. Pretty much all the arguments my father and I had when he was helping me do my science fair projects were about me telling him to back the hell off. Not um, in those exact words, of course.

preying mantis – Spend a few months at a bookstore where part of your job description is to strip the covers off of mass markets that aren’t selling. It certainly changed my perspective. :)

The final offender was a page on why dogs are better than cats for pets, because cats are like women — you never know what they’re thinking! Ba dum ching!

And I’m about to hand this to a cat-crazy little boy who wants to grow up and be a cat vet? I hid it on mommy’s bookshelf. Fuck that shit.

On the other hand, there is no reason why a book can’t be written that is just as good, but is aimed at “kids.” You might even be able to put more stuff in there that way, stuff that is traditionally aimed at girls, thus giving little boys who are interested in that sort of thing a way to express their creativity in ways that are appealing to them.

Unfortunately, the marketing hook of “Boys Only!” is so successful that I’m not sure an all inclusive book would sell as well. Truthiness trumps truth again. How sad is that?

…the title really sucks and sends a clear message about who gets to have fun with all sorts of creative, intellectually engaging activities, and who doesn’t…

I’m ashamed to admit it, but things like this bother me too. I tell myself that there’s no point in getting worked up over such things, that getting worked up over such things is a waste of my time and energy, that getting worked up over such things is an admission of personal weakness, and that a woman who throws a hissy fit, even a strictly internal hissy fit, over the title of a book has in her heart joined the ranks of the censors. I realize fully that everything I tell myself is true. Doesn’t matter. I’m still furious.

But what am I actually furious about? It’s not really a stupid book title, it’s that over and over, one runs flat-out full-tilt into the same dispensation whereunder little boys come in for Latin lessons whilst little girls are being given compassionate & well-meaning advice about how to tie a bow in their hair. Gaah. “Go away and die; you can’t play. ” That’s the message being sent, deny it who can. That’s the message being sent, and no one alive has the right to try to tell me any different.

On the other hand, if nobody’s ever been corrupted by a book, I don’t see much chance that anyone’s likely to be corrupted by the title of a book. Just pissed off, just pissed off, just pissed off.

I turned out to be niether overtly “masculine” or overtly “feminine” as a child – my parents adopted a case-by-case policy for toy purchases and discussion of gender normativity. “Cooking class” with my mom or dad was one of my favorite things as a child because, well, I love food. My mother did grudgingly buy me barbies, which I liked more for the fashion/clothes aspect than the body image/girly aspect. I liked design-based toys (Spirograph, Spectrograph, Lite-Brite, Tinkertoys, Legos) as well as an electrical circuit experiment board, a chemistry set (ruined my lovely Kirk-Stieff Repousse baby spoon melting sulfur in it), etc. My parents never told me anything specific about what toys I should gravitate towards, and I had no interest in baby dolls nor any interest in toy trucks, though I did have a passing interest in Star Wars action figures. I had an Atari 2600 like every other respectable consumerist suburban kid at the time. Patriarchal pedestal-putting-on-of-girls actually served me once, when the last remaining copy of Pitfall at the local video store was chivalrously handed to me by the store clerk over an impenetrable mob of jostling boys two or three years older than me who had barricaded the display case begging for it and who loudly proclaimed how unfair it was that it was given to a girl, and a “little” girl at that.

I must admit I am little miffed at the title of this book, cool contents or no. I suspect I would have been one of those girls who picked it up anyway, and whose parents would have sanctioned rather than condemned my feeling free to pick up something labeled “for Boys,” but that does not mean i was a typical little girl or had typical parents. For a girl who is struggling with feeling less-than, or parents who are trying to indoctrinate her into believing that diapers and cooking are to be the bulk of her provenance, the title would be a huge barrier.

One of my fondest memories of childhood was when we spent a summer making a go-cart together. Welding it up, and painting it red. omg it was awesome. I LOVED IT. hehe First thing I did was run into the damn fence and busted my arm. LOL

Then the other time my dad and I when I was younger we made a well it wasn’t a moped, cause it could flat out move, but it was a small motorcycle built for me! Yes my dad is awesome like that.

I got hurt on that too, and he tore it apart. He felt so guilty but it wasn’t his fault.. lol

I am a feminist because my dad wanted a boy and got a girl and didn’t care, he took me hunting, fishing, and camping. He was my scout leader. :)

Wanna know something kewl? My dad taught me how to cook. Not my mom, but my dad, he showed me all the practical things in life.

I want to help write the book, if you going to do one.

I was in brownies too, and my dad got mad at the scout leader because she wasn’t doing it right. I didn’t last but 3 weeks in scouts, I wanted to be in Boy scouts. So my dad taught me everything he learned in Scouts. :)

Yes my dad did have a boy, my baby brother. But by the time my brother was interested in these things, I was already my dad’s “boy”. lol I am glad me being a girl didn’t stop my dad from having fun. He is now helping me to dispell the myths with my girls.

I also rememer my dad teaching me Binary. I knew my multiplication tables before I hit school. Now that was an advantage that was awesome in it’s return value. What’s neat, is it wasn’t hard to learn.

Gawd, I gotta go give my dad a hug!! Later.

For the Dangeral Book for Girls ;-)