Excellent video! I'm a teen boy and aspiring author, and even though I've grown up in a very inclusive household, there have been plenty or times outside of said household that I've felt shamed, usually unconsciously, for any potential or realized interest in media made "for girls."
@@byronlopezellington8839 Ugh, I'm really sorry to hear that. I know most people probably don't mean harm when they make those comments - but it still really sucks!
@@MichelleSchustermanAuthor It's not even the kind of comments you talk about in the video a lot of the time tbh. A large portion of it is just my subconscious responding to small things I saw or heard when I was very young. Like when I was really little I watched a lot of Go Diego Go *and* Dora the Explorer, and I have a distinct memory of being in 1st or 2nd grade and hearing some other boys talk about how it was weird to like Dora, and of course that made me feel bad at the time. So it's mostly stuff like that where the feelings have stuck around, even though I now know rationally that it's nonsense. (Actually, I even knew back then - my mom recently reminded me of how when I was tiny I would frequently remark that it was stupid to categorize colors into "boy colors" and "girl colors." But people's words still had an affect nonetheless because of course they did, I was a little child.)
@@byronlopezellington8839 Absolutely. And I love that you saw how ridiculous the gender-color thing was as a kid! Every time I see stuff like shampoo packaged in pink for women, black for men, I'm like...really, is this necessary??
This video made me cry. 😭 Storytime! When my boyfriend’s son was 8 or 9, he loved Moana. He told his mother this, and she told him, “That’s a girl movie.” My boyfriend said, “Do you like the movie?” His son said yes, and he asked, “Are you a girl?” “No.” “Then it’s not a girl movie.” We explained movies are just movies, colors are just colors, etc.
AHHH! Okay first of all, Pixar is for EVERYONE. And second of all, I'm so glad he had you and your boyfriend to explain all of this right afterwards. Oof, this one hit me in the gut. :(
This is crazy and makes me a little sad inside lol. It's interesting how it's not just books about girls, but books written by girls. When I was researching publishing and pen names and genre when I first started out a few years ago, I read and heard a lot of people say that if you wanted to write books targeted at men and boys, you should pick a gender neutral or masculine sounding pen name. This because men and boys would be less likely to pick up a book written by a girl... It's bizarre to me
Yep, that's the reason a lot of women use initials instead of first names. What's really wild is that it's started to flip. Since Gone Girl came out and the 'domestic thriller' because a huge genre, there have been a few cases of male authors using initials or female pen names because they (or maybe their publishers) thought it would help sales. It's all so bizarre! Most readers don't care about the author's identity so long as they can write a good story.
@@MichelleSchustermanAuthor @Michelle Schusterman that's interesting! I've heard of men using initials or feminine names when writing romance but I didn't know about that happening in domestic thriller. I agree, if anyone cares about gender in their authors it's cause society told them they should. But most just want a good reading experience!
I have a gender neutral name and it has been commented upon that this will be an advantage for me in publishing. It's a sad reality that is (hopefully) changing.
I loved that the boys in your writing workshop came to those conclusions on their own, its always nice to see young writers grow! And yeah those words from the bookshop manager would haunt me too!
I feel you. I used to work in a clothing store. Among other things we sold brightly colored scarves and beanies for kids. One day a woman with a little boy walked in. The kid was maybe 3 or 4 years old. The mother asked the son what color of beany he wanted and he, without hesitation and with bright eyes, picked a raspberry colored one. The mother looked at him and said with real disgust in her voice: "No, you can't have that. That's for giiiiiiiirls." Which made the boy drop the beany like it was hot. I didn't even know what to say.
Great video! As a teen boy myself trying to write a book with a female protagonist I really appreciated your remarks on the subject. I have had some conflicts with this whole boys-shouldn’t-write-girls ideology in the past. I took a creative writing class back in 7th grade and we were tasked to write a fantasy short story. I remember we had to do group discussions and share our ideas with our table group and when I shared that my protagonist was a girl I could just feel their judgment. Even the teacher looked at me a bit weird when we spoke one on one. But no one batted an eye when we did our Sci-fi short stories and I had a male protagonist. It did put me down for a bit but I’ve realized it shouldn’t matter what gender the author is as long as they can tell a great story. I don’t tend to comment much but just thought I’d share my experience and thank you again for this video!
Thank you so much for sharing this, Dan! I'm really sorry you had that experience in your writing class. I've had kids decide their main character was going to be a talking piece of pizza and no one batted an eye - it's so bizarre that teachers would react that when a boy writes about a girl. So cool that you're working on a book, btw - good luck and keep me posted on your progress!!
As a bookstore employee, I've seen this belief manifest itself in the form of customers looking for books for their nephews/grandsons a million times. For example, I remember this one time a mother was asking for book recommendations for her young son so I suggested this middle grade novel for kids with lots of quirky characters and action that I had also personally enjoyed (and that was also a bestseller, mind you). She turned it down because the protagonist was a girl and my heart broke. The worst part is that now Ive become hesitant to recommend people books that center girls for their male relatives because they always ask for another one instead. Ill keep trying because Im aware I play a significant role in this whole thing as a bookseller but its rly depressing when Im reminded of this bullshit (esp as a girl who was never asked why she liked books with male protagonists asa kid)
Ugh, that's terrible. I saw the same kind of thing happen ages ago when I worked at B&N. And yup, weirdly it never happens to girls who pick up books about boys.
Thank you so much for another great video! I actually think the hobby of reading as a whole is "for girls" in a way too! I remember growing up and being encouraged to read a lot, but my younger brothers were always encouraged to go outside and play instead. As if reading is somehow a passive hobby, and that boys need to be active. I know a lot of my bookworm friends had similar experiences! I'm not sure it's related, but it makes me wonder! I am seething at that blog post. My heart breaks.
