From the Kidlet Lexicon

[resonant]

I was recommending books to the ten-year-old, and I mentioned Anne McCaffrey's Dragonsinger. "I think I remember it being a pretty good book," I said, "but I'm not sure, because she also wrote books for adults, and as I remember it, the gender politics were pretty awful."

"What do you mean, gender politics?"

"Well, it's been a long time, but what I remember is that all the women were beautiful and tempestuous, and mostly they were there to be prizes for the men to win. The books weren't very interested in what they wanted, unless it was a man, and they fought over men, but aside from that they didn't really have relationships with each other."

"Oh, yeah, I've read books with women like that. Sugarboxes."

Comments

[giglet]

I read this entry aloud to my husband and son, and they *got* it. I was particularly pleased that they understood that it meant depictions of women in fiction -- not real women. (Because losing that distinction gets skeevy really quickly.)

So in our house, "sugarbox" is the word replacing the far less graceful but oft-used phrase "woman-as-prop" that I've been ranting about for years. (Thank god my son grew up with the counter-examples of Buffy and Xena, and although I'm not crazy about some of it, Tank Girl.)

Please thank your daughter for me.