Re: ....At least it was seriously condescending - offensive even.... native american kids (say), shouldn't be compelled to read it.
if i omitted all the literature that was seriously condescending to women, i wouldn't have much to read.
writers, generaly write of their time... if literature is read, and explored, and put into context, it can still have value, no matter that it is, by our current way of thinking, seriously flawed.
Woman, the irish, poles, urkranians, negros, jews, blacks, chinese, japanese, aboriginal people from the americas, oz, india, the list of those slighted, and treated offensively goes on and on.. (the idea that literture classes consist of works entirely by and about dead white men has some validity!)
shakespeare is exceptional, he has both weak and strong men and women.. i don't think kipling would have included women at all, but his characters did need someone to be weak, and weepy, and to do their menial tasks like laundry, (but half the time is was a man-servant)-- and then you needed women to miss(sweet hearts back in england, lost and gone) or native women (hot, beautiful, and convenient for men to satisfy their lust with (but most of his characters where gentlemen, and wouldn't think to do that!, i'll grant)
even Harry Potter has Hermonine(?)-- a goody two shoes, nerdy, little tattle tale!
Dickens has great women-- a real wide range of characters from Dora, David Copperfields clinging, passive agressive wife, to Mdm LaFarge-- Twain doesn't! Polly and Tom's Aunt Bea are weak women, who look to men to solve their problems!
You might find with your daughters, as you look for books for them, there are very few with strong women (the exception is books written by women, about women, and generally considered for women.)
girls and women continue to read Little Women, or the Bronte sisters, or as we have discussed here Mrs Mike -- but woman's literature is still considered second tier. women still read all literature, men just read literature writen by men (a general statement-- just generaly true, not completely true.)
