The power of gender indication in story books

 Apr. 6th 2022

2 books about friendship and being kind, today's storytime for my daughter's TK class. Both are on the list of my favorites. Both of them have leading characters in all male forms.

While obviously, I can't change the gender of the alien boy and the Earth boy, I was able to change the gender of the leading character Giraffe into a girl hero who saved the boy Crocodile. 

Pretty sure if I read as what the books printed - all major roles as boys, the girls in the class would unconsciously take home the cognition that females are way less relevant in all storytellings. 

Why? Because they truly love the stories and would remember them for a long long time, because the stories taught them to be open-minded, to be kind, and friendly. 

Can you understand now why we say women from birth to adulthood face subtle gender discrimination in all aspects and the strikes on their self-worth come from all sorts of overlooked details? 

And the efforts to undermine that foundation so women could rewrite their fate to be unapologetically worthy as men, if allowed, should be enduring and earnest. 

 Apr. 4th 

After finishing their art project, a little time left for the table to read a book. They wanted me to so I started reading. 3 girls listened together with me reading out loud. "The hungry little caterpillar". 

"He was this, he was that, he did that, he did this..." after a few pages I felt bad because good picture stories have been largely stories about "He". 

If there was a "She" at the center of the story, most probably a cute pretty princess or unicorn. Especially so with the old picture books in the classroom, donated a long time ago. 

So I said, "hmmm, you know what, caterpillar could be a girl too, there are boy and girl caterpillars both." Then I changed all "he" into "she". The 3 girls instantly lighted up, as if they were suddenly relevant. "She was not little anymore, she became a fat and big caterpillar!" The girls all giggled. 

On the last page, "she" turned into a beautiful butterfly, "how beautiful she is right? You are too, as beautiful as this butterfly!" I believe the girls would now believe in it, much more than when the story was about a "he" caterpillar.