The space that used to belong only to men grows ever smaller.
However, the statistics about who is portrayed in the media as knowledgeable “talking heads,” about who is credited with writing the most influential books and who gets bylines in the most respected intellectual magazines seem to change very little.
In a year that saw new books by Margaret Atwood, Louise Erdrich, Alice Munro, Jayne Anne Phillips, Helen Benedict and Barbara Ehrenreich, Publishers Weekly, or PW, came out with a list of top 10 books that was all male. —Caryl Rivers
My 7yo daughter has a fiery personality, and while she feels the pull of Disney princess stories, she loves adventure stories. It’s much easier to dress up and play Indiana Jones or Luke Skywalker than it is to dress up and play Marian Ravenwood or Princess Leia, and she goes through phases where she says she wishes she were a boy, which I find very sad. After I read her a few chapters of Anne of Green Gables, she asked for something else. (Perhaps we already encourage the scope of her imagination enough that she doesn’t identify with a talkative little girl who lacks it.)
In the realm of fantasy, The Paper Bag Princess
, A Dragon’s Tail: Jane and the Dragon
and The Girl who Circumnavigated Fairyland all offer strong female heroines.
Honestly, I think all girls go through that stage a little bit. I know both my little sister and I went through it. I ended up being more of a tom boy than she is, but it seems that all girls want to be the hero, regardless of how many heroines we hear about.