I participate in a yearly thing called Gal’s read (it’s a national thing I think) where volunteers go to elementary schools and read to 4th grade girls. Which is FANTASTIC. BUT- there’s also Guy’s Read. I love this program, and I love that I get to do it, but there are major discrepancies in the groups. The guys end up getting a nice little party at the end, and the girls get a book mark or a bracelet and are sent on their way. And typically the stories that are ready are from the POV of the group they are being read to, with very few instances of that being different. It’s a fantastic program, but there are definitely some things that needs to be changed because they create this sort of dynamic that you talk about. I have a friend on the council who is desperately trying to change it up so it’s more equal but it’s been a looooooong fight.
Oh wow, this is so interesting, Anna! I definitely see what you mean - sounds like this is all great intentions, but maybe a little analyzation/adjustment would help. Keep me posted - it's awesome that you and your friend are working to change stuff like this!
Excellent (and very though provoking) discussion. Wow...The tie to rape culture really sent it home for me. Toxic masculinity for 3000, Alex? I'm going to share this on my blog. Take care.
I can only remember reading books about boys and animals that were boys growing up. My initial thought was “i only enjoyed books about boys too” but then i realized I probably wasn’t introduced to girl main characters in books until earliest high school or college. Today, i am 36, and some of my all time favorite books have female leads. When i play video games, I exclusively pick female main characters. I might be in the minority of men that are drawn to strong female leads, but i love them, and I don’t think i was given the opportunity to be introduced to strong female leads until i was an adult or close to.
What a great video. I relate! I write a book series about a Jewish girl (who is engaged very much in her culture).But the books really could be enjoyed by anyone... just like books about any other cultural group. I once saw one my books in the religion section at Barnes and Noble-- not the children's section.🤨 That sends a terrible message-- like non Jewish kids aren't interested in reading about Jewish kids (just like you said in your video.) It's always bothered me.
Ahh Elana, that is such a perfect example of this kind of nonsense. I've always found the way B&N has special shelves for certain experiences baffling. I think the intent is probably good - to highlight those books, give them a special, easy to find place? - but it's also implying that those stories don't belong with 'normal' fiction (and what is 'normal,' anyway???).
I worked in book retail for several years. I know that this is how it is - and it breaks. My. Heart. All these stupid perpetual gender myths society keeps rewriting and cementing make me so angry. But I love those boys from your class. Kids are so much more than most grown-ups give them credit for. I really hope they can carry their heart and instinct and openness into adulthood and become men in the true sense of the word. Not narrowminded macho-idiots. Thank you for writing books and giving workshops to young human beings - whatever their race, sex, gender or religion might be!... °_°
Thank you so much, Santa! I LOVED that workshop - and really, all of my workshops. Anytime I felt down or the world just seemed like an extra hot trash fire, those kids made me feel hopeful again. They see through a lot of this stuff - stuff I never even questioned when I was their age.
Holy wow this is enraging. How the hell is this still going on? It's 2022, not 1422! The closest I've come is a review I received where the listener ('twas the audiobook version) made assumptions about me because I dared put not one, but two female protags in my post-apoc high-stakes prepper series. Add to that, one of them was Black. Add to *that*, the bad guys they ran into were white. He was highly incensed as he told me how unrealistic it was for: 1. Preppers to be women 2. Preppers to be Black 3. The bad guys in my protags' certain situations to be white, and therefore: I must be a white liberal female who hates men and Jews. (?!?!) Yes, he actually wrote that for the entire internet to see. He'd actually stopped the audiobook (that his wife was apparently enjoying listening to on their car trip) and made his wife google me and tell him whether or not I was female and white. Yes, he put this in his review, and how vindicated he was when he found out he was right. The whole atmosphere was "Women shouldn't write books about manly things, and if they dared to, 'REAL men' wouldn't read the resulting drivel." Never mind that over half of my audience was male, and rabidly enthusiastic about the stories, based on the hundreds of other reviews. I'll never doubt my choice to go with a neutral pseudonym for that genre. I can't count the number of comments I received on my FB pages from men who said they got to the end of the first book, found out I was female in the About The Author section, and were completely blown away and tickled pink - even though they admitted that if I'd used a female pen name, they wouldn't have given the book a try. That's not something that's natural; it's something that's forcibly indoctrinated. :( I can only feel sympathy for his poor wife, and wonder if she was even permitted to listen to the rest of the book.
Welp, my jaw is on the floor. WOW, that is next-level! It's baffling to me when readers have reactions this extreme. Sounds like that guy had several giant suitcases of issues he might want to unpack one day. O.O
It's really sad that this kind of nonsense is still ongoing. I certainly look forward to the day when we have equal footing, because I have no doubt that publishers also give less support to their female authors in anticipation of a halved audience.
Haaaaa yeah, I have a few storytimes about that as well...in one case, I remember a publisher asking one of their female authors who had spent years organizing her own school visits to 'help' (without pay) one of their male authors put together a presentation for the school visit tour they were sending him on, all expenses paid. Massive sigh.
"I decided to stop by the Barnes & Noble... I was hoping they'd let me sign the copies they had so they could put the cool little autographed sticker on it." Wait a minute, I know this isn't the point of the video but, like... this is a thing you can do? How did it work? Like did you go in & ask for the manager [in the least *asking-for-a-manager* voice possible]? Do you call ahead? Show them your Official Author ID Badge (we get those, right?) Sorry, great video, I totally agree with the actual points, I'm just wondering about how this all works! The actual work of Being An Author seems so opaque sometimes (all the times)!
Ha, yes! It's definitely a thing you can do. Just find your book, take it to a worker and tell them you're the author, and they'll get the little roll of stickers and you can sign stock! I always offer to show some ID but I don't think anyone's ever checked lol.
Somewhat related - In the gaming community, when a new game with a female protagonist gets announced, sometimes those games are met with the "woke" or "agenda pushing" rhetoric. I guess it comes from years of conditioning, where males were the gender of choice for video game protagonists. Personally, a game that I relate to the most, out of all the games I've played, has a female protagonist (Life is Strange) I imagine this is just archaic thinking continuing to be passed down in some families.
Yep, very true. I think there are definitely cases where shows, movies, etc are very clearly trying to be woke and it comes off as cringey and inauthentic - buuuut the mere existence of, like you said, a female protagonist is not that lol.
