Gender Stereotyping Children’s Literature
His ‘n’ hers, pink and blue, Barbies and Action Men.
When you come to examine it, the world of childhood seemed to have a big line painted right down the middle, with the boys and girls expected to shuffle over to their allotted side, and commence playing dress up/ football immediately. I am sure many can see reflections of this in their own childhood; I myself remember when it came to Christmas time being given the collective works of Roald Dahl, Enid Blyton’s by the dozen and Anne of Green Gables, whilst my brother was presented with a huge book with pictures of sharks/crocodiles/guns. With small captions. Which he did not read. It seems as early as we start to interact with the world, the world takes our hand guides us to our glittery/ khaki print sides and gives as our gender specific tools to work with. Despite the forward thinking nature of the 60’s and beyond, right up until the early 90’s, when I was a small (shell-suited) girl, the allocating of girls and boys to their appropriate toys went unquestioned.
In the Guardian this week Viv Groskop explored the idea of redressing this gender segregation in child literature specifically. She considers such childhood classics as Pippi Longstocking, the story of a super strong and independent redheaded waif, and Matilda, the child prodigy, as being worthy examples of feminism, but laments them as a small minority in the mass of children’s books. In typical Noughties fashion, there has been an anxiety ridden rush to amend this ‘wrong’, with Jacinta Bunnell’s colouring book Girls are not Chicks and in the US there have been ‘anti-princess’ reading lists published online. To give a brief overview of the kind of books that are seen to present sturdy examples of feminism, here are two of the titles for our ‘anti- princesses’-
- Girls Think of Everything
- Girls Will Be Boys Will Be Girls.
It seems, in the case of the first example, that once again feminism has been mistaken as a slamming of men, to show women as superior. Surely this title just seeks to reverse the social wrong of sexism, when in fact feminism is meant to show an equality between the genders.
The second example almost seems like a one line summary of As You Like It, and in turn when one thinks how great minds struggle with such plots, you have to wonder if trying to convey the same message to a 4 year old is really going to make any impact.
In fact it seems like this whole exercise is geared more to the needs of the adults, to feel they are raising their child in a ‘gender neutral’ way, than to that of the children. I cannot remember worrying if the girls in my beloved Malory Towers were being gender stereotyped with their love of hockey and horses, as an 8 year old reader. I enjoyed the books for what they were but still grew up to be a (relatively) independent, strong woman. It seems like the books of the current generation are going the complete opposite direction, casting the heroines as pirates, riding on motorcycles and so on, but once again, in their need to combat stereotyping they have shifted the emphasis over to the stereotyping of the other gender. Essentially feminism is defined by the male standards of liberty, a woman is sexually liberated if she is wielding a sword, or wearing a superhero cape. Surely this is not the way.
My suggestion is that, rather than trying to make children’s literature sexually liberated (let’s not forget we are dealing with CHILDREN here, sexual liberty for them is a good decade away), one allows children to explore the world themselves, rather than try to subliminally message them in their literature.
His ‘n’ hers, pink and blue, Barbies and Action Men.
When you come to examine it, the world of childhood seemed to have a big line painted right down the middle, with the boys and girls expected to shuffle over to their allotted side, and commence playing dress up/ football immediately. I am sure many can see reflections of this in their own childhood; I myself remember when it came to Christmas time being given the collective works of Roald Dahl, Enid Blyton’s by the dozen and Anne of Green Gables, whilst my brother was presented with a huge book with pictures of sharks/crocodiles/guns. With small captions. Which he did not read. It seems as early as we start to interact with the world, the world takes our hand guides us to our glittery/ khaki print sides and gives as our gender specific tools to work with. Despite the forward thinking nature of the 60’s and beyond, right up until the early 90’s, when I was a small (shell-suited) girl, the allocating of girls and boys to their appropriate toys went unquestioned.
In the Guardian this week Viv Groskop explored the idea of redressing this gender segregation in child literature specifically. She considers such childhood classics as Pippi Longstocking, the story of a super strong and independent redheaded waif, and Matilda, the child prodigy, as being worthy examples of feminism, but laments them as a small minority in the mass of children’s books. In typical Noughties fashion, there has been an anxiety ridden rush to amend this ‘wrong’, with Jacinta Bunnell’s colouring book Girls are not Chicks and in the US there have been ‘anti-princess’ reading lists published online. To give a brief overview of the kind of books that are seen to present sturdy examples of feminism, here are two of the titles for our ‘anti- princesses’-
- Girls Think of Everything
- Girls Will Be Boys Will Be Girls.
It seems, in the case of the first example, that once again feminism has been mistaken as a slamming of men, to show women as superior. Surely this title just seeks to reverse the social wrong of sexism, when in fact feminism is meant to show an equality between the genders.
The second example almost seems like a one line summary of As You Like It, and in turn when one thinks how great minds struggle with such plots, you have to wonder if trying to convey the same message to a 4 year old is really going to make any impact.
In fact it seems like this whole exercise is geared more to the needs of the adults, to feel they are raising their child in a ‘gender neutral’ way, than to that of the children. I cannot remember worrying if the girls in my beloved Malory Towers were being gender stereotyped with their love of hockey and horses, as an 8 year old reader. I enjoyed the books for what they were but still grew up to be a (relatively) independent, strong woman. It seems like the books of the current generation are going the complete opposite direction, casting the heroines as pirates, riding on motorcycles and so on, but once again, in their need to combat stereotyping they have shifted the emphasis over to the stereotyping of the other gender. Essentially feminism is defined by the male standards of liberty, a woman is sexually liberated if she is wielding a sword, or wearing a superhero cape. Surely this is not the way.
My suggestion is that, rather than trying to make children’s literature sexually liberated (let’s not forget we are dealing with CHILDREN here, sexual liberty for them is a good decade away), one allows children to explore the world themselves, rather than try to subliminally message them in their literature.