BA SOCIAL SCIENCES

SEMESTER V

GENDER: INTERDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVES

ASSESSMENT 1 – LITERATURE REVIEW

- Anant Anupam H2013BAMA03

Distressed Damsel and Chivalrous Knight: Gender Agendas in Children’s Literature

A Review

Introduction

Fairy tales, fables, poems, and stories, too many times we have witnessed in our childhood these characters of a damsel

in distress being rescued by her knight in shining armour to be married together and to live happily ever after. Without

giving a second thought to it, we accepted the fate that these characters had in the story, and somewhere inside even

prayed for our own damsel, our own prince charming. This literature review attempts to give these characters in various

forms of children’s literature that much elusive second thought, in order to understand the various themes and aspects

of gender that play into the construction of the genre of children’s literature.

With reference to the content of the studies from the search results, as seen from the abstract, conclusions and themes

addressed in the studies, a total of 17 studies and one chapter from a book were shortlisted for review. These were

carefully read through and common observations were recorded with respect to various cross cutting themes.

The review begins by looking at literature in general and the kind of fundamental indicators of influences of gender

stereotypes that are witnessed in children. The review continues to uncover the various ways in which gendering

generally goes on in textbooks which the children read, and reveals the evidence of the same seen from a widespread

genre of children’s literature – books, picture books, fairy tales and folktales.

A look is taken on the queer content in young adult literature, as well as the previously mentioned forms of literature,

and the influences it can have on children. The review moves on to observing the South Asian context of gendering

done in children’s literature.

A view of the changing trends world over of gender representations in children’s literature is given, followed bringing

forth the need of, the ways to, and the problems with intervention in the state of gendering in children’s literature. A

conclusion mentioning strengths, limitations, and hopes from this review will be the end of the review.

Methodology

In order to accumulate the literature surrounding gender agendas in children’s literature, a few resource bases were

looked up. Keywords such as gender representation in children’s literature, gender roles in children’s fiction, gendered

literature for children, children’s literature in India, children’s literature in South Asia, impact of literature on children,

and gender construction in children’s literature were looked up in JSTOR, which yielded various studies in directories

of Taylor & Francis, Sage Journals, among other journal collections. A wide net cast in the Google and e-book search

engines also returned back useful books and studies relating to this genre. A full list of materials referred to for this

literature review has been attached in the references.

Literature, Gender Stereotypes and Children

Literature is ubiquitous in a child’s life. Be it through stories told by grandparents, stories of grandparents recounted,

bedtime stories being read out to children, children play-acting plots of popular stories, even children coming up with

self-conceived storylines – literature is everywhere for them. Many of us are also introduced to published literature from

when we are as young as three or four years old. Reading, or being read to, makes us aware, conscious and inquisitive

of things around and beyond us. Thus, literature becomes a vital tool of knowledge acquisitions, of not just material

things, but also intangible necessaries, such as behaviours, norms, practices, etc. So clearly, as Peksen (2012) is right in

pointing out, literature invigorates acquisition of certain knowledge in accordance with the demands of society.

As mentioned, children come in contact with literature as early as ages three-to-four. And as Tibbetts (1978) makes the

case, this is the time in the children’s lives when they are especially impressionable and imbibe very effectively the facts

and attitudes that literature brings to them. Therefore it becomes paramount to know the kind of things that are getting

impressed upon in the minds of children at such an early age, because these become the foundations of further knowledge

gained by them, and almost all things thereon are filtered through the initial basic schemas that the children develop.

A whole lot of knowledge that is propagated in the society has for some time now being studied through the lens of

social construction, i.e., the continuous construction of knowledge by members of society together, so as to give a

rationalised meaning of things, and doing so primarily through the use of language. The emphasis on the tool of language

in this lens brings forth our attention to literature and the socially constructed knowledge imparted to children from it.

Peksen (2012) brings these two strands together in saying that literature fulfils one of its functions which is to promote

gender roles among children, so that children do “not question existing social relationships”... and “behave in ways that

are gender appropriate”. This aspect of influence of literature is necessary to look at because if not originating from it,

children’s conceptions of gender stereotypes are furthered and solidified from whatsoever sources they first attained

them. Veselá (2014) quotes studies which noticed that children start to give preference to certain toys in compliance

with gender stereotypes already at the age of eighteen months.

