# As a child, were your favorite literary characters of the same gender as you?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-child-were-your-favorite-literary-characters-of-the-same-gender-as-you/381361>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [November 21, 2006, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-child-were-your-favorite-literary-characters-of-the-same-gender-as-you/381361 "2006-11-21T23:48:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\
**Post date:** [November 23, 2006, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-child-were-your-favorite-literary-characters-of-the-same-gender-as-you/381361/41 "2006-11-23T14:53:56Z")

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[QUOTE=Triskadecamus]

I mostly liked male protagonists, but most of the protagonists I read about were male. Among females, I kinda had the hots for Clarissa Kinneson, and her daughters. I found the male Kinnesons a bit hard to take. (Of course I liked Nadrek and Worsel the best of the Lensmen, and I don’t think Nadrek had a sex, and with a thirty foot long flying lizard, the question is unlikely to come up.)  
[/QUOTE]

I didn’t discover the lensmen until my teen years, and I sure had vivid imaginings of Clarissa!

I always sort of liked Cynthia best, though.

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**Author:** ![NJ\_Kef\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b487fb/32.png) [@NJ\_Kef\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NJ_Kef_1)\
**Post date:** [November 23, 2006, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-child-were-your-favorite-literary-characters-of-the-same-gender-as-you/381361/42 "2006-11-23T16:44:46Z")

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I’m male. When I think back (waaaay back) to pre-teen childhood, the first books that come to mind have female protagonists.

Trot, who gets turned into a mermaid in Baum’s \*[The Sea Fairies](http://fairy-tales.classic-literature.co.uk/frank-l-baum-the-sea-fairies/) \*.  
Meg, from _Wrinkle in Time_.  
_Harriet the Spy_.

Books with male protagonists that I loved were Eleanor Cameron’s _Mushroom Planet_ series, the Danny Dunn series, Tom Swift Junior.

Although I did not identify with any of these characters, I wanted adventures like theirs. Stories that I did somewhat identify with were those with siblings, usually two brothers and two sisters, such as the Narnia books, Edward Eager’s novels (\*http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4662726]Half-Magic _, The Time Garden, etc.), and E. Nesbit’s novels (_http://www.indiana.edu/~letrs/vwwp/nesbit/fivechil.html]Five Children and It \*, \*http://classicreader.com/booktoc.php/sid.3/bookid.422/]The Phoenix and the Carpet \*, etc.), because my brother, two sisters, and I played together.

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