What I find super funny, is that if there is game where you can choose the gender of the character you play a large percentage of males will play as a female character. (although that may have something to do with how the female characters are designed in a lot of those games)
There's a known anecdote about Assassin Creed: Odyssey that the developers created the experience to be played with a female player character, but the CEO told them the game "must have an alpha male protagonist", so they added a choice between female and male.
No one needs to be pandered too. A wonderful example of a majorly female run game is the Portal series. Both the main character you play, and the main villian are women but I don't know a single guy that has an issue with that. Because the gameplay was phenomenal and GlaDOS is hilarious. That's how you do it.
I was chatting with a librarian about finding some more books by an author whose work my middle-school aged son was enjoying, and she asked if he minded reading books about girls. This had never occurred to me to be an issue but I guess it’s something she’s encountered from other parents and kids. I love that my kids are able to have a range of experiences by reading books that aren’t from ‘their’ point of view!
It makes me wonder if they think boys won't want to listen to a female author talk about her book, what would they do if the author was non-binary or gender fluid but their characters aren't? Because I'm gender fluid non-binary and, for the sake of not having an insane amount of neopronouns (which I feel a lot of readers won't understand even with a little guide at the start) or too many people going by they/them and confusing people with "wait, how many characters are in this scene" (something of which I've seen people ask online when it comes to non-binary characters, like Greer in Legendborn for example. Someone asked if they were twins.🤷) I make most of my characters go by she or he for ease of reading. (Finding I write way more male main characters than female despite being afab) So based on gender or lack thereof, would they segregate the kids that way still? Or figure only LGBTQ2+ kids would be interested despite not all my stories representing that? And that conditioned to think x child won't like x character or author simply because of gender? It's freaking insane. For example, the first time I remember hearing about The Hunger Games was when the movie was coming out and this mother was talking about how the series was one that brought their family together in reading and enjoying the same thing, including her son "even though the main character is a girl". He loved the story and raved about how awesome Katniss was, not because she was a girl, or "even though" she was a girl. He just loved her as a character and the mother seemed to feel she had to add that "even though" in the her comment during the interview, as if loving Katniss for Katniss would make her son less...well, her son.😵 Sorry, rambling! Anyway, I hope your writing is going well and that the rest of your week is a good one. Thank you for the video, and the info on yet another thing to be prepared for/look out for if I get traditionally published and go on school visits or the like.
Yup, you nailed the issue - I try not to use the term 'slippery slope' too often, but I think it's needed here. If only girls go to the lady author presentations, do only Asian kids go to the Asian author presentations? Only trans kids to the trans author presentations? etc etc it's SO so dumb. Your story about the mom and "even though" is such a perfect example of how adults can shame kids without intending to. But it happens all the time and eventually they absorb the unspoken message and either hide their interests, or abandon them. Ugh. I hope you're having a great week too, K!!
Your best storytime yet! Or at least the one that makes me think the most! As a boy in middle school, I recall reading books with girl MCs and not thinking anything of it--and this was back in the 70s! Okay, so I also wasn't the most macho boy around, but, sheesh, the Gatekeepers should give boys more credit and recommend books that are good rather than books they think mirror the reader's identity.
Thank you so much!! And YES, exactly this. Why is it so hard to let kids choose the books they want to read? The gatekeeping is weird - and most kids aren't going to read a book that's forced upon them, anyway!
This little story time is one of the many reasons I love these vids! I had so many books that I was sort of shamed for loving as a younger reader. The Ramona Quimby books and the Babysitters Club books. Ugh. I loved those books but remember sneaking to the school library late in the day to check them out and sneak them into my bag because a teacher shamed me saying those books were "girls books." I love the eyes meeting "conversation." We knew exactly what you meant. My heart breaks for non-binary or trans students and immediately wonder...how would those kids be treated in these situations? In today's school board gone mad culture, do i want to know? Thank you for this!
Owwww my heart! :( Ramona and BSC were some of my favs, too. And dear god, I honestly can't imagine how teachers would handle that today with trans/nb kids. Not sure I want to know either. :/
My first book (a MG contemporary fantasy adventure) is coming out later this year and I was told that I was smart to make the main character a girl because, and I quote, "boys don't read". What?? I had heard the "boys don't read girls" argument before but never "boys don't read, period". Have you ever encountered that argument before? I mean, I don't believe it for a second but I'm wondering how pervasive it is.
Wowwwwww that's...horrible? hilarious? both? I do recall campaigns aimed at getting boys to read, and thinking to myself "but lots of boys read...and lots of girls DON'T read, and I don't see any campaigns for them...but ok"
I'm kind of worried because not only are all of my stories girl centric but they're also pretty 'girly.' Like one of my WIPs is told from the POV of a living fashion doll, it doesn't get much girlier than that. T.T
@@MichelleSchustermanAuthor moving us away from "Men are people but women are, well, women." towards "People are varied, diverse, and complicated." is a beautiful, good, and useful path. Thank You! ❤️
It's embarrassing to hear that rhetoric reinforced by adults but unfortunately, children care about gender more than we think. Especially by middle school. I'm not a teacher, but I've done camp counseling for 5th and 6th graders and the amount of gender segregation that exists between that age is already noticeable. During free time, the boys would play football and basketball outdoors while the girls did crafts and played on their phone indoors. No amount of encouraging the girls to go outside worked and after a while I just let them form their own little factions lol. Obviously, those beliefs don't come from thin air. They are picked up from family, peers, media, and more. But I do think writers who want their work to be marketed primarily (or even just equally) toward boys have to be mindful of those things. Anyone can buy Old Spice, but who does?
That last sentence cracked me up! Yup, there are lots of boys who like 'typical' boy stuff, and ditto girls. I don't think adults should force activities (or books) on them, for sure. "I just let them form their own little factions" - exactly! And I'm sure if a girl had wanted to play basketball or if a boy wanted to do crafts, that would've been cool too. In the case of this bookseller I interacted with, I wouldn't want her to necessarily try and shove my 'girl' book in the hands of every boy who walked into B&N. But if one did pick my book up, and she took the book out of his hands and said "that's a girl book, try this book instead," that's when I have an issue. (When I briefly worked at a B&N a million years ago, I witnessed a mom do that to her kid and almost fell over.)
