Anonymous1: I was always on board with the idea of a female Robin. I don’t know why most of them have thus far have been boys. Young boys reading usually wanted to be Batman, not Robin.
Anonymous2: For one, most of them have been boys cause they have all been more or less rip-offs of the original. Dick Grayson is the only original character among them and his personality traits and skills have been distributed over all of them to the point where they're now all pretty much indistinguishable one dimensional anime carricatures.
I don't think you actually know a lot about the history of Robin. He was LITERALLY invented for kids to identify with, and in doing so he actually saved Batman from cancellation in 1941. Most boys actually do identify with him for the same reason kids shows use kid characters and teenage drama's use teenagers. There's also that aspect to Robin of one day becomming batman, which appeals to boys. Comicbook readers are mostly men, even after all the female pandering the big 2 do have been doing. So being a guy only makes sense for a character specifically designed to be indentifiable to the young reader.
Even if this wasnt the case, I don't see what the point would be in changing the gender. It wouldn't attract girls, cause apparently kids dont identify with Robin.
Anonymous3(1): @Anonymous: I don’t recall saying boys couldn’t identify with Robin. I said boys would rather be Batman. Just because kids could identify with Jimmy Olsen doesn’t mean they want to be him instead of Superman. I do think bringing a younger sidekick to the books did mean they had to lighten the tone a little making it probably more appealing to kids. The 60s Batman show with Adam West boosted Batman’s popularity in a big way and people nowadays who crave the dark and edginess of Batman widely regard it as lighthearted campy fun but it’s not really ‘their’ Batman. Also they clearly came up with Batgirl and Batwoman not only to dispel the whole gay overtones people perceived the series to have (which Dick did not help with btw) but also to appeal to the female demographic which was believed to be lacking.
I don't think you actually know a lot about the history of Robin. He was LITERALLY invented for kids to identify with, and in doing so he actually saved Batman from cancellation in 1941. Most boys actually do identify with him for the same reason kids shows use kid characters and teenage drama's use teenagers. There's also that aspect to Robin of one day becomming batman, which appeals to boys. Comicbook readers are mostly men, even after all the female pandering the big 2 do have been doing. So being a guy only makes sense for a character specifically designed to be indentifiable to the young reader.
Even if this wasnt the case, I don't see what the point would be in changing the gender. It wouldn't attract girls, cause apparently kids dont identify with Robin.