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Originally Posted by Lal
I think it may be a question of age rather than gender.
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It definitely could be that they feel like they're too old for the story, in which case their inner children need some serious therapy. Or... well, it's time for me to sound very anti-feminist, I suppose. It could be that with affirmative action and feminism and people going absolutely mad with "He's discriminating against me because I'm a woman!" and the like, it's gotten to the point that if there are no female characters in a story (or none who play a huge part), it's immediately considered male chauvinist or immposible for a woman to enjoy. There are so many books written for teenage girls and young women which feature scenarios like sex and drugs and shallow teenybopper dilemmas that would make poor Bilbo keel over and die. Some of those books are actually demeaning to their target audiences. My younger sister reads many of them, and I
know she is an intelligent person, but from the subject matter these books deal with ("Ohmigosh does he like me? I just don't know! Whatever should I do?") it really doesn't seem like it. Then there are romance novels, which just make me laugh looking at the covers. It's always some impoverished yet really buff nobleman and a gorgeous country girl or a Highlander and a cold reporter whom he woos... and they have really ridiculous titles. Forgive me if this has become a rant; no offense is intended towards anybody who reads anything of this variety. I just dislike them intensely... can you tell?
This is NOT to say that all female-geared literature is bad. It's definitely not. I loved
The Bell Jar,
Anne of Green Gables,
Little Women, even
Nancy Drew. (I think
The Little Engine That Could was a girl, too, and that was the first book I ever read.) Yet I must wonder if males would be interested by these stories. Probably not; I believe one or two were even mentioned by some our XY-chromosomed members as books they couldn't get into. Personally, I'd rather read a book with lots of swordfights than any of those, though; I'd rather see an action movie than a chick flick. I love
The Hobbit because it's adorable, just like my other favorite children's books. (My all-time favorite is this one called
Animal Bedtime Stories. It, too, has mostly male characters: two badgers called Basil and Dewey, and a mole called Willie. If you have any idea what I'm talking about, you're really cool.) TH cheers me up and makes me laugh when I'm sad -- I've even used it to calm down before an audition. The absence of female characters is something I really never noticed. Bilbo and the dwarves are awesome all by themselves, so who needs anybody else?
As for making your students appreciate TH more, maybe you can bring in some info from LotR. You can talk about what's going on behind the scenes, and whip out a "Well, I bet you didn't know
this!" and explain how Gandalf was away at the White Council, arranged by Galadriel -- a lady not to be trifled with -- or how Lobelia actually turned out by the end of RotK to be a hobbit with some spunk. Good luck with the class, though. Hopefully you can make them like it.