Hi Michelle. There is an aspect that you didn't mention; it's the age of the the girls/boys. Middle grade is either higher or lower. !0 year old boys don't read books about girls in general because there is a general feeling of embarrassment around girls. It's something that they grow out of when they hit puberty at 11. If you write lower middle grade you're aiming at those kids. I remember being 10 and although girls would feature in some of the books I read books that were chiefly centered around boys. When puberty sttikes, The embarrassment stops and girls become an interest. Girls hit puberty earlier and don't have t he same barriers that boys have. As a writer,I have to think about my target audience, My first three books are te targeted at girls aged 8--11--two written or almost written in the case of my second book and there will be a third to form a trilogy. I feel that when they;re finished and out into the world, that I must write books for boys too. the same age group for the reasons that I have given. I know that there will always be exceptions to the rule but in general younger boys don't read books about girls. It's child psychology plain an simple.
Hi John! It's been awhile since I filmed this, but in my experience as a teacher, kids read and write both about kids like them, and kids who have different life experiences than them. I'm sure a ton of young boys are more drawn to boy characters, and that's totally fine. But I've had plenty of boy students aged 10 and under who read stories about girls as well as boys. I really think it's just a matter of letting them have a choice with no judgment from us. The shaming from adults can be really subtle and unintentional, but it definitely happens. In situations like the school visit I talked about in this video, my biggest issue is with the sweeping generalities. Okay, let's say we polled that entire school and a higher percentage of girl readers wanted the Princess book than the boy readers. Cool! But...there are still going to be some girls who aren't interested, and there are still going to be some boys who ARE interested. That's why I think authors (and adults in general) should take care in how they might be messaging to kids that this book is or is not for you. We should just make all the books accessible and let the kids decide what they want to read. And this is a topic for another video, but I think there is so much more to why we relate to characters than points of identity we may or may not share with them, like gender, race, etc. I empathize with Frodo because of his struggle to do the right thing and how he ultimately succumbs. His gender has nothing to do with why I love him as a character, you know? I'm currently ghostwriting a MG series about a kid dealing with severe anxiety in a fantasy setting. I would consider my target audience to be kids experiencing a similar struggle. Whether the character is a boy or girl is irrelevant. I really believe that looking at it through this lens can help us create more dynamic characters who feel real beyond a few labels.
I hate it when adults try to pigeon hole kids and their reading or writing. If kids are reading, that's automatically a win. What I hate even more is catching myself when picking out books for my boys, wondering if they will like a book because it has a female character. I catch it and immediately buy the book anyway, but I hate that the gendering of books and toys is so deeply ingrained.
As someone finishing A Desolation Called Peace (Matriarchal Space Opera that leans heavily on sapphic & LGBTQIA) and I needed writing like this 40 years ago. Back when I enjoyed Pedro Almodóvar & Steven Soderbergh in said formative 1980’s.
I only read non fiction as fiction does nothing for me, but that said I don't care what the sex, gender or race of the author of the books I do read as long as the book in question pricks my interest.
Boys don’t want to read about Love! Full stop! I’ve got a fantasy novel coming out very soon my main character is female. On the front cover that I designed, theres a woman in her wedding dress talking to a character in a robe. Would a boy pick this book up? I don’t know? but they’ll be missing out on a cracking story.
Thank you for sharing. I myself am writing about a black female protagonist, and while I can expect sharp backlash (if this ever gets published), being a white male author, I am not writing my main character with any less dignity, respect, or love.
I've spoken to several authors with marginalized identities who have expressed this as well - ie, they are not white but chose to write a white character because they don't want their publisher to pigeonhole them as an author who basically only writes fictionalized memoirs.
As a white female writer whose also writing a black female protagonist, I concur. Mine is also a living fashion doll, so YAY! Double the pigeonholing. Definitely gonna get slapped with the "just for girls, no boys allowed" stick T.T
I have a somewhat different experience. I am a male writer and all of my lead characters tend to be female. I mainly write ya like the hunger games with a fairly strong focus on deep and all consuming friendships. I had about a 70 percent female readership based on a survey of my online readers. A creative writing teacher suggested I gender swap my lead into a boy to get a more balanced readership. Well, it backfired tremendously. Almost all of my male readership dropped my book instantly and I was left with a 95 percent female readership. Apparently, my male readers were much more willing to read about a girl who acts like a girl than a boy who fills the exact same role, so gender roles seem to have just as much to do with it as gender itself
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
I know a lot of you guys have similar story times...as an author and/or as a reader! Share your pain, I'm all ears...
Excellent video! I'm a teen boy and aspiring author, and even though I've grown up in a very inclusive household, there have been plenty or times outside of said household that I've felt shamed, usually unconsciously, for any potential or realized interest in media made "for girls."
@@byronlopezellington8839 Ugh, I'm really sorry to hear that. I know most people probably don't mean harm when they make those comments - but it still really sucks!
@@MichelleSchustermanAuthor It's not even the kind of comments you talk about in the video a lot of the time tbh. A large portion of it is just my subconscious responding to small things I saw or heard when I was very young. Like when I was really little I watched a lot of Go Diego Go *and* Dora the Explorer, and I have a distinct memory of being in 1st or 2nd grade and hearing some other boys talk about how it was weird to like Dora, and of course that made me feel bad at the time. So it's mostly stuff like that where the feelings have stuck around, even though I now know rationally that it's nonsense. (Actually, I even knew back then - my mom recently reminded me of how when I was tiny I would frequently remark that it was stupid to categorize colors into "boy colors" and "girl colors." But people's words still had an affect nonetheless because of course they did, I was a little child.)
@@byronlopezellington8839 Absolutely. And I love that you saw how ridiculous the gender-color thing was as a kid! Every time I see stuff like shampoo packaged in pink for women, black for men, I'm like...really, is this necessary??
