Author Of The "Princess Academy" Illustrates How Adults Instill Misogyny In Little Boys And How It Robs Them Of Amazing Experiences

Shannon Hale is a best-selling author of over thirty books. Her bibliography includes graphic novel memoirs Real Friends, Best Friends, and Friends Forever, and multiple award winners The Goose Girl, Book of a Thousand Days, and Newbery Honor recipient Princess Academy.

During the many, many presentations she has given on her works throughout the years, Hale not only met her readers but also got an understanding of how they view her books and what shapes these opinions in the first place.

More info: shannonhale.com | tumblr | Twitter

"[I] found I did in fact have many boy readers — most likely hundreds of thousands of them at this point, but they'd been reading in secret because they were embarrassed," the author wrote in The Washington Post. "I got better at noticing the myriad ways adults teach boys that they should feel ashamed for taking an interest in a story about a girl, from outright ('Put that down, that’s a girl book') to subtle ('I think you'll like this book even though it's about a girl'). There is peer shaming as well, but it starts with and is supported by adults."

Hale has written numerous texts on this phenomenon but this time let's take a closer look at one of her tumblr posts that explains it through a real-life example.

In the before-quoted essay from The Washington Post, Hale said that identifying and addressing this problem is important because this kind of thinking not only prevents boys from learning empathy for girls, it also prescribes narrow gender definitions: there is only one kind of boy, and any boy who doesn’t fit that mold is wrong.

"Stories make us human. We form bonds by swapping personal stories with others, and reading fiction is a deeply immersive exercise in empathy ... The bias against boys reading about girls runs so deep, it can feel daunting to try to change it. But change can start with a simple preposition swap: When talking to young readers, we can communicate that a book is about girls without prescribing that it's for girls," the author said.

Hale never thought that Disney's Snow White was a real person. Nor was Disney's Sleeping Beauty. According to the author, they're just an idea of a certain kind of femininity. But they don't feel to her like any girl or woman she knows. So whenever Hale is writing characters, her goal is always to make them feel like real people. And if they do, everyone can relate to them.