Common sense prevails in agreeing with Tibbetts (1978) contending that individuals may already have been

indoctrinated by other environmental factors, before being exposed to literature. Whatever prior exposures a child might

have had, but regular dosage of literary exposures, through textbook lessons in schools and nightly rituals of reading

stories to children by parents, according to Anderson & Hamilton (2005), influence the socialisation of both the

children and the adults involved.

A spillover of such socialization is seen in various instances of studies recording aspirations of fifth grade girls were

revolving around professions like secretary, nurse, teacher, actress, stewardess and singer (Pyle, 1976), making

stereotypic toy choices (Anderson, Broaddus, & Young, 2006), and even persisting up to adulthood, such as college

students using a default make main character and including traditional stereotypes when writing their own stories for

children (Anderson & Hamilton, 2005). The idea that literature plays into building up of stereotypic thinking in

children and sustaining in them long after is inescapable.

Children’s Textbooks – Stepping Stone for Gendering

Schools are often seen as the welcome site for socialization of children by the norms and behaviours that society intends

to prescribe for its members. This is so because schools aim for uniformity in the knowledge learned by students, most

of which is owing to the textbook-education.

Since society intends to socialize into its members gender expectations, textbooks become the prime accessory in the

execution of this. While it is acceptable to an extent that uniformity which is characteristic of textbook education is done

so that a bare minimum standard of knowledge and education is imparted to children, in doing so a lot of unjustifiable

generalisations are made.

Paynter (2011) highlights the use of ‘he’ as opposed to ‘she’ when referring to a theoretical person, which is in line

with how representation of unnamed characters or usage of pronouns have been in textbooks an literature. Reading of

literature, be it children’s or textbooks, or even scholarly material, shows that there is an inexplicable need for the

authors to refer to the male pronouns. Gender sensitisation has lessened such usage, but it doesn’t help that the educators

often unknowingly adopt such male usage (Narahara , 1998), resulting in 18 admitting that knowledge children are

taught in schools is ‘male knowledge’ written largely by men, about men and from a male perspective. Teachers

unwittingly choosing gender-biased books for reading to children by teachers is also contributing to this phenomenon

(Narahara, 1998).

Content wise too textbooks indicate a strong gender-bias. Paynter (2011) mentions that men are mentioned seven times

more often than women in history textbooks, and that makes were more likely to be celebrated with stereotypical

masculine traits. While the primary effect of this, that children associate successful traits with being a male, is clearly

evident, what is missed by many is that the women are made relatively invisible against the portrayal of men in history

textbooks. Their contribution to historic events, ranging from cultural importance to participation in freedom struggles,

get considerably sidelined to the point where these texts unavoidably become agents of propagating ‘male knowledge’.

Thus, Ullah, Ali, & Naz (2014) are right in pointing out that textbook contents affect both the conscious and the

unconscious of the readers, resulting in effects that last lifelong in the reader’s mind.

How to be men and women – Learning from Picture books and Fairy Tales

Sexism is abundantly present in children’s fiction from the longest time. Be it portrayal of princes and princesses, or

house maidens, or parents or even children doing things in their limited capacities and understandings – various means

have been adopted to denote sexist presentation, both blatant and subtle, of characters.

Primarily featured in children’s fiction are picture books. Narahara (1998) significantly establishes that when text is

too complex for a young reader to comprehend, pictures serve the purpose of conveying the story. So, the reader highly

depends on the images to understand the text, and thus also subjected to the explicit portrayal of strictly defined gender

roles, for simplicity’s sake, in the stories. Mushtaq & Rasul (2012) add support to it by saying that pictures do more

than context in a story – by occupying a larger part of the page of the literary piece, they elaborate the piece and attract

the attention of the reader before the text.