@@MichelleSchustermanAuthor Exactly!
This video made me cry. 😭 Storytime! When my boyfriend’s son was 8 or 9, he loved Moana. He told his mother this, and she told him, “That’s a girl movie.”
My boyfriend said, “Do you like the movie?” His son said yes, and he asked, “Are you a girl?”
“No.”
“Then it’s not a girl movie.”
We explained movies are just movies, colors are just colors, etc.
AHHH! Okay first of all, Pixar is for EVERYONE. And second of all, I'm so glad he had you and your boyfriend to explain all of this right afterwards.
Oof, this one hit me in the gut. :(
This is crazy and makes me a little sad inside lol. It's interesting how it's not just books about girls, but books written by girls. When I was researching publishing and pen names and genre when I first started out a few years ago, I read and heard a lot of people say that if you wanted to write books targeted at men and boys, you should pick a gender neutral or masculine sounding pen name. This because men and boys would be less likely to pick up a book written by a girl... It's bizarre to me
Yep, that's the reason a lot of women use initials instead of first names. What's really wild is that it's started to flip. Since Gone Girl came out and the 'domestic thriller' because a huge genre, there have been a few cases of male authors using initials or female pen names because they (or maybe their publishers) thought it would help sales. It's all so bizarre! Most readers don't care about the author's identity so long as they can write a good story.
@@MichelleSchustermanAuthor @Michelle Schusterman that's interesting! I've heard of men using initials or feminine names when writing romance but I didn't know about that happening in domestic thriller. I agree, if anyone cares about gender in their authors it's cause society told them they should. But most just want a good reading experience!
I have a gender neutral name and it has been commented upon that this will be an advantage for me in publishing. It's a sad reality that is (hopefully) changing.
I loved that the boys in your writing workshop came to those conclusions on their own, its always nice to see young writers grow! And yeah those words from the bookshop manager would haunt me too!
Those kids were truly the best! :) Hope you're doing well, Joey!
I feel you. I used to work in a clothing store. Among other things we sold brightly colored scarves and beanies for kids. One day a woman with a little boy walked in. The kid was maybe 3 or 4 years old. The mother asked the son what color of beany he wanted and he, without hesitation and with bright eyes, picked a raspberry colored one. The mother looked at him and said with real disgust in her voice: "No, you can't have that. That's for giiiiiiiirls." Which made the boy drop the beany like it was hot. I didn't even know what to say.
[insert flames on the side of my face gif] WOW, I really hate that. I hate it so much.
Great video! As a teen boy myself trying to write a book with a female protagonist I really appreciated your remarks on the subject. I have had some conflicts with this whole boys-shouldn’t-write-girls ideology in the past. I took a creative writing class back in 7th grade and we were tasked to write a fantasy short story. I remember we had to do group discussions and share our ideas with our table group and when I shared that my protagonist was a girl I could just feel their judgment. Even the teacher looked at me a bit weird when we spoke one on one. But no one batted an eye when we did our Sci-fi short stories and I had a male protagonist. It did put me down for a bit but I’ve realized it shouldn’t matter what gender the author is as long as they can tell a great story. I don’t tend to comment much but just thought I’d share my experience and thank you again for this video!
Thank you so much for sharing this, Dan! I'm really sorry you had that experience in your writing class. I've had kids decide their main character was going to be a talking piece of pizza and no one batted an eye - it's so bizarre that teachers would react that when a boy writes about a girl.
So cool that you're working on a book, btw - good luck and keep me posted on your progress!!
This made me tear up. Great insight. Great video.
Thank you so much, Suil! :)
I hope this video gets spread far and wide 🧡
Thanks Anna! :)
Even just hearing such prejudice is making me smad... I respect and thank you for having this conversation in such a kind way!
It's frustrating for sure!!
I'm a guy and I prefer books with heroines. I will read books with male protagonists but I find it hard to connect to them.
As a bookstore employee, I've seen this belief manifest itself in the form of customers looking for books for their nephews/grandsons a million times. For example, I remember this one time a mother was asking for book recommendations for her young son so I suggested this middle grade novel for kids with lots of quirky characters and action that I had also personally enjoyed (and that was also a bestseller, mind you). She turned it down because the protagonist was a girl and my heart broke. The worst part is that now Ive become hesitant to recommend people books that center girls for their male relatives because they always ask for another one instead. Ill keep trying because Im aware I play a significant role in this whole thing as a bookseller but its rly depressing when Im reminded of this bullshit (esp as a girl who was never asked why she liked books with male protagonists asa kid)
Ugh, that's terrible. I saw the same kind of thing happen ages ago when I worked at B&N. And yup, weirdly it never happens to girls who pick up books about boys.
Thank you so much for another great video! I actually think the hobby of reading as a whole is "for girls" in a way too! I remember growing up and being encouraged to read a lot, but my younger brothers were always encouraged to go outside and play instead. As if reading is somehow a passive hobby, and that boys need to be active. I know a lot of my bookworm friends had similar experiences! I'm not sure it's related, but it makes me wonder! I am seething at that blog post. My heart breaks.
Thank you, Jane! :) Yup, that's such a great point. And it does such a disservice to boys and girls alike!
I participate in a yearly thing called Gal’s read (it’s a national thing I think) where volunteers go to elementary schools and read to 4th grade girls. Which is FANTASTIC. BUT- there’s also Guy’s Read. I love this program, and I love that I get to do it, but there are major discrepancies in the groups. The guys end up getting a nice little party at the end, and the girls get a book mark or a bracelet and are sent on their way. And typically the stories that are ready are from the POV of the group they are being read to, with very few instances of that being different. It’s a fantastic program, but there are definitely some things that needs to be changed because they create this sort of dynamic that you talk about. I have a friend on the council who is desperately trying to change it up so it’s more equal but it’s been a looooooong fight.
Oh wow, this is so interesting, Anna! I definitely see what you mean - sounds like this is all great intentions, but maybe a little analyzation/adjustment would help. Keep me posted - it's awesome that you and your friend are working to change stuff like this!
