The Golden Ratio of Sexism in Children’s Literature

Having read many books for kids over the years with my now-teenaged daughter and son, I see that a similar belief about the relative potential for girls and boys to have adventures still holds true in children's literature, regardless of strides made in the nonfictional world. While awareness of gender gaps is nothing new, I want to talk specifically about an issue in children's chapter books I'll call "the golden gender ratio." Hearkening back to the ancient Greeks, the golden ratio is a mathematical relation deemed pleasing in art, architecture, and design. When a line is divided into two parts in the proportions of this ratio, the length of the longer segment divided by the length of the shorter segment is equal to the length of the whole line divided by the length of the longer segment, a ratio of approximately 1.618:1. Classic examples can be found in the layout of the Parthenon and Da Vinci's The Last Supper.