Good Girl Messages: How Young Women Were Misled by Their Favorite Books.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

O'Keefe, Deborah, author.

Series:

Bloomsbury academic collections. Culture studies.

Bloomsbury academic collections. Culture studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Children's stories, American--History and criticism.

Children's stories, American.

Girls in literature.

Young women--Books and reading--English-speaking countries.

Young women.

Girls--Books and reading--English-speaking countries.

Girls.

Children's stories, English--History and criticism.

Children's stories, English.

Women and literature--English-speaking countries.

Women and literature.

Conduct of life in literature.

Sex role in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (230 p.)

Distribution:

London, England : Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020

Place of Publication:

London, England : Bloomsbury UK :, 2020.

Summary:

"For much of the 20th century, books for children encouraged girls to be weak, submissive, and fearful. This book discusses such traits, both blatantly and subtly reinforced, in many of the most popular works of the period. Quoting a wide variety of passages, O'Keefe illustrates the typical behaviour of fictional girls ? many of whom were passive and immobile while others were actually invalids. They all engaged in approved girlish activities: deferred to elders, observed the priorities, and, in the end, accepted conventional suitors. Even feisty tomboys, like Jo in Little Women , eventually gave up on their dreams and their independence. The discussion is interlaced with moments from the author's own childhood that suggest how her developing self-interacted with these stories. She and her contemporaries, trying to reconcile their conservative reading with the changing world around them, learned ambivalence rather than confidence. Good Girl Messages also includes a discussion of books read by boys, who were depicted as purposeful, daring, and dominating."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Cover; Half-title; Title; Copyright; Dedication; Contents; Acknowledgments; Chapter 1 Horizontal Heroines; Lying in Bed-Invalids or Dolls; How Girl Readers Responded; Chapter 2 Fluttery Girls, Bloody-Minded Boys: Where Girls Fit In; Who Read What; Boys' Reading; Girls in Boys' Books; Animal Stories; Chapter 3 What Girls Could Do, without Losing Their Girlishness; Outdoor Stuff; Indoor Stuff; Adult Stuff; Chapter 4 Girls with Grownups: Loving Authority, Melting Hostility; Motherly Women and Fatherly Men; Strong Women and Weak Men; What Girls Do about Grownups

Chapter 5 Girls and Their Friends: Civilized by the GroupGirls and Boys, Groups and Pairs; Family: The Group You Didn't Choose; Friends: Their Clubs and Mentors; Complications in the Self and in the Group; Chapter 6 Girls and Boys-Conservative Romance; Courtship without Pain; The Proper Choice; Attracting a Prince; Grownup Romance: Schemers and Sufferers; Chapter 7 Today's Terrific New Girl Heroes; Brave New Girls, 1950 to 1975; Leftover Messages in Recent Classics; Recent Series; After 1975; Index

Notes:

Includes index.

Vendor-supplied metadata.

ISBN:

9781474286817

147428681X

9781474286824

1474286828

OCLC:

1201426400