Such portrayal includes showing women either as housewives and mothers doing dull or uninteresting tasks, or in semi-

professional occupations that are considered appropriate for females. There is no synchronicity with the diverse kinds

of professions that women are engaged in today. Pyle’s (1976) research, which analysed 154 of picture books noted that

while 13 of them had no mention of women at all, 83% of the remaining portrayed women in homemaking roles and

the remaining in gender stereotyped occupations such as teachers, maids and nuns. Defenders of these kind of

representations may present the argument that they are depicting those occupations that the children most often interact

with, however that is not a convincing line of argument. Such reasoning is what leads to ethnocentric views as the

definitions of world are scaled down to the limited experiences of the individual, hence defeating the entire purpose of

knowledge imparting and education.

Another aspect of gender representation in children’s literature is seen through fairy tales. The rewriting of various fairy

tales, by literary figures such as Perrault and the Brothers Grimm, were done to ‘teach females to submit to patriarchal

rule’ (Peksen, 2012). By rewriting these tales along the lines of what was ‘proper’ for children to learn, these fairy tales

reinforced revised patriarchal notions of power distribution and distribution of labour among the two genders. Like in

the stories of Cinderella and Snow White, women were limited to household work, and the ‘virtues’ of submissiveness,

suppressed desires, and docility were shown to be praiseworthy and considered markers of beauty. By doing so, they

make such women desirable to men and also, automatically, inferior to men, as they would then be unable to act on their

own accord and would have to wait for the princes or the male characters to rescue them from their inability.

The solution of this lay in the ‘happy ending’ of marriage, which came to be seen through fairy tales as the ultimate life-

goal for a well-mannered girl. Peksen (2012) tells us that “the language used in these fairy tales was patriarchal and

authoritative” – as if prescribing a lifelong course of action – and that through these, “children learn that while females

should remain passive and wait for the prince to save them, males should always take action and save the world”. Such

a rigid characterization not only makes women appear spineless for the reader, but also places unjustifiable responsibility

on the men, which boys get accustomed to, and unconsciously irrationally burden themselves with as they grow up

attempting to emulate these.

As for power distribution, being the ‘good girl’ disempowers the women in favour of patriarchy because according to

the patterns in the fairy tales, Veselá (2014) says, good women are never active and never have power and their goodness

lies in their obedience to their husbands. The flipside of this is the reason why ‘evil’ women are the ones who are

portrayed to be wielding some amount of power or control. The other side of this gender imbalance of power distribution

is toward boys and men, who are considered ‘good’ when they “aggressive, handsome, wealthy” and thus are powerful

to be the “dominant saviour” to the “humble female” (Peksen, 2012). This is furthered by the adjectives that are used to

stress these gender roles of characters - big, horrible, fierce, great, terrible, furious, and proud were used for males,

whereas beautiful, frightened, worthy, sweet, weak, and scared were used for females (Peksen, 2012).

Such descriptions extended into the description of parental duties in a household. The consistent power differential and

the stereotypic roles yielded to regular depictions of the mother as care taking and emotion expending Anderson &

Hamilton (2005) as compared to the fathers, who were not only much under-represented as compared to mothers, but

were also markedly unaffectionate, and indolent with respect to child care. Such representations would take immediate

effect on the children exposed to this as they would try to recognise similar patterns in their own households, maybe

even impose their newly developed schema upon their parents and be more amicable with their mothers and more

hesitant towards their fathers.

Such constructs contribute to the internalisation of traditional gender roles in children. It doesn’t help that these tales

are further improved upon and presented in the film genre and termed classics – there is now a generation of children

who are growing up listening, reading and watching these classics with recommendation from their parents who were

the initial recipients of such gendered propaganda, and are happy to pass it on to their offspring in the form of classic

children’s fiction which teaches ‘good manners’.

Queer Characters in Children’s Literature

Queer characterisations in children’s literature, specifically in adoloscents’ literature, is a relatively recent phenomenon.

Queer in this review refers to the gender concerns of people who break away from the socialised gender binaries, and

not with reference to sexual orientations. Such a view is necessary because studies have been carried out to note

children’s responses to gender neutral and gender undetermined characters, and how they understand and respond to

such characters. Furthermore, this review covers some transgender issues uncovered in the ‘Parrotfish’ through the

transformation of the protagonists’ gender.

