Funny thing is, I haven't read many First Girl Ever stories. The only ones that come to mind at the moment are Alanna and this one book I read in grade school about a girl who joins the wrestling team.
I think that there's space for FGE stories in fields which are still believed to be male-only. Whe wrestling team story is relevant here, because up to that point I hadn't known it was even possible for girls to participate in wrestling as a sport, or that there was a legal case to be made for allowing them to do so. Nor, obviously, had the characters in the story. So I was discovering some new facts right along with them.
On the other hand, it is quite likely that by the time the book was written, there had been many "first girls ever" in wrestling. I think the oversimplification of the story into a one-hero narrative is a problem -- because you can have situations where girls, independently and without knowledge of one another, are breaking into new fields.
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Date: 2012-09-14 07:49 pm (UTC)I think that there's space for FGE stories in fields which are still believed to be male-only. Whe wrestling team story is relevant here, because up to that point I hadn't known it was even possible for girls to participate in wrestling as a sport, or that there was a legal case to be made for allowing them to do so. Nor, obviously, had the characters in the story. So I was discovering some new facts right along with them.
On the other hand, it is quite likely that by the time the book was written, there had been many "first girls ever" in wrestling. I think the oversimplification of the story into a one-hero narrative is a problem -- because you can have situations where girls, independently and without knowledge of one another, are breaking into new fields.