Melissa

     One thing that struck me while reading George is the way in which masculinity-- and gender as a whole-- is taught and socialized as opposed to an innate quality. Melissa is only 10 years old, and yet she has already been able to somewhat unknowingly pinpoint how gender is a social construct. Gino writes,    "[Melissa] hated the boys' bathroom. It was the worst room in the school... she hated the blue tiles on the wall to remind you where you were, as if the urinals didn't make it obvious enough. The whole room was about being a boy," (Gino 16-17).  The way in which the boys' bathroom is set up to remind people that they are boys indicates that gender is a performance that must continuously be reinforced. Blue is automatically associated with boys in our society and pink is automatically associated with girls. This reinforcing even begins before people are born, with the colors of blue and pink indicating the gender of an unborn child at gender reveal parties. 

    Gender as a performance is something that Melissa struggles with throughout the whole novel, until she can finally be herself on the trip to the zoo. Being a 'boy' and being a 'girl' in Western society is wholly dependent on a set of rules that you begin to learn when you are very young. Boys wear pants, girls wear skirts; boys bow, girls curtsy; boys do not cry, girls are emotional. Rick and Jeff are the portrayals of toxic masculinity culture in the novel, and they constantly reinforce and uphold the gender norms. Gino writes, "Mr. Jackson handed out smocks made from large men's button-down shirts. Jeff refused to wear one, saying it looked too much like a dress," (Gino 112). Even though the smocks were literally men's shirts, the possibility that anyone might think he was wearing a dress was too feminine for Jeff to handle. This shows how fragile and fluid our conceptions of what is masculine and what is feminine are. Jeff upholds the gender norms from a place of fear-- afraid that he will be mistaken for anything other than what he is performing as. 

    Some people, like Jeff, are more dedicated to the performance of gender than others. We call girls who go against the gender norms 'tomboys' and we call girls who stick to it more closely 'girly girls.' Often, boys-- and people in general-- who do not subscribe to the gender norms are accused of being queer. Melissa, who from a very young age clearly does not act like a 'normal boy', is thought to be gay by her mother and brother. She struggles with the performance of gender because who she is does not match others' perception of her. When she comes out to her brother Scott, he says, "'Weird. But it kinda makes sense. No offense, but you don't make a very good boy,'" (Gino 141). There is more to gender than whatever sexual organs or chromosomes you possess. There is a performance aspect we all-- consciously or unconsciously-- adhere to.  

    I suppose the most surprising thing I learned this semester is that children's literature is considered a conservative force in society, meant to uphold the values of the elite upperclass white protestants. The social hierarchy that exists is essential to think about when we consider the books that are banned and why.