However, a queer reading was possible when looking into some of the conclusions from the study carried out by Paynter

(2011). In that study, it was found that several books in the sample featured characters that were gender neutral, and that

there was an increase in the androgynous characterisations. The presence of characters in children’s books which are

neither specifically feminine nor masculine would bring the children to attempt to place these characters in their

internalised gender stereotypes and find them to be a misfit. Since Paynter (2011) mentions that the authors and

illustrators leave the gender determination up to the reader, the children of both genders may be able to either see

themselves in any of these characters or may even free themselves from their stereotypic categorisations and see these

characters as a new category with greater possibilities as adults. Such a development would be in line with various

governments around the world making the provision of a third gender in their countries. Paynter (2011)’s conclusions

were similar as to notice that when children identify with ambivalent and egalitarian book characters, their stereotypical

thinking may decrease and they may envision themselves in a wider array of occupational roles as adults.

In a more serious ‘queer’ view at things, instead of such passive approach of authors and illustrators in children’s books,

authors of literature for adolescents, such of the book ‘Parrotfish’, base their writing by rejecting the traditional narrative

that holds back the recognition of transgenders. Mallan (2009) sees ‘Parrotfish’ as an attempt of its author to explore

transgenderism in a family. The struggle of the protagonist Grady, a FtM (female-to-male) transgender teenager, to be

accepted in a binary system of gender is covered in the book.

An important point to bring up here is the contradiction that transgenders come across – attempting to ‘transition from

one gender stereotype into another’ so as to reject their belongingness of the gender they were ascribed at birth, as

opposed to the queer subjectivity that attempts to dismiss gender categories altogether – which is highlighted by Mallan

(2009) citing Grady’s feeling that ‘my appearance was finally going to match my sense of who I really was’, as opposed

to his exasperation about why the first question in relation to a new born child is whether it is a boy or a girl and why

we have to ‘act’ as a girl or a boy, because “Not all of us fit neatly into the category we get saddled in on Day One.”

This is an important theme of the queer discourse in literature of little and young children as it opens up various routes

for the child to think about gender and its stereotypes. When they would come across a gender representation of this

kind and then attempt to relate to the character’s exasperation with the dichotomy that the character is caught in, maybe

they too would respond the way Mallan (2009) reports Grady saying “I wish there wasn’t that big division between the

two”. Such an exposure would bring children to question the gender dichotomy that previous literature, among other

societal agents, have been imposing on them and might bring them to, innocently if not consciously, bring it to the

attention of the socialised members of society around them, be it friends, family members, or complete strangers even.

Also, anthropomorphic children’s pictures books have been used in children’s literature to expose children to

transgender issues, often through allegory. Mallan (2009) again brings forth the story ‘Odd Bird Out’ which talks about

Robert, a raven, who doesn’t like to restrict itself to the dull black colour of a raven, wears bright colours, likes to dress

up, etc., which sets him apart from his sombre community. Robert is continually ridiculed and laughed at until he is

ostracised by the raven community for disturbing their norm. Robert’s journey of rediscovering himself with a new

community of similar birds, renaming himself Bobby Raver, becoming popular with the raven community and then

being accepted by them forms the outline of this children’s picture book story. In narrating such a story the author is

able to cover very serious themes of transgender issues of rejection from their own community, needing to

remodel/restyle themselves in a way acceptable to them, and then seeking acceptance from the society they were

prejudiced from. Exposing children to such serious themes in still innocent ways would enable the children to be

conscious of the diversity that could exist in appearances and gender representations, letting them be freer of gender

stereotypes than their earlier generations could have been.

Children’s Literature – Gender in the South Asian context

Usually when we contrast an Eastern perspective versus the western perspective we expect to find more dissimilarities

than similarities. However, in the case of gender stereotypes and their representations in children literature in South

Asia, the picture doesn’t change much relative to their western counterparts.

Just as in the west, toys are considered an important part of childhood, and Mushtaq & Rasul (2012) point out that

gender stereotypes exist here too as parents and children fixate on certain toys for girls and boys, which in turn enhances

these stereotypes. Similar standards of beauty are imposed upon the female readers of children’s literature, recognising

household as the domain of the adult female whose appearance is confined to being beautiful, identity confined to being

homemakers, and roles confined to being the ‘protector of the child’ (Mushtaq & Rasul, 2012).

