key soundbites flashcards

“gender identity is acquired hand in hand with literacy”

Zanfabro

children = free from ideologies

Zanfabro

gender performativity

Butler

gender performance = “reiterative and citational practice”

Butler

“gender norms work performatively […] in order for heteronormativity to be reinforced”

Butler

“identity categories are never merely descriptive, but always normative, and therefore exclusionary”

Zanfabro

"gender norms arre inevitably part of the education that children’s literature provides”

Zanfabro

“children’s literature teaches what it means for girls to be girls and for boys to be boys”

Nodelman

gender normatively = “boys and girls are understood in two distinct categories” —> specific tastes, desires, behaviours

Zanfabro

intentions to critique gender norms are not always successful

(Flanagan)

“marking some characters’ behaviours as exceptionally non-normative usually reconfirms the binarism implied in the construction of normative masculinity and normative femininity”

Zanfabro

“norms are pervasive”

Butler

non-normative desires = character presented as ‘troubled’

Zanfabro

“non-normative desires are par excellence non-heteronormative desires”

Zanfabro

“[children’s literature] is unlikely to question gender norms radically”

Zanfabro

“the presence of strong female characters and subversions of models of identity does not always imply a critique of gender norms”

Zanfabro

“gender norms regulating bodies’ materialisations and identity formations are always exclusions”

Zanfabro

women were depicted as passive, supplementary to men and underrepresented

Weitzman (1972)

findings displayed that women were no longer passive and had equally present roles w/in narratives however female oppurtunities were limited to domesticity compared to male characters who had endless freedom

Potter and Wetherell (1987)

normative rules for genders → specific ways to behave

Taylor

norms → stereotypes → perceived ideas about how certain genders should behave

Aina and Cameron

children’s literature has “invisible ideologies” that are so widely accepted that they are seen as “natural ways of being”

Jackson and Gee

"gender inequality has maintained the oppression of women due to embedded constructs that support the dominance of masculinity."

Brant

“hegemonic masculinity […] presents men as the holders of power and strength in opposition to women who are represented as weak and powerless”

Connell and Messerschmidt

"the hegemonic norm appears to be a defining subject position taken up by men strategically to benifit themselves over women, such as the positioning of male characters within literature in order to establish a power structure that males dominate."

Wetherell and Medley

children have internalised gender roles by age 4

Taylor

gender schema theory

Bem

gender roles influence children’s self-identities and belief systems

Hamilton et al.

study of children's literature --> found that women were greatly underepresented in titles, imagery and central roles in award winning books; women were characterised in ways that reinforced gender stereotypes: girls were depicted as passive and submissive, whereas boys were presented as active and adventurous; boys appeared to lead and rescue while girls appeared to follow/serve others; men engaged in a wide range of occupations whereas women were depicted as wives and mothers

Weitzman (1972)

research --> men present in 100% of books and women only present in 75%; men present in 1/3 of titles while women present in 0; regardless of the book series, men were more present than women overall whether it be as an animal, central character or in the title

McCabe et al.

research --> found that most 4 and 5 year olds struggled to accept an ending where a princess decided to live free of romantic relationship instead of marrying the prince, were "puzzled and wanted a different 'proper' ending"; suggests that by four years old children are already conditioned to the concept of male-female relationships in which the male has the dominant story role

Davies

many stories still present the "mundane gendered world of women in kitchens but also the fantasy world in which women escape kitchens and are beautiful and loved and of course the reward is their own kitchen"

Davies

gender = social and cultural

McCabe et al.

children’s literature provides depictions of inequality that present women as worthless

Gooden and Gooden

gender = “accomplished through social interaction”

Edley

"males were indisputably in a leading position and if a female was cast in a leading role subtle depictions would occur in which the male exerted his dominance in order to disrespect or disempower the female, indicating the power still lies with the male character."

Le Grange

"these depictions [of male characters being derogatory towards women] were emphasised as female characters were never depicted being derogatory towards males."

Le Grange

both male and female authors depicted narratives that oppressed women, but it was mostly male authors

Le Grange

[the oppression of women in books written by women] "could be due to the notion that the patriarchy is entrenched within societyy and has become normalised to the extent that it is difficult to acknowledge that process which oppresses women is even occurring."

Le Grange

"if children consistently observe representations of females as mother figures and fathers as providers it will influnece their perception of what they believe is expected of them."

