When I went to apply to the Registered Nurse program at Linn-Benton Community College, I was annoyed, nay outraged, that one of the prerequisites was Psychology 215, a course I had bypassed on my way to a Bachelor of Science at Oregon State University. What an appalling mickeymouse thing to require of me! Surely taking such a course would be the most miserably tedious exercise, with nothing to teach me.
Actually, it wasn't bad at all. And I was struck by one little item especially: It seems that boys who hit puberty earlier and harder are generally well-liked by their peers, thought of as natural leaders, &c, whilke slow-to-develop boys are ostracized. Physically precocious girls, though, are regarded with suspicion, suspected of being entirely too "fast", and it is altricial girls who have the advantage.
The part that interested me most in this finding is that these well-regarded figures, the manly boy and the girlish young woman, are the classic hero and heroine, respectively, of books aimed at the pre-teen market. This isn't the first time that I've noticed social conventions and presumptions being reflected in fiction, not by any means, but it's a new example to me.
I also can't think of any characters who directly contradict it, although I do recall that the physical development of Ada Bauer in Peni R. Griffin's Switching Well was very gently touched upon, perhaps deliberately. Since Peni reads this blog, perhaps she would care to comment.
Addendum: If you hav trouble with the Ada Bauer link above, try this one or this one or this one.
And by the way, Peni: I really like the cover of the Puffin edition -- finally, an exciting image that gives some hint of the contents.
2 comments:
Is this the passage to which you refer?
"You wear a bra yet?"
"A what?"
"You know, a bra. For your bazooms." Violet held up a flimsy contraption of straps and cloth, and looked critically at Ada's chest. "Yeah, you better."
I was not implying anything particular about Ada's stage of development here. Since Violet is expecting to loan Ada the necessary items of clothing, and doesn't see fit to comment further, the modern shelter-living black girl and the 19th-century well-fed German girl can be presumed to be in a comparable state of physical development.
One of my more-or-less conscious themes in writing Switching Well was the differences in degree of maturity in different aspects between the modern characters and the 19th century characters (Violet and Amber cheerfully break rules and manipulate systems in ways that don't even occur to Ada; but too-trusting Ada can cook and is not disturbed by the idea of mice, as the streetwise Violet is), so feel free to interpret this detail as you see fit within that framework.
As for the mature hero/girlish heroine setup, I think you'll find on examination that this stereotype is only one of many and is often subtly undercut. Much will depend on whether you're reading juvenile literature or juvenile formula fiction. The former functions exactly like adult literature in that the author is trying to create three-dimensional characters to function in her story. When writing a story, you work - largely subconsciously - with your experience of individuals, which is naturally filtered through the expectations made in your society, and what you wind up with will depend partly on the reality you live in and partly on the reality you wish to create. In juvenile literature, you have the additional factor that, far more often than in adult literature, the author or the author's editors may wish to actively role model what people should be like. For instance, my protagonists tend to be pragmatists who, however unlikely and upsetting their situations may be, knuckle down and work with what they've got.
In formula fiction, you do indeed get unadulterated stereotypes in their raw, primal form - but even these are interesting and complex, for most of us carry conflicting stereotypes. For instance, brunettes are evil and smart and blondes are innocent and dumb - BUT, brunettes are also shy sweet overlooked girls and blondes are conceited Queen Bees who subtly torment the brunettes and manipulate the jocks and adults mercilessly. You can usually guess, by which stereotype is in use in a maltshop romance by a woman, what hair color she happened to be born with. The Queen Bee/Cheerleader stereotype may also be positive or negative, depending on whether the viewpoint character (and by implication the reader and the author) is an Insider or an Outsider.
Even when it's simple - it's not simple enough to be boring or monolithic.
BTW - although I applaud the attempt to give Laraine Barker's website more traffic, following the link through my broadband at work ran into difficulties. It took three tries to load enough of the page to get down to where she talks about my books. If this is not just a glitch at my end, you might want to choose another link.
Yes, that was the scene I was thinking of. When I first read the scene, I assumed it was merely an opportunity to point out yet another instance of the 20th Century being different from the 19th, but the scene came back to my mind when my class covered the issue of early vs. late puberty.
As for the difficult link to Laraine Barker's site, I had trouble connecting also. I'll add a second link, to her front page, and see if that one goes faster.
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