HEROINE: The time has come for the literature featured in schools to better reflect the students that fill the classroom: both male and female.
By Guinivere Kimber, Staff Writer
Strong female protagonists aren’t just for the bedtime stories of little girls. They’re necessary to create a generation that views at both genders equally. Books and stories shape the people we grow to become and have immense power over the beliefs we develop as we age. It is time we harness that power and use it to create a community that is more respectful to the potential of both genders.
In a cultural and political climate as tense as this one, diversity in literature featuring strong female characters of every race, religion, and sexuality is needed more every day. Not only are they needed, but we should be encouraging both girls and boys to be reading them. Let’s face it; our current batch of young adults don’t read as much as previous generations. In this new age of technology and streaming companies, books have lost some of their appeal. A study by Scholastic publishing company found that as of 2015, only 51% of the students and children surveyed reported that they read at home for fun. Most of any reading taking place in a student’s life is happening in the classroom.
Now, taking a step into that classroom, according to EpicReads.com, some of the most commonly read books in high school are The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald), The Catcher in the Rye (Salinger), Great Expectations (Dickens), Lord of the Flies (Golding), Invisible Man (Ellison), and Of Mice and Men (Steinbeck). These are just a handful of many books assigned to students across the country, but are by far some of the most popular. Looking at The Great Gatsby and Great Expectations, the main female characters, Daisy Buchanan and Estella, are hardly the strong female protagonists needed today. They are presented as prizes to be won after the male protagonist spends large sums of money to impress her or when he achieves a new social standing. In The Catcher and the Rye, young Holden speaks of women in a derogatory fashion and in Lord of the Flies, there isn’t a female character at all. Today, we attribute much of the plot, language, and ideas of those books to the ‘time’ they were written. While, yes, that is true, why aren’t we balancing them out with books written more recently that reflect the new ideas and beliefs of today?
Young female students should be able to see themselves represented in the books they’re reading not as the damsel in distress awaiting her prince’s arrival, but as the hero of her own story. These types of books teach both young female and male readers the importance of what it means to be female, feminist thinking, and the need for gender equality. That a woman’s strength and abilities have no limit and there is no reason why she should ever be underestimated by her male peers.
Just think, why was The Hunger Games (Collins) so popular? Why do thousands of young girls dress up as Hermione every Halloween? Why has the Mortal Instruments (Clare) series has sold over 24 million copies and counting? Why did The Hate U Give (Thomas) debut as a #1 New York Times Best Seller? As for the classic literature in schools, students should be introduced to books similar to that of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. Perhaps Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice or Brontë’s sister Charlotte’s Jane Eyre. Many of these books, are not only written by talented female authors, but feature strong female characters who endure hardship and stand up for what they believe in.
If this generation is to fully grasp that women are capable of making their own decisions, of being the heroes of their own stories, we need to provide the younger minds with examples of just that. The dichotomy of the strong man and weak woman, the damsel and the knight in shining armor, has had its fair share of book reports. It’s time for the damsel that dawns her own armor to have the occasional essay written about her. Let’s give her the opportunity to show those female students what she and them are capable of.