A Different Sort of Question

[anthimeria]

Do we still need First Girl Ever stories?

In the real world, these stories happen and are still happening, but we've been telling them for several decades--the Song of the Lioness quartet (Alanna), by Tamora Pierce, came out in the eighties, and I've read opinions that this trope is "tired and overused."  (To be clear, this isn't the only place I've read/heard that, Brennan is just very clear.)

While I definitely agree with Brennan in the article linked above, that I would love to see more Second Girl Ever stories, I'm wondering if there's still a need for the First Girl Ever story.  Is it still important?  There are girls making huge strides in male-dominated fields today, but as Brennan points out, they're largely in "field[s] that, while not exclusively male, [are] still heavily skewed that way."  Which makes the Second Girl Ever story all the more important.

So what do you think?  Is the First Girl Ever story tired and overused?  Or an important story that needs to be told, no matter how many times we've already said it?


(Crossposted, since I'm hoping to get as many opinions as possible.)

Comments

[owlectomy]

Personally, I never found that the pressures written about in First Girl Ever stories were all that relevant to my life. I didn't grow up in the age of "You can't do that because you're a girl," I grew up in the age of "It's an enormous boys' club where everyone makes off-color jokes and people are merciless to you when you make a mistake, but that's just how things are. I guess there are no women because they're just naturally bad at math!"

I think a book like "The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks" (which IS, though, a First Girl Ever story) talks about the social pressures of being a woman in a male-dominated society in a way that's a lot more subtle and nuanced -- because it's not about the overt pressure, it's about the little things that make you doubt yourself and give up.

I think in stories it tends to be a little boring to see an obvious good triumph over an obvious evil, and it's more interesting to see two good things fight it out. Make it more interesting than "girl triumphs over evil ignorant sexists," because that's not how things work in my life anymore.