this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2023
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I remain astoundingly confused over the moral reasoning that goes on about this subject. I’m a woman who grew up reading a whole load of children’s books that I absolutely loved that have now been updated to reduce offensive stereotypes, outdated gender roles and racism- Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl for example. I loved those books- but they were from a limited universe of books presented to me. I learnt some very disempowering messages about women and girls from those books, grew up, unlearnt them, and can still enjoy those books for nostalgia but a healthy dose of “eesh, that’s bad.”
How is that trajectory PREFERABLE to reading books that don’t teach girls those stereotypes in the first place, and empower them instead? How the fuck is it more valuable to preserve sexism and racism of yesteryear? The argument “we shouldn’t forget the past” is extremely true- but teach it in context. Don’t just leave it on a fucking bookshelf for 10 year olds to pick up with no context just looking for a book to enjoy.
All of this absolutely also applies to racism. What do I care about more? Leaving books as a “product of their time” or black kids being able to browse the kids library section and find books that will represent or AT LEAST not offensively stereotype them? It seems like a no brainer to me that the latter is more valuable than the former.
Don't you think children's book are a separate issue? What as an adult, for your reading, do you think about revising books you, as an adult, would read today?
I think to a large extent that’s a false binary- or at least there’s a great degree of overlap. I was definitely reading adult books at an age where I was still developing my understanding of the world and my place in it. So I don’t think there should necessarily be ‘rules’ about revision that only apply to childrens books and not adult- though I suppose if it’s a matter of prioritising then maybe the distinction makes sense.
As for now- reading a book laced with casual sexism/racism/isms vs reading the same book that doesn’t have them? Freaking bring on the latter, I’ll enjoy it more. If i want to know what’s in the old version I’ll look it up. This is obviously distinct from reading books that set out to tackle an ism- but the difference is i can make a choice to read them if I want to, not have some randomly offensive depiction turn up in my face unexpectedly.