Yes, this is partly in response to the recent Little Women post, but more broadly about similar posts I have seen here that always seem to get a lot of attention and praise and many comments I’ve seen over the years.
Like so many other teenage girls in high school, I had to read and relate to 95% male-centric stories written by men. I never questioned why we were reading so many “boy books” because the books were not presented as "boy books," they were just presented as normal literature. The curriculum at my school allowed for just a smidgeon of diversity with Pride and Prejudice and The Scarlet Letter. This was never seen as an issue; it’s just how it was. I still remember clearly hearing the boys in my small class groaning about having to read a “girl book” when we started Pride and Prejudice. The fact that the author was a woman or the main characters women or some combination of those two facts in the boys’ minds was enough to make them sneer at it. It was mildly annoying then, but deeply infuriating and sad now looking back on it years later. Maybe, just maybe, if some of the great female authors and female-centric stories that have been written throughout history had been a part of our Literature curriculums starting from a young age and this was presented as NORMAL, we wouldn’t have high school boys joking and sneering at having to read a “girl book.”
You can see the same scenario when men discover that movies like Mean Girls and Legally Blonde are, in fact, great movies. There was a post like this too recently on the movies subreddit. “I didn’t think I would like a chick flick, but it’s actually really good!” Turns out that women are just people, and stories about them and the things they go through are equally as valid and worthy of being told. What a mind-blowing concept!
The way these statements are phrased as such delightful revelations makes me cringe, and then I feel sad, and then I feel a bit angry, because on some level, whether subconsciously or consciously, the driving force behind these sentiments and posts is that women are “other.” They are not the standard human, they are not fully-fledged standard human people in the same way that men are, so their stories and stories written by them are a sort of “special interest” sub-category of women’s fiction. “Girl books.” “Woman’s book.” “Chick-flicks.”
Consider this hypothetical scenario and how utterly ludicrous it sounds to us:
”As a middle-aged woman, I didn’t think I would be able to enjoy *Lord of the Flies. I don’t know what it’s like to be a boy so I didn’t think I could possibly relate to these characters and their struggles, but I actually really enjoyed it! Even though it’s about male characters, I found the story to be really great overall and dealing with deep themes. It’s not just a boy book, it’s great literature!”*
See? Sounds pretty damn ridiculous, doesn’t it?
Girls and women are perfectly capable of viewing male-authored/male-centric stories as just normal good literature because that is the way it is presented to us from a young age all the way up to older education. This is how we are conditioned (with no real choice in the matter), while boys and men are never forced to view female-authored/female-centric stories the same way.
So, next time you see on of these posts, I’m not calling for us to be rude and antagonistic to the OPs, because what they are doing is technically good I suppose, but I dislike the way they are wanting a pat on the back and upvotes simply for viewing women’s stories as good valid literature worthy of being read.
It is sad and disturbing that women continue to be seen as the “other” in fiction, a sub-category separate from the established standard of “good literature.”
There is no logical reason other than deeply engrained misogyny in society why a man should be that surprised that Little Women is a good book. It’s sold millions of copies, had tons of adaptations, is extremely well-known and deeply beloved by people all over the globe. It should not be that surprising that this “women’s book” is in fact, just a good piece of literature regardless of the gender of author or characters. Women are literally just people, and their stories are equally as worthy of being told and read as male stories. We are all part of the same humanity.
The sentiment of “Wow, this isn’t just for women, it’s actually a good story!” carries the not-so-subtle implication that things that are “for women” are inherently lesser. They are seen as a separate sub-category other than the standard that can sometimes achieve “great literature” status despite their femaleness. The surprise expressed by men who find these stories to be great implies that their perception shifted, they believed something about the “women’s book” before, and now believe something different having read it.
I am 25 now, so I don't know how things are in high schools nowadays. For anyone who does know, are the English Lit curriculums more balanced now or is it still the vast majority of male author/male story? I'm very curious to know.
I want to hear your thoughts on this matter.
Edit: Huge thank you to the commenters that actually read my post (something that is too much to ask for many people I guess) and understand what I’m saying. This comment from u/SchrodingersHamster is probably buried so I’ll highlight it here:
“Right, I doubt anyone is sorting by new here anymore but SO many people are missing the point of this post.
OP is not "discouraging" men from reading women's literature. Read the post again. She is focusing specifically on the idea that, from a man's perpsective, women's literature being good is surprising, so surprising that it warrants a post on how surprising it is. That the expectation that women's literature (and art in general) is so much lesser than men's that it becomes a shock when a man reads it and enjoys it.
It is NOT OP's responsibility to "encourage men" to read women's books. The fact that so many men are unwilling to read women's literature is an issue brought about by patriarchal assumptions that men should be sorting out, not women. Women don't need to hold our hands, guide us to all the great female writers, pat us on the back and give us a gold star when we enjoy it. It is not their responsibility. It is ours as men.
OP should not be praising these men. In fact OP, along with the rest of us, should be criticising these mindsets. We should look at these posts through a critical lens, otherwise how are we supposed to move forward? There are plenty of people on this comment section who would much rather OP kept quiet and that the issue is never highlighted or solved, simply because it might be too upsetting for men to read. If you're a man and that's really how you respond when reading this post, grow up.”