De Witt et al.

masculinity is portrayed as more valuable

Le Grange

a common depiction of women in children's literature is that "if they are ambitious they can aspire to be powerful but will still be defeated by men eventually"

Le Grange

"females often displayed outbursts such as crying or exasperation [...] which were then interpreted as an overreaction [...] fear or sadness was never expressed in the form of tears by males [...] instead male characters were often depicted as 'struggling', feeling fearful, 'afraid or puzzled'."

Le Grange

"women are also depicted within children's books as clumsy, silly, lacking intelligence and less competent in their ability to accomplish things in comparison to men who are acheivement oriented."

Le Grange

"females were presented with a concerm for animals, individuals or the wider community" and did things that "did not result in the entitlement of being a 'hero'"

Le Grange

"femininity appeared to be produced with an emphasis on intimate and strong female relationships."; "friendship and emotional expression was viewed as a key marker of femininity."

Le Grange

depictions of femininity through female relationships enable "working-class girls to cope with the exigencies of patriarchal power in the labour market and domestic sphere."

Le Grange

"mothers were primary caregivers while fathers were notable largely by their invisibility, indicating that men have much less obligation to care for the children."

Le Grange

depictions of gender equality were often surface level and “displayed that females and males were still portrayed in traditional domestic roles."

Le Grange

"obvious prejudice and stereotypes have gradually retreated and been replaced by subtler and more covert forms"

Zhai et al.

"women are simply invisible [in children's books of that time period]"

Weitzman (1972)

characterisations of women were usually "insignificant and inconspicuous" particularly in comparison to male characters

Weitzman (1972)

research --> found that Weitzman and his colleagues observations in the 1970s remained true in the 1980s , and that stereotypical portrayals were still rampant in picture book discourses, despite an improved male/female character distribution ratio (fromm 11:1 to 2:1)

Heinz (1987)

research --> found a "weak trend towards egalitarian representation was noted in 7 out of 11 categories, although males still comprised the majority of characters in each characters"

Allen et al. (1993)

research --> found the statistics of male characters nearly doubled that of female characters in titles, illustrations and main characters (1.8:1), and that female protagonists did more nurturing work and were seen in more indoor scenes than male main characters; they also found that male authours favoured more male characters, while female authours did not display such a preference, so the disparity between the number of male main characters and female main characters was related to the gender of the authour

Hamilton et al.

research --> found that most measures of stereotypes and underrepresentation had improved since Hamilton et al. (2006), although assertive/aggressive female characterisations were still lacking

Paynter (2011)

the overall conclusion from the previous research is that "picture books remain a site of gender stereotypes"

Zhai et al.

research --> found that there was an inconsistent trend in gender representation in children's literature from 1930-1960: in the later 1940s and 1960s females were less gender stereotyped, though severely underrepresented, and alternatively, in the late 1930s and 1950s, they were better represented though severely stereotyped

Clark et al.

research --> examined gender roles in 150 picture books from 1940s-1990s and found that male and female characters became more balanced, with the male/female ratio in central roles in the 1990s being approx. 1.9:1; a subtle trend was noted that girls were protrayed in more instrumental activities, but they remained as passive and dependent as they were 50 years previously, while boys occaisionally appeared in passive and dependent roles and were instrumental as usual

Kortenhaus and Demarest (1993)

gender portrayals were asymmetrical → female characters allowed to be ‘masculine’ as subversion, but not vice versa

Diekman and Murnen

fathers = “underrepresented”, “stoic actors”

Anderson and Hamilton

authors use subtle sexism because blatant sexism is socially unacceptable

Hamilton et al.

in the books analysed, "the mother-children bond is constructed to be much tighter than the father-children one", and "the burden of parenthood is overwhelmingly loaded on mother, while the father is largely absent from parenting duties."

Zhai et al.

"the fundamental roles of picture books in shaping young children's worldviews mean that the quality of picture book is an essential education issue which invites close scrutiny of their meaning-making choices"

Zhai et al.

research into gender representation of animals in children's books --> found that birds, ducks and cats were most often female, whereas frogs, wolves, elephants, dogs, monkeys, mice, rabbits, pigs and bears were most often male; male animal characters appeared twice as often as female characters; only 2% of animals were described with gender neutral pronouns

Walsh et al.

"large strong animals like bears and wolves are often coded as masculine, while small, delicate animals like birds or kittens are more easily read as feminine"

Walsh et al.

"while pigs were coded as male for a long time [...] they took a strong feminine turn around the new millennium [...] pig characters are not only female but confident, curious, and central to their stories"

Walsh et al.