The continuity of these representations becomes a matter of concern since women in south Asia have ever since

progressed in their education, employment and empowerment in general, however, the kind of themes that run rampant

in the nursery rhymes and picture books in South Asia still denote a much regressive image of women in the society. It

is compounded by the fact, Nasiruddin (2013) reports, that the traditions of these rhymes and stories, which adults are

also very cognizant of, are so ingrained that teachers and parents appear to overlook the stereotypic messages conveyed

through them.

This is true of the Panchtantra stories too, a source of ‘moral stories’ which is widely read to Indian children, has strong

dpictions of the patriarchal social systems which, Shinde (2015) are key to women’s inferior position. Through various

represntations of women as sexual objects, vices, and quotes such as ‘She is a true wife, who does as she is told” (Shinde

2015), these stories persistently reinforce the roles that befit womankind. While such goes on in the private sphere, the

education sector in the public sphere is no less spared, with similar ‘male-exclusive language’ used to signify all

humanity (Ullah, Ali, & Naz, 2014), both in textbooks and by teachers. It is no wonder that despite being among best

English speaking regions in the world, South Asians in general continue to use the ‘He’ pronoun in their speech and

writing.

With consistent emphasis on these gender stereotypes in both the private and public sphere through the medium of

children’s literature, a gendered social order is instilled in the minds of the children which gradually get predisposed to

not questioning and abiding by almost robotically.

Changing trends of Gender Representations in Children’s Literature

Research studies covered in this review reiterate the point of improvement in the depiction of females with respect to

their ambitions, appearance, and descriptions mentioned. However there’s always a catch to this phenomenon – Peksen

(2012) concluded ‘they are still depictes as more interested in domestic life than boys are’. A study covering the range

of children’s literature in the 20th century concluded that the ‘earliest and most recent periods reflected greater balance

in ratios of males to females in title roles and mention in the books than did the middle decades (Grauerholz &

Pescosolidop, 1989). The observation by Mushtaq & Rasul (2012) that children’s literature in South Asia are lagging

far behind the actuality in society comes into play here. Grauerholz & Pescosolidop (1989) hypothesized that the

various waves of feminism must have been depicted in the children’s literature of that time, but however found that

changes in children’s literature toward gender equality used to ‘be slower in reflecting established social values, because

of being gradual in responding to social changes’ (Grauerholz & Pescosolidop, 1989).

A point regarding intersectionality in children’s literature comes to surface here. Narahara (1998) pointed out that in

picture books in the US, Mexican American females were mentioned only about 3% compared to the mentions of women

in general. The statistics were a little better for African American women, but both were stereotypically represented in

roles of maids and disciplinarians, respectively. The picture however slightly improved as women began to be more

accurately portrayed in response to the third wave of feminism, there was a noticeable improvement in the portrayal of

Mexican American females, with books about them increasing over a 90s decade. Minority females in the west thus

faced a double edged sword, being under-represented as women, and then under-represented due to their identity as

Mexicans. The stereotype that was popularized among young populations in the US could have been rooted in these

literature, compounded by stereotypic references to such women in the movie genre.

While some changes are taking place in the ecosystem of children’s literature, as mentioned above, there are other things

that are still travelling as undercurrents that the members of society haven’t been able to escape from. Benevolent

patriarchy is one such mechanism by which patriarchy has been able to bend itself to the new forms of gender

egalitarianism so as to maintain its hegemonic hold onto literature.

Researchers would study changes in children’s literature in many ways including the word descriptors used for female

characters, and Narahara (1998) reports that although the descriptors for women had become positive, such as

hardworking, it was to show that the role fulfilment was done successfully; in many cases these roles were still limited

to homemaker, laundress, etc. It was in these subtle ways that patriarchy had been remodelled in children’s books that

it was almost undetectable if one wasn’t looking for it.

Changes also include a stress on bringing out non-sexist books, and it is indeed an appreciable effort, but much like any

other means of upwards mobility, this has also resulted in blind copy-cat behaviour of writers to have women characters

adopt masculine characteristics without the same being done in the reverse direction for male characters. While female

characters held onto their feminity, and male characters onto their masculinity, Diekman & Murnen (2004) report that

although girls were in addition shown to possess masculine traits, boys were not shown to possess feminine traits. Such

a scheme for deciding upon a book’s ‘sexist’ nature misses the point by a good margin as it still keeps men locked up

in the gender stereotype that they ‘should’ belong in.

