Dispatches from the 70s #4

Apparently in the 1970s, overalls were only for boys.

Nice Little Girls, by Elizabeth Levy & illustrated by Mordicai Gerstein

I’ve talked about my love of Elizabeth Levy & Mordicai Gerstein’s Something Queer books in the past—although I just poked around and due to my endless platform-hopping, I was unable to find WHERE I talked about them, so perhaps it’s time for a revisit at some point soon. (←This is all what recently prompted me to re-share my older post about The Computer That Said Steal Me, btw and lol.)

At any rate, as Nice Little Girls is Levy/Gerstein collaboration, it’s predictably delightful and so this is going to be pretty image-heavy—I had a hard time paring it down to just a few examples.

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Cover and title page of Nice Little Girls, by Elizabeth Levy, illustrated by Mordicai Gerstein

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Nice Little Girls begins with our heroine, Jackie, entering a new class and immediately being misgendered by her teacher, who sees Jackie’s cropped hair and overalls and immediately assumes: BOY.

Jackie corrects her, Mrs. James apologizes, and now everything should be cool, right?

Wrong:

omg girls can’t run movie projectors, jackie

I love how huge Mrs. James is compared to the kids. In future spreads, I love how she’s portrayed as just ducking in from above and outside the frame—the kids, and Jackie in particular—are always the focus, but the power dynamics are represented visually.

It’s especially clear because—this is out of order, storyline-wise—later, when you see her with her parents, they are noticeably more on her level. They’re still huge, but either sitting down with her and/or rounding their heads and shoulders towards her, so their presence feels protective and loving, versus pure authority figure:

also: bonus squirrel content

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At recess, there’s some playground bullying from her classmates, which results in Jackie deciding, OKAY FINE I’LL BE A BOY THEN:

i haven’t worn overalls in years, but i am feeling incredibly jealous of Jackie’s rad plaid cuffs (i do currently have four pairs of grown-up mary janes, though, and i refuse to promise to resist buying more!!) also, susie’s dress is hilariously short

And that actually goes over surprisingly well with the other kids—including Sam, who instigated the playground bullying nonsense and is now making a hilarious mustache out of Susie’s pigtail:

Back in the classroom, the Jackie-Mrs. James worldview clash becomes explicit:

check out Stinker Sam’s argyle socks

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Jackie needs a breather, so she asks to go to the bathroom—and gets curious about the boys’ bathroom:

And again, I love this—her Urinal Fright isn’t explained, but I read it as her not having a handle on anatomical differences and feeling like… There’s something going on here that I don’t understand, and things suddenly feel even more complicated than they already were, and why is the world so big and confusing?

Also, the perspective in the hallway spreads—I actually refrained from sharing one of them, look at me showing restraint!!—show how little she is and evoke how little she FEELS. So great.

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Back in the classroom, Susie clocks how unhappy Jackie is, but doesn’t say anything.

As the week goes on, Jackie keeps trying to join in on the boys-only activities—boys’ gym and Cub Scouts—and ultimately, makes no friends.

And then Mrs. James calls Jackie’s parents.

Her parents, being fantastic, take her for a walk and ask her for her side of the story. She explains—the spread I shared earlier is from that sequence—and they promise to talk to Mrs. James and fix everything.

We don’t see that adults-only conversation—and based on what Mrs. James says here I’m not sure if she entirely understood the message beyond LET JACKIE DO ACTIVITIES THAT YOU CONSIDER MALE-CODED IF SHE WANTS TO—but the road to a worldview shift can be long, and so in this case, I’ll count Mrs. James being confused but still backing off on the gender essentialism as a win:

Then, PLOT TWIST—which, of course, we saw seeded earlier—Susie actively pursues a friendship with Jackie. And points to Susie, because:

A) Jackie tries to rebuff her, which, fair enough, but Susie persists (but in a way that didn’t feel over-the-top pushy), and
B) when Barbara tries to boss Susie into continuing to freeze Jackie out by not inviting her to Susie’s birthday party, Susie isn’t having it, and she verbalizes that to Barbara (crucially, in front of Jackie), which
C) makes everything make emotional sense when Jackie agrees to walk home with Susie & go to her house that afternoon.

And it TURNS OUT that Susie—minidress-wearing, pigtails with bows and Mary Janes Susie—is an AVID MODEL TRAIN ENTHUSIAST.

So it turns out that in addition to it being possible and okay for girls to like boy-coded* clothing and activities, it’s ALSO possible and okay for femme girls to enjoy doing boy-coded activities!! IT’S ALMOST LIKE THERE ARE NO RULES ABOUT WHO CAN BE INTERESTED IN WHAT AND OUR INTERESTS ARE NOT DEFINED BY SOME ARBITRARY, COMPLETELY FABRICATED CULTURAL RULES ZOMG CAN YOU IMAGINE???????????

*“Boy-coded” according to the Mrs. James of the world, etc., etc.

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Back at school, Barbara tries again with the “Jackie shouldn’t be able to go to your birthday party” nonsense, and Susie shuts that shit down:

But in the end, this is a MUCH gentler book than The Unfriendly Book, because the mustache-painting CONTINUES, with Jackie and Susie giving each other mustaches, and before you know it, the whole class has painted mustaches, EVEN MRS. JAMES, and hopefully now everyone had learned a lesson about cooling it with trying to force every single person in the world into one of two very small rigid boxes.

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