Gender-specific books demean all our children. So the Independent on Sunday will

[Shana A]

Katy Guest
Sunday 16 March 2014

Gender-specific books demean all our children. So the Independent on Sunday will no longer review anything marketed to exclude either sex

A good read is just that. Ask any child, regardless of gender, says IoS literary editor Katy Guest

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/genderspecific-books-demean-all-our-children-so-the-independent-on-sunday-will-no-longer-review-anything-marketed-to-exclude-either-sex-9194694.html?utm_content=buffer2e22c&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Sugar and spice and all things nice, that's what little girls are made of. And boys? They're made of trucks and trains and aeroplanes, building blocks, chemistry experiments, sword fights and guns, football, cricket, running and jumping, adventure and ideas, games, farts and snot, and pretty much anything else they can think of.

At least, that's the impression that children are increasingly given by the very books that are supposed to broaden their horizons.

An online campaign called Let Books Be Books, which petitions publishers to ditch gender-specific children's books, has met with mixed success recently. Last week, both Parragon (which sells Disney titles, among others) and Usborne (the Independent Publisher of the Year 2014), agreed that they will no longer publish books specifically titled "for boys" or "for girls". Unfortunately, Michael O'Mara, which owns Buster Books, pledged to continue segregating young readers according to their gender. Mr O'Mara himself told The Independent that their Boys' Book covers "things like how to make a bow and arrow and how to play certain sports and you'd get things about style and how to look cool in the girls' book." At the same time, he added: "We would never publish a book that demeaned one sex or the other".

[suzifrommd]

An online campaign called Let Books Be Books, which petitions publishers to ditch gender-specific children's books, has met with mixed success recently.

OK, I'm going to bring the wrath of transdom down upon me.

But I don't agree with this. Cisgender boys (which are 99+% of them, face it) like books about boy things. Cisgender girls like books about girl things.

As hard as I try, I can't see anything wrong with that.

What's wrong is not that there are boy books and girl books. What's wrong is that we don't tolerate male-bodied kids looking at girl books, and, to a lesser extent, are uncomfortable when a female-bodied kid looks at boy books to the exclusion of girl books.

Rather than a quixotic attempt to eliminate gender (why not eliminate height while we are at it...), we should be working to make gender variance more acceptable.

[Vicky]

You beat me to this one Suzi, but I fully agree.  Intra-gender variance is often greater than inter-gender variation as well.  We are outnumbered as Trans* folk, and all I ask is that I not be put down for not liking <something> or liking <something> that another person thinks will send me to an early grave if I take it  up.  I loved my sister's books, and they tore mine up too. 

[sandrauk]

Rather than a quixotic attempt to eliminate gender (why not eliminate height while we are at it...), we should be working to make gender variance more acceptable.

I don't think that's going to happen while you label them boy books.

People have said to me you have girls fingernails. I reply, no, I think you'll find they're mine

[Sarah Louise]

In my mind this is going overboard, throwing the "baby out with the bath water" (old saying).  There is nothing wrong with gender specific products.