GROWING UP FEMALE

Saga of Katie John

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Katie John has a problem! And so have our fifth grade girls in the Cleveland Heights University Heights school system who use the Fifth Reader of the Harper and Row Basic Reading Program. Particularly offensive is the selection, "Treasure at Wildcat Glen" excerpted from a story by Mary Calhoun. Here is a synopsis of the selection from the Teacher's Manual:

How does a self-styled tomboy take her first steps toward womanhood? Katie John, the heroine of this selection, was fortunate. Her experience left her with a warm feeling toward herself and others.

If, after reading "Treasure at Wildcat Glen" our girls and young women don't come away fully indoctrinated in docility and domesticity, then in all likelihood the teacher will reinforce the message using the guidelines and questions in the Teacher's Manual: "Did Katie John have a problem? What was her problem? Did Katie John begin to solve her problem? See if the children can spot the first indication that Katie John might be ready to stop being a full-time tomboy." Yes boys and girls, Katie John does have a problem, and so do all of the female sex. That problem is the sexist text books being used in our sexist school systems.

As "Treasure of Wildcat Glen" unfolds, we realize that not only will little Katie have to give up being a full-time tomboy, she will have to settle for being a full-time domestic drudge as her grown up role, while her fifth grade counterpart, little Edwin, will probably go on to be an archeologist.

They practice their future roles even as the story begins: Katie John persuades Edwin to take her to Wildcat Glen; Edwin tells Katie John about the magazine article he'd been reading on archeology; Edwin corrects Katie John on the same subject. Later he reminds her of how archeologists proceed. She asks his permission to take home an old photo from the deserted house at Wildcat Glen.

Further role playing goes on-Edwin scientifically unearths artifacts at the deserted house while Katie John spins a story in her head about the woman and children who once lived there. The selection stresses the idea that Edwin, in his play activities, proceeds scientifically, while Katie proceeds unscientifically. "Treasure at

ottery

the Phant

Shanging. Plants

cactus

Gallery 14433 Cedar at Green 381-5151

*ical Phanty

page 8/What She Wants/December, 1974

What do you want to be when you grow up, sandy?

{ANISHERIA MIMMY)

ich thanks, I'd rather not

Jessica

Wildcat Glen" is essentially a story of an older little girl playing house.

The story model for growing up gets heavier: Katie John only has eyes for Edwin. (The little woman already!) Edwin, however, has work to do in the world.

"August melted into September, school opened, and with its opening came all kinds of problems for Katie John. Unthinkingly she announced that she hated boys all boys, that is, except Edwin. Then the other boys began teasing Edwin about being a 'pretty girly-girl' because he was the friend of the boy-hater, Katie.

"

"Finally one afternoon Edwin had had all he could take from them. He whirled at Katie John, his face white with rage, and shouted, 'From now on, stay away from me, you hear?" Later, at the old deserted house where they happen to meet:

"What do you want? Edwin's voice was abrupt, unfriendly. It seemed to say, 'I'm busy, go away,' "She felt a miserable twisting Inside of her. There was Edwin, finding clues about the... family. And she could have been so much help to him digging, carrying finds up to the house to keep them out of further weather. It could have been so much fun together.".

She "turned and ran... When she was safe down the bank... the tears came. Katie John sobbed, stumbling over the rocks.'

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In this version of "Dick and Jane" for young adolescents there is little left for Katie John to learn now except female resignation. She does this handily and is left "with a warm feeling toward herself and others", as the Teacher's Manual puts it.

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I taught this story while practice teaching in the Cleveland Heights University Heights school system. At about the same time the archeologist, Iris Cornelia Love was making headlines for her archeological findings in Cnidus, Turkey. The text is still in use, and is for advanced readers, who are, more often than not, girls.

In the Harper & Row Basic Reading Program, Fifth Reader, the pictures of boys outnumber the pictures of girls 4 to 1. Out of 34 prose selections, only four feature girls or young women. The last of these four, "Treasure at Wildcat Glen" is described above. It is 26 pages long. The first is about Mildred "Babe" Didrikson, the athlete; the second is about a 13 year old tennis champion; the third is taken from the autobiography of Helen Keller depicting her as a young girl. These three stories take up 37 pages in total.

The rest of the stories in the reader take up at least 350 pages. The stories include: one featuring two contemporary boys who do not like each other; three featuring contemporary young boys in fanciful tales; two tall tales featuring men (one woman takes a secondary role); one story of when grandfather was a boy; three tales from other lands featuring boys, men and young men (two women, one a mother, one a princess, are secondary); one Greek myth with three male gods; one short moralistic tale with two males; one selection featuring short biographies of six men and one woman who made important discoveries (the woman's treatment is among the shortest); three humorous animal stories with a total of four male animals and five female animals (the male animals have greater prominence includes one strange old lady, numerous men, and one mother animal who has some authority); one story of a lost, lonely male puppy (includes a stereotypical housewife overly concerned about her floors; two animal fables with only male animals (contains a reference to a "squaw"); seven informational stories featuring neither sex over the other in the prose, but with 39 pictures of males and two pictures of females.

Aside from the obvious need to include material about girls and women equal in length to that about boys and men, along with pictures, other changes must be made as well in all of our school texts. Women on Words and Images who wrote the pamphlet "Dick and Jane as Victims", Princeton, N.J., 1972, feel that “A temporary moratorium on certain abused stereotypes of females should be declared. We no longer depict Mexicans asleep under sombreros, Blacks eating-watermelon, or Indians scalping palefaces.

"The following might also disappear for a while without being missed: mother in her apron; mother baking or offering cookies; girls tirelessly engaged in playing house, dragging dolls or wheeling them in baby carriages, and having tea parties with them; girls wistfully and admiringly watching boys do anything at all."

Ironically girls in New York City required to take cooking in junior high school are not admitted to the Food and Maritime Trades High School, the only school in the city where they could study to be chefs.

from Need For Studies of Sex Discrimination in Public Schools Department of Labor