Excellent (and very though provoking) discussion. Wow...The tie to rape culture really sent it home for me. Toxic masculinity for 3000, Alex? I'm going to share this on my blog. Take care.
Thank you so much, I really appreciate that!! :)
I can only remember reading books about boys and animals that were boys growing up. My initial thought was “i only enjoyed books about boys too” but then i realized I probably wasn’t introduced to girl main characters in books until earliest high school or college. Today, i am 36, and some of my all time favorite books have female leads. When i play video games, I exclusively pick female main characters. I might be in the minority of men that are drawn to strong female leads, but i love them, and I don’t think i was given the opportunity to be introduced to strong female leads until i was an adult or close to.
What a great video. I relate! I write a book series about a Jewish girl (who is engaged very much in her culture).But the books really could be enjoyed by anyone... just like books about any other cultural group. I once saw one my books in the religion section at Barnes and Noble-- not the children's section.🤨 That sends a terrible message-- like non Jewish kids aren't interested in reading about Jewish kids (just like you said in your video.) It's always bothered me.
Ahh Elana, that is such a perfect example of this kind of nonsense. I've always found the way B&N has special shelves for certain experiences baffling. I think the intent is probably good - to highlight those books, give them a special, easy to find place? - but it's also implying that those stories don't belong with 'normal' fiction (and what is 'normal,' anyway???).
I wish I could upvote this a thousand times. Preach it!
Thank you!! :)
BOYS NEED TO READ BOOKS ABOUT GIRLS.... especially from the girl's point of view.
Indeed!
Why can’t it be optional? Why do boys need to do that and just real what they typically like? It’s not bad just a preference 😊
I worked in book retail for several years. I know that this is how it is - and it breaks. My. Heart. All these stupid perpetual gender myths society keeps rewriting and cementing make me so angry.
But I love those boys from your class. Kids are so much more than most grown-ups give them credit for. I really hope they can carry their heart and instinct and openness into adulthood and become men in the true sense of the word. Not narrowminded macho-idiots.
Thank you for writing books and giving workshops to young human beings - whatever their race, sex, gender or religion might be!... °_°
Thank you so much, Santa! I LOVED that workshop - and really, all of my workshops. Anytime I felt down or the world just seemed like an extra hot trash fire, those kids made me feel hopeful again. They see through a lot of this stuff - stuff I never even questioned when I was their age.
Holy wow this is enraging. How the hell is this still going on? It's 2022, not 1422!
The closest I've come is a review I received where the listener ('twas the audiobook version) made assumptions about me because I dared put not one, but two female protags in my post-apoc high-stakes prepper series. Add to that, one of them was Black. Add to *that*, the bad guys they ran into were white.
He was highly incensed as he told me how unrealistic it was for:
1. Preppers to be women
2. Preppers to be Black
3. The bad guys in my protags' certain situations to be white,
and therefore:
I must be a white liberal female who hates men and Jews. (?!?!)
Yes, he actually wrote that for the entire internet to see.
He'd actually stopped the audiobook (that his wife was apparently enjoying listening to on their car trip) and made his wife google me and tell him whether or not I was female and white. Yes, he put this in his review, and how vindicated he was when he found out he was right. The whole atmosphere was "Women shouldn't write books about manly things, and if they dared to, 'REAL men' wouldn't read the resulting drivel."
Never mind that over half of my audience was male, and rabidly enthusiastic about the stories, based on the hundreds of other reviews.
I'll never doubt my choice to go with a neutral pseudonym for that genre. I can't count the number of comments I received on my FB pages from men who said they got to the end of the first book, found out I was female in the About The Author section, and were completely blown away and tickled pink - even though they admitted that if I'd used a female pen name, they wouldn't have given the book a try.
That's not something that's natural; it's something that's forcibly indoctrinated. :(
I can only feel sympathy for his poor wife, and wonder if she was even permitted to listen to the rest of the book.
Welp, my jaw is on the floor. WOW, that is next-level! It's baffling to me when readers have reactions this extreme. Sounds like that guy had several giant suitcases of issues he might want to unpack one day. O.O
It's really sad that this kind of nonsense is still ongoing. I certainly look forward to the day when we have equal footing, because I have no doubt that publishers also give less support to their female authors in anticipation of a halved audience.
Haaaaa yeah, I have a few storytimes about that as well...in one case, I remember a publisher asking one of their female authors who had spent years organizing her own school visits to 'help' (without pay) one of their male authors put together a presentation for the school visit tour they were sending him on, all expenses paid. Massive sigh.
That ... is infuriating. My condolences to the author. 🙃
A halved audience even isn't accurate because the fiction market is 80% women. So that's just sexism.
Oh, you're absolutely correct. But people grasp at straws for justifications on it.
Imagine those teachers’ brains short circuiting if they invite Brandon Sanderson and then find out his protagonists are female 😆
Right?!?!
"I decided to stop by the Barnes & Noble... I was hoping they'd let me sign the copies they had so they could put the cool little autographed sticker on it."
Wait a minute, I know this isn't the point of the video but, like... this is a thing you can do? How did it work? Like did you go in & ask for the manager [in the least *asking-for-a-manager* voice possible]? Do you call ahead? Show them your Official Author ID Badge (we get those, right?)
Sorry, great video, I totally agree with the actual points, I'm just wondering about how this all works! The actual work of Being An Author seems so opaque sometimes (all the times)!
Ha, yes! It's definitely a thing you can do. Just find your book, take it to a worker and tell them you're the author, and they'll get the little roll of stickers and you can sign stock! I always offer to show some ID but I don't think anyone's ever checked lol.
Somewhat related - In the gaming community, when a new game with a female protagonist gets announced, sometimes those games are met with the "woke" or "agenda pushing" rhetoric. I guess it comes from years of conditioning, where males were the gender of choice for video game protagonists. Personally, a game that I relate to the most, out of all the games I've played, has a female protagonist (Life is Strange)
I imagine this is just archaic thinking continuing to be passed down in some families.
