Just like a toy store, as you walk into a bookstore, you would find shelves of pretty barbie pink books and other shelves of books with the blues, blacks, greens, reds etc.
If you have not guessed till now, the first shelf is for Girls, and second for Boys. First, one contains books like Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Beauty and The Beast, etc, while the second consists of Spiderman, Batman, Carz, Tarzan etc.
Now I do not understand this, as all the books that came in my house were read by both me and bro, be it Rapunzel or Tarzan. Now, as we developed our own tastes, our book preferences differ, but at that time, it was always a competition on who would complete the story faster.
This trend of gender policing books for kids as young as three or four is quite disturbing. Little girls are just left to being princesses waiting for their prince charming while little boys have a wider range of choices from saving the country to exploring the jungles.
But are these expectations ‘normal’? Who decided that girls like only princesses? And that too, only those who dress “pretty in pink”?
What about a little girl who likes, say, black colour or would like to read about adventure, would she have to shop in boys collection? Since when personal preferences are defined by gender? What does it say about our society if boys as young as four or five starts to be embarrassed to be seen reading anything “girly”? Since when did “girly” become something to be embarrassed about? What is the worst thing that would happen if a boy reads about Cinderella and a girl reads Batman?
I came across this picture on facebook:
Why do we train girls to be dependent on boys, and then crib about how boys have to work hard to provide?
Why cannot we teach girls that they are Heros of their lives, just as boys are heroes of theirs? That instead of waiting in the tower for prince charming to rescue them, they can slay the dragons and go on an excellent adventure themselves?
While I am not saying that Princess Books are bad, but I am saying that they should be treated like a genre of the kids book, and BOTH girls and guys could read them as well as other books without facing any societal pressure of being called girly or a tomboy.
Are Prince Charmings really all that charming in real life?
Take a look at this video, which shows what would happen if prince charmings were real.
There and Their 