Fox (1993) makes a valid point that subtlety has conditioned us thus far and that to undo its negative effect, writers have

to be equally subtle in their approach, which is what leads us to look into the scope interventions in this genre.

Interventions – Why, How, and Why not?

There have been various utterance till now of the effects and influences that children may end up having with the kind

of literature that they are exposed to. However, there are more urgent observations that researchers have pointed out.

Pyle (1976) reasoned that boys through their readings assimilate attitudes and thoughts which have negative

connotations regarding the female role – these are the connotations which girls needs to be freed from to explore and

make choices and decisions which need not follow the traditional sexist path society expects them to follow.

Furthermore, with respect to changes in the trends of children’s literature, while non-traditional characters and even

transgender characters are being introduced into children’s literature, Peksen (2012) raises a point of concern while

pointing out that once socialised to gender identities and stereotypes, children are only able to view these non-traditional

entities through their ingrained perceptions of traditional maleness or femaleness. This way, despite whatever

interventions may be planned, unless they counter the initial gendered socialization process, the children will only

remain stuck in the inescapable gender dichotomy.

Also, while children stay caught in binary gender system, parents also get caught in this trap. Parental stereotyping also

takes place in children’s literature and through that parents risk being subject to their children’s gendered expectations

by being categorised, Anderson & Hamilton (2005) say, in the spectrum from an affectionate caregiver to a deadbeat

absentee. The impact these can have on children’s behaviour, and thereby on the psyche of the parents can be too

sustaining in the parent-child relationship.

These concerns drive us to look into the interventions that required in this genre of literature. A major role is to be played

at the very beginning, by authors who write children’s literature, by being sensitive to the issues of sexism and gender

stereotyping. Even though strong strides have been taken in order to portray women in more powerful positions as

characters, authors have to, Narahara (1998) suggests, be able to counter the more ‘subtle gender violations’ that current

books have. Along these lines, redefining the roles of fathers – which tend to be oppressive due to the heroic character

male characters generally possess in children’s literature – is probably a good place to start.

Teachers and parents also have a vital role to play in this part by being aware of the stereotypes that are portrayed in the

books they read or refer to children, and at various points raise questions and have discussions with the children to make

the latter more aware and urge them to be conscious and questioning about these constructions.

There are, however, some problems with these kind of interventions too, if done without extra precaution. If books are

only written to uproot the sexism in them, then in doing so, Pyle (1976) comments that there develops the potential for

producing poor writing style and quality in children’s books. Also, being non-sexist shouldn’t be transformed in to

female superiority and male subjugation being portrayed in the literary characters – balance in the scales can’t simply

be brought about my tipping them in the opposite side’s favour but by deliberately maintain them at an equal standard.

Conclusion

This review uncovers various aspects of gender agendas that are brought up in children’s literature and studies done on

them. The study wasn’t able to cover many recent findings of the genre, however it benefitted with a comprehensive

availability of material relating to historical pieces of children’s literature, as it enabled the reviewer to look at the trends

that children’s literature went through. The look at South Asia was done at first to make up for the limited material on

children’s literature in India, however taking a look at the materials from Pakistan enabled to let the reviewer

simplistically generalise about the condition of children’s literature in the Indian subcontinent (here denoted by South

Asia) by itself and in relation to the western contents.

Overall, this review would help a researcher interested in a review of a global historical as well as contemporary look

at children’s literature to see what all has been written about this subject, and thereby build on it to carry out their

research.

The reviewer feels that it is necessary to look into the gender agendas of children’s literature as it is a vital avenue for

children to gain knowledge and learn about how society ‘works’. This can serve as a useful juncture to revamp the

patriarchy-influenced constructions of gender that currently keep most individuals in their grip, and thereby liberated

all sections of the populations from sticking by the gender roles and stereotypes they subconsciously hold themselves

locked within.

[5010 words including parenthesis]

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