Mid-year reflection
The books and plays we've read this year have been quite different, but they've all shared one thing in common: their treatment of female characters. The books I read as a child were mostly modern children's fiction. As such, they were divided fairly equally between male and female protagonists. It didn't matter if the main character was a boy or a girl, or both, for books with multiple protagonists. They were equally as capable of overcoming any obstacles placed between them and their goals, no matter how insurmountable they seemed. I suppose I took that for granted. All the books we read this semester, excluding the book club one, have had male protagonists, with women being reduced to side characters and love interests, without any of their own goals, dreams, or even interests outside of their relation to a male character. This surprised me, but in hindsight it shouldn't have been surprising at all. For most of history, women have been devalued, looked at as sol...