Patronized at my own house...

[ydnic]

So, not very long ago, I was sitting at the table in my dining room...a table which, I might add, got brought to the house in my former pick-up truck. Said table sits right next to shelves crammed full of my books--shelves which are topped by a collection of steampunk guns, which are 90% mine. All that is not to digress from the subject, it is to

Comments

[ydnic]

I really did get the feeling that I was just supposed to sit there and be a good little girl and nod and say, "Ah, yes, a boy's book. I shall just head upstairs back to my fainting couch and embroidery now."

If the subject comes up again (which it will not, of course, because I've put those two folks firmly in the Sexist File), I'm going to tell them that Ernest Hemingway didn't like the book either. :P

[dandelion_diva]

How ridiculous. And while it's a book about a boy, it isn't a *boy book*. Good lord.

[ydnic]

Sadly, this is the second time in recent months that this particular person has disappointed me with their opinions. Oh well. :(

[crystalgee]

Wow, words fail me about the ignorance of those two people. My mother read Tarzan stories when she was a child and years later gave birth to five daughters-so suffice to say she's female.

I think the adventures as well as the locales held my mother's interest.
I know it sounds so simple but people like what they like. I listen to punk but I also attend symphony events. Why should someone be put in a box?
Sorry to ramble and so sorry about that BS you encountered.

[ydnic]

I, too, read all sorts of different books when young. AND I enjoyed comics, as well...I was a geek way back when, with a huge stack of DC comics, and a Star Trek outfit that I constructed myself. My mom did not attempt to foist girly-girl stuff on me until later, which I appreciated. Boxes are for moving and shipping :)

[miintikwa]

Playing Devil's advocate, since I don't know the people involved (though I know you, and I snort at the idea that you wouldn't like books aimed at male-gendered people):

*If* that was shorthand for "that is a book aimed at boys, and thus you may have read it at the wrong time in your life, or may not have enjoyed the male-gender fantasies that are wound throughout the book" then that's one thing, and that's a somewhat-acceptable conversation opener. (At which point you can say "well, I enjoy [these things] that boys like, but I found [disturbing bits of Huck Finn] problematic, and that's why I didn't enjoy it."

However, if that was a dismissive "well, that's a book that I enjoyed because of my mighty PENIS," then fuck that guy.

[ydnic]

If, indeed, the gentleman in question had been attempting to start a polite conversation, I would have gone right along with it...and I did attempt to do so. But, sadly, the 'boy book' nonsense was simply repeated and then echoed, as if it was a pronouncement from On High. That stuff doesn't go over well with me.

I've concluded that this person is an official Old Fart, whose opinions have now been rendered irrelevant to me, which is somewhat of a bummer, but he did it to himself.

[miintikwa]

So sad. There seems to be way too much of the Old Fart syndrome going around.

[bheansidhe]

I literally cannot describe to you what went through my head when I first saw "The Dangerous Book for Boys" in the bookstore, flipped through it, and realized it contained every single fact or skill that I wished I was taught as a child but got Girl Scouts instead.

Though you probably know.

[ydnic]

Indeed. I recall noting that the 1970s version of the Girl Scout Handbook was incredibly watered down from the 50s/60s versions (which I'd found at garage sales). I can only imagine how bland it is now.

And there was a sequel to The Dangerous Book, although apparently girls are supposed to be merely 'daring' and not 'dangerous'....;/

[bheansidhe]

Yes. Girls are merely daring; also, pink, fluffy, full of glitter, and not interested in science. I looked at that sequel. It was only released (by a different author) because there was so much indignant outcry over the first book.