Yep, very true. I think there are definitely cases where shows, movies, etc are very clearly trying to be woke and it comes off as cringey and inauthentic - buuuut the mere existence of, like you said, a female protagonist is not that lol.
Life Is Strange is SO. GOOD.
What I find super funny, is that if there is game where you can choose the gender of the character you play a large percentage of males will play as a female character. (although that may have something to do with how the female characters are designed in a lot of those games)
There's a known anecdote about Assassin Creed: Odyssey that the developers created the experience to be played with a female player character, but the CEO told them the game "must have an alpha male protagonist", so they added a choice between female and male.
No one needs to be pandered too. A wonderful example of a majorly female run game is the Portal series. Both the main character you play, and the main villian are women but I don't know a single guy that has an issue with that. Because the gameplay was phenomenal and GlaDOS is hilarious. That's how you do it.
I love❤️❤️❤️ the style in which Ms. Schusterman articulates👍👍!!!
💃🌍🌎🌏💃!!!
Aw thank you! :)
I was chatting with a librarian about finding some more books by an author whose work my middle-school aged son was enjoying, and she asked if he minded reading books about girls. This had never occurred to me to be an issue but I guess it’s something she’s encountered from other parents and kids. I love that my kids are able to have a range of experiences by reading books that aren’t from ‘their’ point of view!
It makes me wonder if they think boys won't want to listen to a female author talk about her book, what would they do if the author was non-binary or gender fluid but their characters aren't? Because I'm gender fluid non-binary and, for the sake of not having an insane amount of neopronouns (which I feel a lot of readers won't understand even with a little guide at the start) or too many people going by they/them and confusing people with "wait, how many characters are in this scene" (something of which I've seen people ask online when it comes to non-binary characters, like Greer in Legendborn for example. Someone asked if they were twins.🤷) I make most of my characters go by she or he for ease of reading. (Finding I write way more male main characters than female despite being afab)
So based on gender or lack thereof, would they segregate the kids that way still? Or figure only LGBTQ2+ kids would be interested despite not all my stories representing that?
And that conditioned to think x child won't like x character or author simply because of gender? It's freaking insane. For example, the first time I remember hearing about The Hunger Games was when the movie was coming out and this mother was talking about how the series was one that brought their family together in reading and enjoying the same thing, including her son "even though the main character is a girl". He loved the story and raved about how awesome Katniss was, not because she was a girl, or "even though" she was a girl. He just loved her as a character and the mother seemed to feel she had to add that "even though" in the her comment during the interview, as if loving Katniss for Katniss would make her son less...well, her son.😵
Sorry, rambling! Anyway, I hope your writing is going well and that the rest of your week is a good one.
Thank you for the video, and the info on yet another thing to be prepared for/look out for if I get traditionally published and go on school visits or the like.
Yup, you nailed the issue - I try not to use the term 'slippery slope' too often, but I think it's needed here. If only girls go to the lady author presentations, do only Asian kids go to the Asian author presentations? Only trans kids to the trans author presentations? etc etc it's SO so dumb.
Your story about the mom and "even though" is such a perfect example of how adults can shame kids without intending to. But it happens all the time and eventually they absorb the unspoken message and either hide their interests, or abandon them. Ugh.
I hope you're having a great week too, K!!
As a male I can confirm that no man I have ever met is interested in reading about girls.
Your best storytime yet! Or at least the one that makes me think the most! As a boy in middle school, I recall reading books with girl MCs and not thinking anything of it--and this was back in the 70s! Okay, so I also wasn't the most macho boy around, but, sheesh, the Gatekeepers should give boys more credit and recommend books that are good rather than books they think mirror the reader's identity.
Thank you so much!! And YES, exactly this. Why is it so hard to let kids choose the books they want to read? The gatekeeping is weird - and most kids aren't going to read a book that's forced upon them, anyway!
This little story time is one of the many reasons I love these vids! I had so many books that I was sort of shamed for loving as a younger reader. The Ramona Quimby books and the Babysitters Club books. Ugh. I loved those books but remember sneaking to the school library late in the day to check them out and sneak them into my bag because a teacher shamed me saying those books were "girls books."
I love the eyes meeting "conversation." We knew exactly what you meant.
My heart breaks for non-binary or trans students and immediately wonder...how would those kids be treated in these situations? In today's school board gone mad culture, do i want to know?
Thank you for this!
Owwww my heart! :( Ramona and BSC were some of my favs, too. And dear god, I honestly can't imagine how teachers would handle that today with trans/nb kids. Not sure I want to know either. :/
This is heartbreaking.
Yup :/
My first book (a MG contemporary fantasy adventure) is coming out later this year and I was told that I was smart to make the main character a girl because, and I quote, "boys don't read". What?? I had heard the "boys don't read girls" argument before but never "boys don't read, period". Have you ever encountered that argument before? I mean, I don't believe it for a second but I'm wondering how pervasive it is.
Wowwwwww that's...horrible? hilarious? both? I do recall campaigns aimed at getting boys to read, and thinking to myself "but lots of boys read...and lots of girls DON'T read, and I don't see any campaigns for them...but ok"
I'm kind of worried because not only are all of my stories girl centric but they're also pretty 'girly.' Like one of my WIPs is told from the POV of a living fashion doll, it doesn't get much girlier than that. T.T
Thank You! ❤️
Posting on Facebook...
Thank you so much, Don! I really appreciate that! :)
@@MichelleSchustermanAuthor moving us away from "Men are people but women are, well, women." towards "People are varied, diverse, and complicated." is a beautiful, good, and useful path.
Thank You! ❤️
It's embarrassing to hear that rhetoric reinforced by adults but unfortunately, children care about gender more than we think. Especially by middle school. I'm not a teacher, but I've done camp counseling for 5th and 6th graders and the amount of gender segregation that exists between that age is already noticeable. During free time, the boys would play football and basketball outdoors while the girls did crafts and played on their phone indoors. No amount of encouraging the girls to go outside worked and after a while I just let them form their own little factions lol.
