{"id":165091,"date":"2015-03-05T15:43:50","date_gmt":"2015-03-05T15:43:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2015\/03\/05\/no-boys-allowed-school-visits-as-a-woman-writer\/"},"modified":"2015-03-05T15:43:50","modified_gmt":"2015-03-05T15:43:50","slug":"no-boys-allowed-school-visits-as-a-woman-writer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2015\/03\/05\/no-boys-allowed-school-visits-as-a-woman-writer\/","title":{"rendered":"No Boys Allowed: School visits as a woman writer"},"content":{"rendered":"

shannonhale<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

I\u2019ve been doing school visits as part of my tour for PRINCESS ACADEMY: The Forgotten Sisters. All have been terrific\u2014great kids, great librarians. But something happened at one I want to talk about. I\u2019m not going to name the school or location because I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a
\n problem with just one school; it\u2019s just one example of a much wider
\nproblem.<\/p>\n

This was a small-ish school, and I spoke to the 3-8
\ngrades. It wasn\u2019t until I was partway into my presentation that I
\nrealized that the back rows of the older grades were all girls.<\/p>\n

Later
\n a teacher told me, \u201cThe administration only gave permission to the
\nmiddle school girls to leave class for your assembly. I have a boy
\nstudent who is a huge fan of SPIRIT ANIMALS. I got special permission
\nfor him to come, but he was too embarrassed.\u201d<\/p>\n

“Because the administration had already shown that they believed my presentation would only be for girls?”<\/p>\n

“Yes,” she said.<\/p>\n

I tried not to explode in front of the children.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s
\n be clear: I do not talk about \u201cgirl\u201d stuff. I do not talk about body
\nparts. I do not do a \u201cYour Menstrual Cycle and You!\u201d presentation. I
\ntalk about books and writing, reading, rejections and moving through
\nthem, how to come up with story ideas. But because I\u2019m a woman, because
\nsome of my books have pictures of girls on the cover, because some of my
\n books have \u201cprincess\u201d in the title, I\u2019m stamped as \u201cfor girls only.\u201d
\nHowever, the male writers who have boys on their covers speak to the
\nentire school.<\/p>\n

This has happened a few times before. I don\u2019t
\nbelieve it\u2019s ever happened in an elementary school\u2014just middle school
\nor high school.<\/p>\n

I remember one middle school 2-3 years ago that I
\nwas going to visit while on tour. I heard in advance that they planned
\nto pull the girls out of class for my assembly but not the boys. I\u2019d
\ndealt with that in the past and didn\u2019t want to be a part of perpetuating
\n the myth that women only have things of interest to say to girls while
\nmen\u2019s voices are universally important. \u00a0I told the publicist that this
\nwas something I wasn\u2019t comfortable with and to please ask them to invite
\n the boys as well as girls. I thought it was taken care of. When I got
\nthere, the administration told me with shrugs that they\u2019d heard I didn\u2019t
\n want a segregated audience but that\u2019s just how it was going to be.
\nShould I have refused? Embarrassed the bookstore, let down the girls who
\n had been looking forward to my visit? I did the presentation. But I
\nfelt sick to my stomach. Later I asked what other authors had visited.
\nThey\u2019d had a male writer. For his assembly, both boys and girls had been
\n invited.<\/p>\n

I think most people reading this will agree that leaving
\n the boys behind is wrong. And yet\u2014when giving books to boys, how often
\n do we offer ones that have girls as protagonists? (Princesses even!)
\nAnd if we do, do we qualify it: \u201cEven though it\u2019s about a girl, I think
\nyou\u2019ll like it.\u201d Even though. We\u2019re telling them subtly, if not
\nexplicitly, that books about girls aren\u2019t for them. Even if a boy would
\nnever, ever like any book about any girl (highly unlikely) if we don\u2019t
\nat least offer some, we\u2019re reinforcing the ideology.<\/p>\n

I heard it a
\nhundred times with Hunger Games: \u201cBoys, even though this is about a
\ngirl, you\u2019ll like it!\u201d Even though. I never heard a single time, \u201cGirls,
\n even though Harry Potter is about a boy, you\u2019ll like it!\u201d<\/p>\n

The
\nbelief that boys won\u2019t like books with female protagonists, that they
\nwill refuse to read them, the shaming that happens (from peers, parents,
\n teachers, often right in front of me) when they do, the idea that girls
\n should read about and understand boys but that boys don\u2019t have to read
\nabout girls, that boys aren\u2019t expected to understand and empathize with
\nthe female population of the world\u2026.this belief directly leads to rape
\n culture. To a culture that tells boys and men, it doesn\u2019t matter how
\nthe girl feels, what she wants. You don\u2019t have to wonder. She is here to
\n please you. She is here to do what you want. No one expects you to have
\n to empathize with girls and women. As far as you need be concerned,
\nthey have no interior life.<\/p>\n

At this recent school visit, near the
\nend I left time for questions. Not one student had a question. In 12
\nyears and 200-300 presentations, I\u2019ve never had that happen. So I filled
\n in the last 5 minutes reading them the first few chapters of The
\nPrincess in Black, showing them slides of the illustrations. BTW I\u2019ve
\nnever met a boy who didn\u2019t like this book.<\/p>\n

After the presentation,
\n I signed books for the students who had pre-ordered my books (all
\ngirls), but one 3rd grade boy hung around.<\/p>\n

“Did you want to ask her a question?” a teacher asked.<\/p>\n

“Yes,” he said nervously, “but not now. I\u2019ll wait till everyone is gone.”<\/p>\n

Once
\n the other students were gone, three adults still remained. He was still
\n clearly uncomfortable that we weren\u2019t alone but his question was also
\nclearly important to him. So he leaned forward and whispered in my ear,
\n\u201cDo you have a copy of the black princess book?\u201d<\/p>\n

It broke my heart that he felt he had to whisper the question.<\/p>\n

He
\n wanted to read the rest of the book so badly and yet was so afraid what
\n others would think of him. If he read a \u201cgirl\u201d book. A book about a
\nprincess. Even a monster-fighting superhero ninja princess. He wasn\u2019t
\nborn ashamed. We made him ashamed. Ashamed to be interested in a book
\nabout a girl. About a princess\u2014the most \u201cgirlie\u201d of girls.<\/p>\n

I wish
\n I\u2019d had a copy of The Princess in Black to give him right then. The
\nbookstore told him they were going to donate a copy to his library. I
\nhope he\u2019s brave enough to check it out. I hope he keeps reading. I hope
\nhe changes his own story. I hope all of us can change this story. I\u2019m
\nreally rooting for a happy ending.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

shannonhale: I\u2019ve been doing school visits as part of my tour for PRINCESS ACADEMY: The Forgotten Sisters. All have been terrific\u2014great kids, great librarians. But something happened at one I want to talk about. I\u2019m not going to name the school or location because I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a problem with just one school; it\u2019s … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “No Boys Allowed: School visits as a woman writer”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[338,309],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165091"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165091\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}