Sexism in Online Children's Literature: The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck by Beatrix Potter (original) (raw)
Related papers
2018
ENGLISH: Sexism have always been an issue in literature for children. Most of the children’s literatures portray male as the character who leads the story, while female is passive. Moreover, authors or illustrators often apply lebels to characters based on their stereotypes on sex. Meanwhile, children’s literature which is considered as picturebooks provide role models for children in defining and shaping standards for feminine and masculine, behaviour, and attitudes toward women. This study examines the portrayal of sexism in Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Peter Rabbit and The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck, applies Ambivalent Sexism theory by Peter Glick and Susan Fiske in order to find what attitudes of ambivalent sexism portrayed in the stories helped by additional tools to view sexism retrieved from The Council on Interracial Books for Children (2011). The result of this study shows that sexism still occurs in children’s literature through the story lines, lifestyles, relationship be...
Stereotyping Gender in Children's Literature
The persistent imbalance of gender representation in children's literature has become an issue. The stereotypes and worldview embedded in children's books have become accepted knowledge, and such deep-seated socialized thinking has created barriers that prevent authors from implementing their egalitarian beliefs. This paper contends that a huge imbalance exist in the presentation of gender in children's literature and therefore states that despite the positive attributes that typify children's literature in Nigeria, the literature is gender biased. Gender stereotypes in children's literature in Nigeria enhance gender inequality by imparting notions that privilege masculinity and downgrade femininity, gender bias exist in content, language, and pictures in a number of children's literatures and reinforces the building and maintaining of biases towards the female genders. This paper analyses imbalance in gender relations in selected children's books in Nigeria. The study found out that children's literature in Nigeria is gender bias and displays imbalances in the representation of textual characters and as a result there exist the absence of dynamic and positive female characters in the literature produced for the younger ones.
Gender Stereotypes and Representation of Female Characters in Children's Picture Books
Studies since the 1970s have found that many female characters are stereotyped and underrepresented in children's picture books. This dissertation updated a study by to examine whether stereotyping and female underrepresentation changed over the past decade. The book sample included 3 Caldecott Medal/Honor books and 48 bestselling picture books published in 2010. The study, a quantitative content analysis, utilized 6 library media specialist book raters and the coding schema of Hamilton et al. (2006). Most measures of stereotypes and underrepresentation improved since the Hamilton et al. study; however, measures that declined significantly included more male than female authors and illustrators, more anthropomorphized male main characters and illustrations, and no female characters in assertive/aggressive characterizations. Descriptors: gender bias, gender stereotypes, children's picture books, sex typing ii Acknowledgements This dissertation is dedicated to my fantastic husband, who has endured with equanimity my perpetual student status for well over a decade…to my mother, who has always been my editor and champion of higher education…to my children, for whom I hope to provide a good example of perseverance…to my committee members, Dr. Kathie
Sex Roles, 2006
Gender stereotyping and under-representation of girls and women have been documented in children’s picture books in the past, in the hope that improvements would follow. Most researchers have analyzed award-winning books. We explored sexism in top selling books from 2001 and a 7-year sample of Caldecott award-winning books, for a total of 200 books. There were nearly twice as many male as female title and main characters. Male characters appeared 53% more times in illustrations. Female main characters nurtured more than male main characters did, and they were seen in more indoor than outdoor scenes. Occupations were gender stereotyped, and more women than men appeared to have no paid occupation. Few differences were found between Caldecott award books and other books. A comparison of our book sample to 1980s and 1990s books did not reveal reduced sexism. The persistence of sexism in picture books and implications for children and parents are discussed.
RECOGNISING SEXIST LANGUAGE THROUGH CHILDREN’S LITERATURE
We are constantly bombarded by gender-biased images in the media and give little thought to the way women and men are represented. However, the representation of gender through media and language contributes to the way in which we see our roles in society. In this paper, a language instructor shares his experience of using fairytales to raise the consciousness of his students on issues related to sexism in society. The fairytales were used to generate discussions on sexist attitudes that are evident in society today. It is hoped that the findings will be beneficial to educators who are interested in helping their students address the issue of sexism in society.
