Okay, admittedly, I have fairly nerdy tastes when it comes to pop culture - so when I think "librarians in pop culture", I'm thinking Giles from Sunnydale High School, Lucien from the Dreaming's library, Rex Libris, The
It's interesting, then, that when I say that I'm a librarian, people often (a) don't believe me, and/or (b) ask me *why* I became a librarian (with the assumption that there are so many better options that I could have chosen) - mostly because they find it strange that a young guy would choose to be a librarian. And it is uncommon.
And as much as I tried to ignore the "Guybrarian" comment in the now-infamous "Hipper crowd of shushers" NYTimes article, it's coming back to haunt us yet again. It was Derek's word of the day yesterday, and the topic of male librarians reached yesterday's issue of Penny Arcade.
I guess the issue is, other than the statistical prevalence of females in the industry, is there actually anything about being a librarian that is particularly "feminine"? I mean, to compare with another female-dominated industry - nurses - there is a particular idea (which I don't necessarily subscribe to) that women make better nurses, because of a nurturing motherly nature that makes them better carers. And in the case of children's librarians, taking a "motherly" role in storytimes and encouraging parents to read to their children could be seen as appropriate. But at the same time, teenagers in the library don't want their librarians to "mother" them - and I see this happen all too often. (I'd suggest that young adults need role models or mentors rather than parental figures.)
But early childhood librarians aside (as they take up a minority of library workers), is there any reason why library work would be more suited to women than men? Even if we are to accept broad stereotypes of gender roles, I don't see any logical correlation.
I mean, given all the great work that you can do as a librarian, and the not-too-shabby-pay (ie. more than enough to support a comfortable lifestyle without selling your soul), why wouldn't a guy want to be a librarian?
4 comments:
Hear, hear. Being a librarian isn't about gender. Maybe its only because women have been smart enough to figure out what a great career it is and only selected smart individual males like yourself have, lol!
Here's another cool "Guybrarian" to add to the list: Henry, the protagonist from my favourite book, The Time Traveler's Wife.
I must admit that 'The Mummy' often pops into my head too when I think of female librarians in popular culture. However, if you're after some more examples of female librarians in pop culture, try: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librarians_in_popular_culture
From what I've seen, the percentage of females in my branch of librarianship is probably 70 per cent female, 30 per cent male, and 90 per cent of them are over 40 years of age, but that's another issue. PS: Congratulations on your Australian Idol appearance last night.
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