Today I’d
like to introduce you an article about gender stereotyping in media, namely
children’s picture books. The name of the article is “Gender Stereotyping and Under-representation of Female Characters in 200 Popular Children's Picture Books: A Twenty-first Century Update" by Hamilton and friends (2006). Personally, I
believe that how we behave today is conformed by different kinds of media since
we were very young. Don’t take me wrong I’m very conventional and absolutely
not a feminist, I'm just concerned that what we present to children might harm them.
Previous
studies show that sexism in picture books is a bad influence on children’s
career interests and strengthen their bias. Some researchers (Tognoli, Pullen, & Lieber, 1994, as cited in Hamilton et al., 2006)) conclude that gender bias in children’s books gives boys a sense of
entitlement and lowers girls’ self-esteem and career desires. Other researchers
have claimed that children’s literature gives children with social norms of
masculinity and femininity. The researchers are concerned about this as parents
normally read picture books to their children when they are very young, say 3-5 years old. At that age it is the time that children begin to learn the
differences between sexes and of shaping gender stereotypes (Powlishta, Serbin,
& Moller, 1993, as cited in Hamilton, 2006). One recent study in 2005 by Anderson and Hamilton (as cited in Hamilton et al., 2006) revealed
that the bias is not only against females. For example, as a parent, male is
likely to be portrayed as indifferent, stern, and less active with children. If a boy adopts gender role of fathers in may picture books, he might have difficulty communicating with his family in the future. Female in pictures books are portrayed as weak, naive, helpless and modest, and not many of them work outside. This will definitely have impacts on girls' personalities.
Thus, the
researchers see the need to further study gender bias and the representation of
female and male characters in children’s books in order to prevent harmful
effects on their gender roles and self-images. The aim of
the study is to assess gender bias in 200 top-selling children’s picture books. Six hypotheses were tested.
The first
hypothesis is that there would be fewer female than male in respect of young
and adult main and over all characters, titles and pictures.
The second is
to test whether sex of author relate to sex of title and main characters.
The third
hypothesis is that more female characters would likely to be portrayed indoors
than outdoors, passive than active, be rescued, and be caring than male
characters.
The fourth
one deals with the occupations of the main characters. Both of them would be
more gender traditional but male would have wider range of career than would
female characters. Also more female than male would be represented as not
having an occupation outside home.
The fifth
hypothesis is to explore the differences between Caldecott winners and
non-award-winning books in the number of male and female characters in all criteria.
The last one
is to find out if there are changes in representation and stereotyped genders
in children literature since 1980s.
The
researchers conducted the research by selecting 30 Caldecott medal winners and
honor books during 1995-2001; 155 non award-wining best-selling picture books
in 1999-2001; 3 books from New York public Library list of books everyone
should know; and the Funorama.com top ten picture books. Overall 200 children
books were analyzed in this study.
That brings
us to the result. Hypothesis one was confirmed. However, the hypothesis two was partly
confirmed in that male authors wrote more about men in terms of both characters
and title characters. Female authors did not favor one sex over the other.
Next, hypothesis three was confirmed that more female than male characters are
male for nurtures/ cares, but disconfirmed for rescues and to be rescued,
passive behaviors, and assertive. In other words, the study found that both
male and female characters were represented more often as active than as
passive. Hypothesis four which is about characters’ occupation was also
confirmed. The fifth finding was that Caldecott books under-represented female
characters to a greater extent. Lastly, the study showed that there has been no
increase in the proportion of female characters since the 1980s. Anyway, there
has been some improvement in the portrayals of woman and men’s active roles as
well as job ranges, yet equity is still on the way.
To conclude,
this study showed that gender stereotypes are consistently reinforced by
children books. Although the idea that boys are more interesting and important
than girls persists, not only girls are disadvantageous. Thus, parents,
teachers, or librarians should wisely selected books which are less gender
stereotyped for the children.
References
Hamilton, MC, Anderson, D,
Broaddus, M & Young, K 2006,
Gender Stereotyping and
Under-representation
of Female Characters in 200 Popular Children's Picture Books: A Twenty-first
Century Update. Sex
Roles, 55(11-12), PP. 757-765, viewed 22 March 2012,
retrieved from Research Library. (Document ID: 1180950431).