Gender representation in children's books: A critical review of empirical studies
2014
Gender representation in school textbooks, referred to as children literature in the western world, has been researched and discussed extensively in a serious academic tone since the early classic studies by second wave feminist in the 1970s and 1980s using content analysis approach. These early studies as well as those carried out by feminist poststructuralists, using qualitative approaches, asserted that children literature is gender bias: these carry significantly more males than females and both females and males are portrayed within their traditional gender roles. Keeping in view the persistent sexism in children literature, this critical review examines key findings of various studies, both from developed and developing countries, with two basic arguments: (1) Textbooks still carry gender stereotypes and (2) Gender bias in textbooks does matter as textbooks knowledge is essential medium of power that shapes the ways in which children think about themselves and society. Thus, the key purpose of this review is to assert that the persistent gender biases in children literature aims to reinforce and legitimize gender system.
Gender in Twentieth-Century Children’s BooksPatterns of Disparity in Titles and Central Characters
Gender & Society, 2011
Gender representations reproduce and legitimate gender systems. To examine this aspect of the gendered social order, we analyze the representation of males and females in the titles and central characters of 5,618 children's books published throughout the twentieth century in the United States. Compared to females, males are represented nearly twice as often in titles and 1.6 times as often as central characters. By no measure in any book series (i.e., Caldecott award winners, Little Golden Books, and books listed in the Children's Catalog) are females represented more frequently than males. We argue that these disparities are evidence of symbolic annihilation and have implications for children's understandings of gender. Nevertheless, important differences in the extent of the disparity are evident by type of character (i.e., child or adult, human or animal), book series, and time period. Specifically, representations of child central characters are the most equitable and animals the most inequitable; Little Golden Books contain the most unequal representations; and the 1930s-1960s-the period between waves of feminist activism-exhibits greater disparities than earlier and later periods. Examining multiple types of books across a long time period shows that change toward gender equality is uneven, nonlinear, and tied to patterns of feminist activism and backlash throughout the century.
2011
Gender representations reproduce and legitimate gender systems. To examine this aspect of the gendered social order, we analyze the representation of males and females in the titles and central characters of 5,618 children's books published throughout the twentieth century in the United States. Compared to females, males are represented nearly twice as often in titles and 1.6 times as often as central characters. By no measure in any book series (i.e., Caldecott award winners, Little Golden Books, and books listed in the Children's Catalog) are females represented more frequently than males. We argue that these disparities are evidence of symbolic annihilation and have implications for children's understandings of gender. Nevertheless, important differences in the extent of the disparity are evident by type of character (i.e., child or adult, human or animal), book series, and time period. Specifically, representations of child central characters are the most equitable and animals the most inequitable; Little Golden Books contain the most unequal representations; and the 1930s-1960s-the period between waves of feminist activism-exhibits
An exploration of sex-role stereotyping in Australian award-winning children’s picture books
The Australian Library Journal, 2006
A content analysis of 25 award-winning Australian picture books was conducted to examine whether the incidence of sex-role stereotyping had decreased in Australian picture books since the mid 1970s. Comparing a sample of books from the mid 1970s to a sample from the 2000s, three potential areas of stereotyping were assessed: ratios of male to female characters in central roles, titles, illustrations, and as animal characters; activities the central characters were depicted engaging in; and an exploration of the text for traits that central characters exhibited. No significant differences were detected between the ratios of male to female characters across the two time periods, however, trends towards equality were found between the early and the recent sample in the categories of titles and animal characters. Further, no evidence of stereotyping was found with regard to activities, with male characters not participating in instrumental-independent activities and masculine traits any more often than their female counterparts, and female characters not engaging in passive-dependent activities and feminine traits any more often than male characters. Finally, no evidence was found to suggest that male characters were any more rigidly stereotyped than female characters. It was concluded that, in the current sample, little stereotyping was present, and that such areas of disparity as were evident showed a trend towards equality. The difficulties and pitfalls involved in this sort of study are discussed, with an emphasis on the necessity for, and importance of, broadening the research. This article was originally conceived as an honours thesis.