"Men Who Weep, Boys Who Dance: The Gender Agenda Between the Lines in Children's Literature by Mem Fox

Fox, Mem. "Men Who Weep, Boys Who Dance: The Gender Agenda between the Lines in Children's Literature." Language Arts 70 (1993): 84-88.

In her article, Fox tackles the issue of gender representation in popular children’s books and provides examples of the common gender stereotypes that appear. Her belief is that “we who write children’s books, and we who teach through literature, need to be sure we are opening the doors to full human potential, not closing them. We have the power to change “gender-appropriate” behaviors and attitudes” (Fox 1993). The remainder of her article then talks about how gender issues effect the stories she writes and how she chooses to challenge the stereotypes. While her article is about stereotypes of both male and female characters, I think she makes numerous excellent observations and points regarding how males have traditionally been “allowed” to act in children’s literature, which include: not crying, not partaking in “girly” activities such as dance or painting, and feeling it is solely their responsibility to provide for a family some day. She suggests that children’s literature might be to blame for “trapping males in a frightful emotional prison and demanding intolerable social expectations of them” (Fox 1993). With this belief she then provides four specific examples of books she has written and how she has intentionally embedded counter-sexist attitudes in them. She explains that she wrote one book, Tough Boris, with the intention of making it ok for boys to cry and talk about crying. While the article does really only provide four solid examples of books to consider adding to your library, Fox is definitely about quality not quantity and she at least provides great places to start. If I had one qualm with the article it would be that Fox spends too much time discussing already commonly discussed stereotypical female activities in literature, however in retrospect her female examples do provide nice points of reference and comparison for the less commonly tackled male stereotypes.