Library Day - Boys and Girls Response

Hey Everyone,

I have been asked to attend a district meeting this morning about creating cross-curricular courses in our high schools (for example, taking a CSI English/Chemistry class where you read mystery novels and solve crimes using science). So, I'm away again today. My apologies. Mr. Janz will go over the writing topic and the integrating quotes handout and take you to the library. 

Best, Ms. C

Boys and Girls Response:

Read this article about gender norms and toys http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/opinion/sunday/gender-based-toy-marketing-returns.html or find your own article that is from 2010 or earlier, and answer the following question, quoting both the story, "Boys and Girls" and the non-fiction article, and referencing your own impressions and opinions about gender issues.

How is the protagonist in the short story "Boys and Girls," by Alice Munro, trapped, like the foxes, and like Flora, 

by the gender norms of her time? This is a formal response (please do not use first person).

Min 500 words - multi-paragraph.

Focus - Style:

• Elevate Vocabulary
• Sentence Diversity
• Seamlessly integrate quotes from two sources... see handout on board
• Works Cited - see example introduction below...

Outfoxing Gender Norms
Exploring the limits of gender in "Boys and Girls."

by Tara Colborne

Gender norms have pervaded most societies since there have been societies; girls are raised to be caged and boys to wander. Post-feminism, post-modernity, one would expect the limits of gender to be a thing of the past. However, a quick tour through a local Toys-R-Us will plainly point out "there are pink aisles, where toys revolve around beauty and domesticity, and blue aisles filled with toys related to building, action and aggression." The hegemonic, divisive, gendered, and colour-coded norms are still predominant. The simple fact is that boys and girls even in privileged 2013 North American high schools can still read Munro's "Boys and Girls," set in a small farm-town in the Forties, and understand exactly how it is that the "just a girl" girl is unjustly set-up to set foot in the cage of the kitchen. The protagonist is limited, at first softly, but then firmly, by a very strict set of gender norms: girls work inside cooking, cleaning and sewing, while boys only get to experience the roaming freedom and independence of outdoor work. Only briefly, as a young child, was the main character able to out-fox the rules of the fox farm. Unfortunately, it was just a temporary thing; like Flora, eventually she had to be reigned in and sacraficed. 



Works Cited:

Munro, Alice. "Boys and Girls." Handout. 

Sweet, Elizabeth. "Guys and Dolls No More?"  Web. Feb. 25, 2013 <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/opinion/sunday/gender-based-toy-marketing-returns.html?_r=0>