I was so thrilled when I found out that my baby was a girl. Even though I was a pregnant woman of "advanced maternal age," which meant that we underwent a battery of prenatal testing, my husband and I chose to wait and learn our child's gender the old-fashioned way. Somehow, having the doctor say "It's a ... (insert 'boy' or 'girl' here as appropriate)" seemed more exciting than finding out via ultrasound or amniocentesis.
Well, my doctor rewrote the script a tiny bit. "You have a daughter!" he announced. The effect (a quick gasp and many tears) was the same.
As she grew from baby to toddler to child, many people commented on how much my daughter looked like me. And, I had great hopes that she would inherit all my positive traits. Reading and writing and collecting dolls and loving musical theatre. Even my addiction to chocolate was welcome.
Back then, it did not occur to me that she would eventually have to deal with womanly concerns like finding a comfortable strapless bra, walking in heels, getting your period the day you're supposed to go on a beach date. Or ... that emotional roller coaster females have to deal with.
That's right. I'm talking, of course, about PMS. Putting up with Men's Sh*t.
We coined that phrase about twenty years ago when I worked at a very cool new media ad agency in Cambridge, MA. There were only twelve of us in the office and we were all women. The CEO of the agency (headquartered elsewhere) kept pressuring us to hire some men because he didn't think our clients — mainly technology companies — would want to work with so many "girls."
On top of that attitude at work, most of us had to deal with husbands or boyfriends or, in my case, a fiancé — most of whom displayed the classic symptoms of PMS: moodiness and irritability.
And, while any emotional or physical changes women might experience only last a few days, these men seemed to have license to behave erratically all month long. Honestly, I don't know one married woman who doesn't complain about her husband's mood swings. We all tip-toe around them. And, sadly, we teach our daughters to do so too.
Besides any gender tension on the home front (you cannot tell me that there's no such thing as male menopause), my daughter is at an age where she's starting to see gender bias and inequality in many different places.
In politics, for example, where we have yet to see a woman president or vice president. Or where an almost entirely male congress is attempting to legislate women's health and reproductive rights.
In the media, where even the most accomplished female journalists are pressured into getting cosmetic surgery. The lines that would symbolize experience and wisdom on a man's face are strictly verboten when we're talking about an anchorwoman.
In school, where her freshman Honors English reading list started with David Copperfield (by and about a man), then moved on to Of Mice and Men (there's a woman character but she pretty much gets squished to death). Next is Lord of the Flies (boys behaving badly). But hark! What heroine through yonder window breaks? They will read Romeo and Juliet this spring, written by a man but showcasing one very gutsy young lady.
The effects of Putting up with Men's Sh*t are significant and will last longer than the effects of Pre-Menstrual Syndrome. It seems to me that society's emphasis on total male domination is a lot more frightening than one teen's estrogen levels. Even if that teen is mine.
Now, I'm not saying that my daughter doesn't encounter her own emotional bumps in the road. When she snaps at me for no reason, I remind myself that she's just going through another type of PMS.
Pre-Maturity Syndrome.
To begin my post with the beginning of my post, I record that my daughter has finally finished David Copperfield.
For those of you who were not literature majors, the above is a humorous (I hope) allusion to the opening of that famous and famously massive tome. Dickens' semi-autobiographical novel was my teen's summer assignment for high school freshman Honors English.
If you ever want to hear a fourteen-year-old piss and moan, make them read a 950-page book written in long-winded nineteenth century language, during their vacation. The pool is open, the beach may beckon, but — alas! — throughout our town, young people were mired in the sooty streets of London, trying to keep track of countless characters with names like Clara Peggotty, Uriah Heep, Tommy Traddles, Wilkins Micawber, Steerforth, Ham and Little Em'ly.
Help! It's enough to make you throw in the towel and watch Pretty Little Liars on demand.
If the school's purpose was to separate the academic wheat from the chaff, then they may well have succeeded. We already know at least one girl who had qualified for and planned to take Honors English but is dropping out.
Sadly, if their plan was to permanently dissuade students from ever picking up a Dickens volume again, they may have accomplished that as well. Wouldn't these, already acknowledged bright, kids have been better off reading a shorter option (Great Expectations comes to mind)? Wouldn't they have appreciated it more if they had waited until school started so that a teacher might have guided them through it?
I am seriously annoyed that an entire generation will view the writings of Charles Dickens as an ordeal to get through rather than the incredibly rich — and often quite funny — masterpieces they are.
Nevertheless, the assignment was the assignment and my little scholar persevered. Out of curiosity, I looked into the required reading for sophomore, junior and senior years to see what future summers had in store. Here's what I found:
Freshman Honors English: David Copperfield
Sophomore Honors English: Dracula
Junior Honors English: Slaughterhouse Five
Senior Honors English: Heart of Darkness
What's conspicuously missing from this list? Books by and/or about women.
Across the country, female high school students are "overrepresented" in Honors and AP courses. This is particularly true in subjects that are humanities and language-based. I did a quick local reality check with my daughter.
"Are there more girls or boys in Honors English?" I asked.
"Girls, duh," came the eye-rolling reply.
So, why all the macho material? I am reminded (painfully reminded) of the way Hollywood approaches the funding of feature films. The major studios claim that they have to produce more male-centric films (despite the fact that women represent more than 50% of moviegoers) because:
"Women will go to men's movies. But, men won't go to women's movies."
Extend this theory to the summer reading list. I can only assume that the list is heavy on the testosterone because teachers or school administrators or the state believe that girls will read boys' books, but boys won't read girls'.
Remember, these are not so-called "reluctant readers" who must be coerced and bribed with graphic novels. These are high-achieving high school English students. Would it really hurt for the (minority of) boys to read about a woman's life for a change? Clearly, no one is worried about the girls throwing a hissy fit when they must read hundreds and hundreds (and hundreds and hundreds) of pages about the opposite sex. Why are we coddling the boys? And why are we ignoring so many amazing works by women?
I think my only option is to create an adjunct English literature reading list for my daughter. I'll fill it with Jane Austen, the Brontës, George Elliot and Mary Shelley. She will read these classics and love them and know that men weren't the only ones writing great works.
Assuming that, after her long drawn out and deadly dull date with Mr. Copperfield, she ever cracks a book again.
