# Books about boys pretending to be girls?



## Klip (Mar 7, 2011)

It seems to be fairly common to have (especially YA or fantasy) books in which a girl pretends to be a boy for a significant part of the story -  Leviathan, for example, and Tad William's Otherworld series, as well as Tamora Pierce's "Protector of Small Things".  Actually, I've read many such books.

But just off hand, I cant think of any books I've read in which a boy pretends to be a girl.  I wonder why this is?  

More difficult to do convincingly?  Or maybe there are not that many reasons why they would need to?  Or maybe I'm just not reading the right books?


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

I think the 'girl-as-boy' conceit has a real history. . . . . . born, maybe, from Shakespearean times where all the actors were male. . . .and sometimes they didn't want to have to play a 'girl' the whole time. So plays were written that featured female characters pretending to be boys so the male actors didn't have to dress up as girls. So it's been done for at least 500 years.

Plus, the whole women being fairly disenfranchised until the beginning of the last century or so meant that some women would dress as men so as to be free to do things they weren't allowed to do as women. There was rarely a need for a man to dress as a woman because he was already pretty much allowed to do anything.

Still, boy-as-girl does exist. . . . usually in film, and usually as comedy: _Some Like it Hot_ where the guys dressed as girls to escape bad guys, _Bosom Buddies_ where the guys needed a place to live and the only place that had room had a strict policy of only renting to girls, and _Tootsie_ where, again, the guy needed a job and they were only hiring women.


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## Klip (Mar 7, 2011)

That's true, Ann -
By coincidence I just watched Tootsie last week 
It is far more common in film.  Often for comic effect.  Madam Doubtfire, was one too, not so?

You make a good point about the Shakespearean precedence.  And of course, there have often been stronger reasons for girls to pass for men than the other way around.  Except for the occasional toad dressing as a washerwoman to escape from prison situation.

I do wonder if there is something deeper going on here as well - that we respond to the idea of a girl having to pretend to be a boy, but a boy pretending to be a girl is not simply the opposite of that - it's something quite different.  

I'm trying to think of examples where that might make a interesting story. For example a boy who wants to learn to be something that only girls get trained in (in the story-world of that book, if not in reality!) like a healer, or something like that.  Or to learn a particular kind of magic that men are not allowed to use.

Or to escape from conscription into the military.

Or maybe he is looking after a younger sibling, who would be taken away from him if the adults knew he was a big brother, and not a big sister.


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## Lensman (Aug 28, 2012)

There are a good number of proven real examples of women disguising themselves as men (Mary Read, the pirate, disguised herself as Mark Read for some time and was finally "unmasked" by Ann Bonny, just to pick one example). Often they are described as "tomboys" or otherwise considered acceptable. Fictional examples - too many to name, but I'd simply mention Anubis Gates.

Men pretending to be women do not get such positive responses - they are considered weak, or effeminate, or unmanly. It is portrayed in a far more negative light, or else as comedy - eg all four films so far quoted. While that stigma of "effeminacy" remains, I doubt we will see many positive portrayals of men or boys disguising themselves as girls. It certainly should be possible to create such a portrayal, but the initial prejudice is deeply ingrained and will take some defeating.


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## Fantasma (Aug 25, 2012)

I hated Tootsie & Mrs Doubtfire. It seemed the point was to show a man could be a _better_ woman, in many ways, than a woman could be. (Just because it's a comedy doesn't mean it's not serious.)


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## anguabell (Jan 9, 2011)

I have been thinking about this for a while and there really don't seem to be many books with boys pretending to be girls - unless you count transvestites which is a different matter all together. There is no doubt the male gender still enjoys higher prestige in basically all cultures, and giving it up is an incomprehensible "step down". Quite odd, isn't it.


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## DavidFWeisman (Jun 10, 2012)

One could write an entirely realistic book about a teenage boy trying to pretend to be a lesbian on the Internet.


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