Customer Reviews

I'm glad I'm a boy!: I'm glad I'm a girl!

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

People saying this book is "horrible" need to read up a little on Darrow. For decades he was a satire cartoonist for the New Yorker. The publishers on the other hand took it seriously and didn't get the joke, pushing it as a serious children's book when his humor had for a long time been making fun of the same subjects.

Subtlety is often lost on the people who pull the strings...and as it turns out, the people who review their products.

I was thrilled to get my hands on a copy of this very rare book so I could show my daughter the sort of attitudes that were prevalent, not only when I was a girl in the fifties and sixties, but when she was born in 1979.

In the months before I graduated from high school, we were barraged with catalogs and pamphlets and flyers in our homeroom. The boys got enticements from colleges and universities, and recruiting literature from various branches of the military. The girls got unsolicited literature from the local furniture stores showing the many styles of hope chests available, and from jewelers selling engagement rings, china and silver. I kid you not.

When the subject comes up, and I try to tell women younger than 30 about all the obstacles the women of my generation had to hurdle - obstacles both real and perceived, both external and internal, both surmountable and not - I usually get a "so-what" sort of a reaction. They just don't have any idea what we were made to believe our limits were, what our goals should be, and what were the lines we shouldn't try to cross.

The only reason you've come a long way, baby, is because the generation of women, who are now probably looking a bit like the over-the-hill-gang to you, battled it out over attitudes like the ones immortalized in this book. I'll never give up my copy - it will forever remind me of just how far we've come!

I own this book - it's the one I have from when I was a little girl (I was born in 1968). It was one of my favorite books as a child and I saved it so that one day I could read it to my own kids. I took it out the other day to read to my three-year old daughter and could not believe how chauvinistic it was. "Boys build houses, girls keep houses. Boys fix things, Girls use things boys fix, etc..." But I think it is a fabulous history lesson for my daughter - - a way to see how things used to be and how things have changed so much since I was little. I'm keeping this book forever.

This book is obviously chauvinistic- it seems like it should be from 1950, not 1970. Sexual prejudices are blatantly presented as if that is the way the world is. Written for toddlers it tells how men and women should have different roles eg. doctors and nurses. However it is a great tool for teachers or parents to use to show how opinions are molded even at a very young age. I use it with my 5th graders every year to illustrate how children are affected by the different media to which they are exposed.

I think this is a great book!! not only does it teach the gender roles that have we as a society placed on ourselfs many years ago, making this great to learn the way it was back then. It also really shows how we have not moved to far from it, people have the choice to do anything they want but the majority of the population is still following into the the same gender roles. i find it a great read very enjoyable, with a great laugh at the whole thing.

This book is an inspiring piece of literature. This novella emphasizes the necessity and complementary tendencies between men and women. Also, this acts as a nice reference for the future generations to see how relationships should work, because the gender roles in our society are eroding.

I love reading the reviews of this book and seeing the huge outrage it brings out in people. I give it 5 stars just for that.

But seriously, do none of these people realize the time period was written in? Of course it's going to be sexist.

Pretty much on par with Greek myths, fairy tales, operas, old movies and other misogynistic, chauvinistic, and outright fascist pieces of Goebbels propaganda. Burn, burn, burn! Preferably, together with all the swines that build our houses, invent and fix things and give girls babies. Burn'em all!

FUNNIEST BOOK EVER. The fact that people used to take this book seriously and actually believe this stuff is even FUNNIER.

I am proud to be a woman, but also know that in general guys are better than me at sports, inventing things, and making more money. I loved the book and highly recommend it.