![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kateelliottOver on Babel Clash (where I'm doing most of my posting these two weeks), I've followed up on Ken's post On Writing the Series, Part 1, with my own answer, called (shockingly), On Writing the Series, Part 2.
Also, being a jock at heart as well as a person whose high school life was impacted positively by the implementation of Title IX, I love this post by Justine Larbalestier on YA & Girls Playing Sports.
Anyone who has read this blog for any length of time knows I am skeptical about our ability to get past our cultural constructs to figure out what if any gender essentialism lives beyond certain obvious physiological and potentially a few neurological but hard to quantify differences. By this I am not saying that males and females are exactly alike.** But we tend to be so embedded in our cultural assumptions about Male and Female that I think it is difficult for us to get past those as we try to figure out if there are any meaningful *human* differences (beyond, yes, the obvious physical ones) between men and women, and why on earth we keep thinking that as human beings we need there to be some essentialist difference that creates an unbridgeable abyss between the sexes (yes, I'm exaggerating).
I'll never forget the time a relative of mine described his young son (then in early elementary school) as "All Boy."
Curious (see above), I asked, "Huh. What do you mean by that?"
After a moment's thought (I think maybe he hadn't ever been asked what he meant by that; he was just using the appellation reflexively), he replied, "he's really into playing sports."
Now as it happens, of the two of us adults in this conversation, I--the female--was the one who is really into playing sports, but I manfully forbore to mention that, and said, instead, "Huh. Interesting you should say that. Down our street there's a dad who is always out front playing catch with his athletic daughter."
Anyway, I digress. Go read Justine's fabulous interview with a bookseller in which they talk about sports books, girls, and sports (and TItle IX).
** and if anyone posts a comment suggesting that I think men and women are exactly alike and how misguided I am because, you know, All those Feminists Believe that Nurture is all that matters but there are Nature differences and their daughter wanted a pink dress and their son wanted trucks to play with, I will smash them with my mighty guns gained from very many hours of long distance canoe paddling. There is an interesting conversation to be had about sex and gender, nature and nurture, and how much we don't know and what we do know, but in my lj, anyway, that particular line of argument is Not It.
Also, being a jock at heart as well as a person whose high school life was impacted positively by the implementation of Title IX, I love this post by Justine Larbalestier on YA & Girls Playing Sports.
Anyone who has read this blog for any length of time knows I am skeptical about our ability to get past our cultural constructs to figure out what if any gender essentialism lives beyond certain obvious physiological and potentially a few neurological but hard to quantify differences. By this I am not saying that males and females are exactly alike.** But we tend to be so embedded in our cultural assumptions about Male and Female that I think it is difficult for us to get past those as we try to figure out if there are any meaningful *human* differences (beyond, yes, the obvious physical ones) between men and women, and why on earth we keep thinking that as human beings we need there to be some essentialist difference that creates an unbridgeable abyss between the sexes (yes, I'm exaggerating).
I'll never forget the time a relative of mine described his young son (then in early elementary school) as "All Boy."
Curious (see above), I asked, "Huh. What do you mean by that?"
After a moment's thought (I think maybe he hadn't ever been asked what he meant by that; he was just using the appellation reflexively), he replied, "he's really into playing sports."
Now as it happens, of the two of us adults in this conversation, I--the female--was the one who is really into playing sports, but I manfully forbore to mention that, and said, instead, "Huh. Interesting you should say that. Down our street there's a dad who is always out front playing catch with his athletic daughter."
Anyway, I digress. Go read Justine's fabulous interview with a bookseller in which they talk about sports books, girls, and sports (and TItle IX).
** and if anyone posts a comment suggesting that I think men and women are exactly alike and how misguided I am because, you know, All those Feminists Believe that Nurture is all that matters but there are Nature differences and their daughter wanted a pink dress and their son wanted trucks to play with, I will smash them with my mighty guns gained from very many hours of long distance canoe paddling. There is an interesting conversation to be had about sex and gender, nature and nurture, and how much we don't know and what we do know, but in my lj, anyway, that particular line of argument is Not It.