Boys and Girls

Boys and Girls is a short story by Alice Munro in 1968.  Munroe was born in Wingham, Ontario in 1931.  Her writing centres around every day human life, relationships and interactions.

The story centers around a young girl who was always with her dad and admired him very much.  She loved helping her dad, who was a fox pelter / farmer, with the silver foxes they kept in pens in their yard.  Even though back in this era girls were given a lot of work to do inside the house, she was pardoned from most of it and worked outside with her dad, her brother was still quite young and small to be doing a lot of the work.

One day. Their horse, Flora, was being led out to be shot, as she was no longer needed around the farm.  Flora managed to escape the father and his helper and was running towards the gate to escape, the girl could have shut it but she didn’t and let the horse escape so her father wouldn’t kill it.  Later at supper, after the father had recaptured the horse and shot it, the girls brother told on her and her father said “She’s only a girl” in a very demeaning fashion.

In this story the girl also stays unnamed even though she is the main character, and her brother, Laird, who isn’t a main character, is in possession of a name.  This shows the author stressing the fathers last words in the story, being that girls meant nothing, they were only good to make food and do chores.

I do not agree with the fathers point of view, I believe that girls are just as important as boys and should be treated equally, especially by a figure as important as a dad!