Obviously, those beliefs don't come from thin air. They are picked up from family, peers, media, and more. But I do think writers who want their work to be marketed primarily (or even just equally) toward boys have to be mindful of those things. Anyone can buy Old Spice, but who does?
That last sentence cracked me up! Yup, there are lots of boys who like 'typical' boy stuff, and ditto girls. I don't think adults should force activities (or books) on them, for sure. "I just let them form their own little factions" - exactly! And I'm sure if a girl had wanted to play basketball or if a boy wanted to do crafts, that would've been cool too. In the case of this bookseller I interacted with, I wouldn't want her to necessarily try and shove my 'girl' book in the hands of every boy who walked into B&N. But if one did pick my book up, and she took the book out of his hands and said "that's a girl book, try this book instead," that's when I have an issue. (When I briefly worked at a B&N a million years ago, I witnessed a mom do that to her kid and almost fell over.)
Hi Michelle. There is an aspect that you didn't mention; it's the age of the the girls/boys. Middle grade is either higher or lower. !0 year old boys don't read books about girls in general because there is a general feeling of embarrassment around girls. It's something that they grow out of when they hit puberty at 11. If you write lower middle grade you're aiming at those kids. I remember being 10 and although girls would feature in some of the books I read books that were chiefly centered around boys. When puberty sttikes, The embarrassment stops and girls become an interest. Girls hit puberty earlier and don't have t he same barriers that boys have. As a writer,I have to think about my target audience, My first three books are te targeted at girls aged 8--11--two written or almost written in the case of my second book and there will be a third to form a trilogy. I feel that when they;re finished and out into the world, that I must write books for boys too. the same age group for the reasons that I have given. I know that there will always be exceptions to the rule but in general younger boys don't read books about girls. It's child psychology plain an simple.
Hi John! It's been awhile since I filmed this, but in my experience as a teacher, kids read and write both about kids like them, and kids who have different life experiences than them. I'm sure a ton of young boys are more drawn to boy characters, and that's totally fine. But I've had plenty of boy students aged 10 and under who read stories about girls as well as boys. I really think it's just a matter of letting them have a choice with no judgment from us. The shaming from adults can be really subtle and unintentional, but it definitely happens. In situations like the school visit I talked about in this video, my biggest issue is with the sweeping generalities. Okay, let's say we polled that entire school and a higher percentage of girl readers wanted the Princess book than the boy readers. Cool! But...there are still going to be some girls who aren't interested, and there are still going to be some boys who ARE interested. That's why I think authors (and adults in general) should take care in how they might be messaging to kids that this book is or is not for you. We should just make all the books accessible and let the kids decide what they want to read.
And this is a topic for another video, but I think there is so much more to why we relate to characters than points of identity we may or may not share with them, like gender, race, etc. I empathize with Frodo because of his struggle to do the right thing and how he ultimately succumbs. His gender has nothing to do with why I love him as a character, you know? I'm currently ghostwriting a MG series about a kid dealing with severe anxiety in a fantasy setting. I would consider my target audience to be kids experiencing a similar struggle. Whether the character is a boy or girl is irrelevant. I really believe that looking at it through this lens can help us create more dynamic characters who feel real beyond a few labels.
I hate it when adults try to pigeon hole kids and their reading or writing. If kids are reading, that's automatically a win. What I hate even more is catching myself when picking out books for my boys, wondering if they will like a book because it has a female character. I catch it and immediately buy the book anyway, but I hate that the gendering of books and toys is so deeply ingrained.
It's SO ingrained! I find myself checking thoughts like that sometimes as well.
As someone finishing A Desolation Called Peace (Matriarchal Space Opera that leans heavily on sapphic & LGBTQIA) and I needed writing like this 40 years ago. Back when I enjoyed Pedro Almodóvar & Steven Soderbergh in said formative 1980’s.
Absolutely!! (And thank you for watching, Charles!)
Here for you @@MichelleSchustermanAuthor , you and Diane (Quotidian Writer) have been like canyons guiding the chaos of my River mind.
Little Red Wolf by Paul William Schumacher is almost ALL female main characters. Most of my favorite books have female main characters.
Meanwhile, almost all my favourite books are about women lmaoooo shout out to Jane Eyre and the March sisters
I only read non fiction as fiction does nothing for me, but that said I don't care what the sex, gender or race of the author of the books I do read as long as the book in question pricks my interest.
Boys don’t want to read about Love! Full stop! I’ve got a fantasy novel coming out very soon my main character is female. On the front cover that I designed, theres a woman in her wedding dress talking to a character in a robe. Would a boy pick this book up? I don’t know? but they’ll be missing out on a cracking story.
Thank you for sharing. I myself am writing about a black female protagonist, and while I can expect sharp backlash (if this ever gets published), being a white male author, I am not writing my main character with any less dignity, respect, or love.
I've spoken to several authors with marginalized identities who have expressed this as well - ie, they are not white but chose to write a white character because they don't want their publisher to pigeonhole them as an author who basically only writes fictionalized memoirs.
@@MichelleSchustermanAuthor Pigeonholing-that's exactly it!
As a white female writer whose also writing a black female protagonist, I concur. Mine is also a living fashion doll, so YAY! Double the pigeonholing. Definitely gonna get slapped with the "just for girls, no boys allowed" stick T.T
I have a somewhat different experience. I am a male writer and all of my lead characters tend to be female. I mainly write ya like the hunger games with a fairly strong focus on deep and all consuming friendships. I had about a 70 percent female readership based on a survey of my online readers. A creative writing teacher suggested I gender swap my lead into a boy to get a more balanced readership. Well, it backfired tremendously. Almost all of my male readership dropped my book instantly and I was left with a 95 percent female readership. Apparently, my male readers were much more willing to read about a girl who acts like a girl than a boy who fills the exact same role, so gender roles seem to have just as much to do with it as gender itself
loved this video!!!!
Thank you Regina!! :)
I think boys should read stories with girl main characters it's important to understand different perspectives 😊
Two thumbs up.
Thanks David! :)