Gender in Twentieth-Century Children’s Books

Abstract

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.

Hairdressing in space: Depiction of gender in science books for children

“…The results of the current study also show that children's science books display increasingly gender stereotypical images as the target age of the books increases. These results echo the findings of a number of studies of children's literature, which report children to be portrayed more equitably than adults (Gooden & Gooden 2001;Hamilton et al 2006;McCabe et al 2011), and younger children to receive a more balanced representa4on of gender than older children (Evans & Davies 2000). In the discussion that follows, key images that encapsulate the dominant themes in the discourse are described and discussed to illustrate our findings.…”

“…The books in this study were published between 1993 and 2015 and an interes4ng avenue of future study would be to analyse a larger sample of books to see whether there has been any change over 4me in the representa4on of gender in children's science books. As men4oned in the literature review, studies of children's literature over long 4me periods show that varia4on in the number of female main characters does exist (McCabe et al, 2011) and it would be interes4ng to see if this trend is mirrored in children's science books. In addi4on, this data for this study was collected by adult researchers and it would be interes4ng to explore the responses of children to the representa4ons of people depicted in science books.…”

“…Gender stereotypes in children's books increase in intensity as the target age of the books rises (Evans & Davies 2000). This trend also applies to characters within books and a number of studies have found that the representa4on of girls and boys is more equitable than that of adults (Gooden & Gooden 2001;Hamilton et al 2006;McCabe et al 2011). It has been argued that this 'implies that girls do not grow up and become forces in their world, but rather remain young and vulnerable' (Fitzpatrick & McPherson 2010: 136).…”

Bias Gender Dalam Perbandingan Hasil Terjemahan Buku Cerita Anak Dongeng Bawang Merah Dan Bawang Putih Melalui Penerjemah Dan Google Translate

“…Dalam sebuah artikel edisi online pada surat kabar terbitan Inggris The Guardian pernah menyuarakan keprihatinan tekait cerita anak yang lebih banyak memperlihatkan tokoh laki-laki dibandingkan tokoh perempuan sehingga tanpa disadari menunjukkan "symbolic annihilation of women and girls". Artikel tersebut juga didasari oleh penelitian yang dilakukan oleh (Gooden, Angela M, 2001), (Koslowsky, 2011) (McCabe, Janice, Emily Fairchild, Liz Grauerholz, Bernice A. Pescosolido, 2011) dan (Crisp, 2011) tentang pemunculan tokoh laki-laki dan perempuan dalam cerita anak yang menunjukkan bahwa tokoh laki-laki lebih sering muncul dalam judul, ilustrasi sampul, atau pun sebagai tokoh utama dalam cerita-cerita anak.…”

Nine Contradictory Observations About Girls’ and Boys’ Upbringing and Education – The Strength-Based Approach as the Way to Eliminate the Gender Gap

“…In addition to aforementioned roles, girls and boys appear differently in text books: boys are mentioned about three times more often than girls and include expectations about gendertypical behaviors (McCabe et al, 2011). In this way children's literature also tends to strengthen stereotypes (Filipovič, 2018).…”