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do y'all wanna know what the best feminist friday gift ever is? A NIECE! thanks, hoops and janice! welcome, little stella catherine. oh man i'm stoked about this tiny human. woooo!

{yes my nails coordinate very well with my book, thank you for noticing!}

meanwhile. if you've been up on my instagram or twitter lately, you'll know i'm finally enjoying the magician's book. (thanks peter! loving it.) in one chapter we learn that c.s. lewis had originally drafted the storyline for the lion, the witch and the wardrobe with a little boy as the main character. but when he got round to writing it the person who ends up leading the novel is lucy. the youngest of the pevensie kids, and (duh) a girl.

i remember hearing an interview with j.k. rowling back when harry potter was new where she talked about writing a male lead so that both female and male readers would be willing to engage with the books. and that's a sentiment i've seen/heard fairly often since - that girls are more open to associating with a boy character than the other way round. (the idea being that we are brought up believing that being 'girly' is a negative, but that being male is kinda actually just being ungendered... the starting point... the standard. or something more carefully considered and written than i'm saying here, but that isn't my point today, blah blah!) ANYWAYS! here's some of what laura miller says that i found interesting:

'...the boy characters in the Edwardian children's fiction Lewis grew up with didn't have much emotional range. {...} Writing about Narnia released something free, lyrical, and tender in Lewis, and non of those qualities fit within the limitations of what he would have viewed as an acceptable boy character.

Practically the first thing we learn about Lucy in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is that she is "a little afraid" of the strange-looking professor and easily creeped out by the huge old house with its empty rooms and corridors.  This is perfectly understandable in a small girl, but Peter, unless he was very little indeed, would seem a coward if he expressed the same apprehension.  Edmund can be afraid - of the White Witch, to give one example - but only when he is playing the quisling.  After his reconciliation with Aslan and his siblings, he has to reclaim our admiration; accordingly, he becomes the most valiant warrior at the Battle of Beruna.  Lucy, by comparison, can be vulnerable, can even waver at times, without ever coming across as weak; if anything, her courage, when she exhibits it, is all the more commendable because no one expects it of her.'

{from chapter six of the magician's book, pg 70-71}

and thus we have an example of where little boys get shafted in this whole feminine/masculine thang. the male pevensies are not allowed the depth or breadth of character that lucy is, because 'boys don't cry' or whatever. sadness. there's plenty more on that subject in miller's book (and on lewis' handling of women vs girls, susan's fall from grace as she grows into a 'vain, silly' thing, and so on), but i'll leave it there with that little nugget to think on. y'all will have to borrow and read this guy! hoops & janice - seeing as you have babies who'll almost certainly be read the narnia books by a grandfather i know - you will want to be fully up to date on the analysis!

okay happy friday to babies everywhere!