How society misreads boys

DEBBIE JACOB

WHEN I worked as a librarian and an English teacher at the International School of Port of Spain (ISPS) and the Youth Training Centre (YTC) I never had a problem getting boys to read. The books that boys loved constantly shocked me. The boys all settled comfortably into books with female protagonists and often enjoyed those books more than the girls in the class.

At both ISPS and YTC, the boys’ favourite classic was Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë because of how it handled conflict and relationships. In ISPS, some boys said their favourite book for the year was Wide Sargasso Sea, the prequel to Jane Eyre, by Dominican writer Jean Rhys, because they could compare Rochester’s story with his first wife’s story. The mystery of Antoinette Rochester, hidden away in the attack in Jane Eyre, and understanding how culture affects relationships hooked them.

When I started a Big Book Club, literally meant to tackle books over 1,000 pages, six girls and nine boys joined me in strategising how to read long books. They chose Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, the story of a spoiled, rich southern girl living through the American Civil War. All the girls dropped out of the book club. The boys finished the book, making a study of Rhett Butler’s popularity and his treatment of women.

In Grade 5, the US equivalent to Standard 5, The Seventh Wish by Kate Messner appealed to all students. It told the story of a girl who loved dancing. Her parents put all of their energy into an older daughter, who got hooked on illegal drugs in university. All the students knew someone addicted to drugs and said their parents didn’t speak about it. They needed to understand drug addiction and how it affected people.

And still I was shocked to find how much boys loved the novel Doll Bones by Holly Black. This story of a boy who leaves his group of all-girl friends when his father insists he is too old to participate in their favourite pastime, playing with figurines, had boys in my library class questioning who decides when it is time for you to change.

I bet secondary school boys would enjoy Monique Roffey’s books Passiontide and The Mermaid of Black Conch. The initial hook would be the element of mystery, followed by what they discover about women.

My daughter, Ijanaya Smith, a school librarian in Antwerp, Belgium, recently used Kate Messner’s book Chirp in her library class. It’s a story about friendship, finding your voice and speaking out against injustice. The protagonists are girls, but boys loved this book.

“Boys felt uncomfortable confronting issues about sexual assault, but they were always interested in hearing more about it. The story engaged both sexes as it was about eating bugs, which boys love, and women’s rights, which girls love.

Goodbye Stranger by Rebecca Stead resonated with my students and Ijanaya too. It dealt with the consequences of inappropriate pictures posted on the internet.

Ijanaya said, “I think boys need to read books with girls as protagonists to develop empathy with women.”

Are you getting the picture? If we want boys and men to know how to behave around women, then we need to provide them with books that explore or confront women’s issues.

In a story entitled What Are We Teaching Boys When We Discourage Them from Reading Books About Girls? that appeared in the Washington Post on October 10, 2018, author Sharon Hale asked, “What are we teaching boys when we discourage them from reading books about girls?”

Society teaches children that girls can enjoy any book they want, but boys should not like books about girls. These are the books that teach boys empathy, compassion, facing emotions, the repercussions of domestic violence and femicide.

Hale says when she asks boys what kinds of books they like, they say, “fantasy, funny, comics, mystery, non-fiction, etc. No kid has ever said, ‘I like books about boys.’ Yet booksellers tell me that parents shop for their sons as if books have gender: “I need a boy book. He won’t read anything about a girl.”

Hale wonders, “What happens to a boy who is taught he should be ashamed of reading a book about a girl? For feeling empathy for a girl? For trying to understand how she feels? For caring about her? What kind of a man does that boy grow up to be?”

Look around, and you’ll have no problem answering that question.