Novels were always for girls

Novels were always for girls

In the famous comic-strip Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin forms a club called “Get Rid Of Slimy GirlS” (G.R.O.S.S.), sole members Calvin and Hobbes, whose entire purpose is excluding his neighbour Susie Derkins from the treehouse. Calvin is a fictional comic-strip character, and Hobbes is a stuffed tiger. But G.R.O.S.S. captures a dynamic that’s frustrated feminists forever: men like excluding women from the (figurative) treehouse, and when forced to …