Gender Stereotypes in children's literature

After reading many different children's books and doing a project, I have realized just how many gender stereotypes there are in them. These fairy tales tell little girls that beauty is valued other all charactereistics in our society. They tell young boys that they must be brave, handsome, courageous, never afraid, and always strong. These are unrealistic ideas and these stories put tremendous pressure on children to meet these expectations. However, these books and stories are continuously published, bought, and passed on from generation to generation. This tells a lot about our society. Often times people judge by what they see and do not bother to look much further than that. This could come from the ideas which we were all exposed to as children early on in life. Are we born looking at the world this way, or do these stories and the media really have that much of an impact on our lives?

I think it is important as parents and teachers to have discussions with young children when they watch or read these stories to help them understand that these stereotypes and traits are not what they should hold most important in their lives.

Cinderella ate my daughter-the princess complex

While preparing my application assignment I was talking to Professor Ide and recommended a book to me called “Cinderella ate my daughter”.  I didn’t have time to read it, but I looked through a couple different book reviews about it, and thought it raised some very interesting themes.  Most importantly was the author, Peggy Orenstein’s views on the princess complex that controls almost every American girl from ages 2 to 6.

Orenstein believes that Disney and princess themed merchandise and apparel set young girls up for failure because of unrealistic expectations.  For example the idea of waiting for your “knight in shining armor” or “prince charming” to come take you away to live happily ever after is damaging because it instills the idea the women are judge on their beauty. 

The next phase for little girls is the “tween” at which time to break away from the princess she moves on to the less girlie and sexier Bratz dolls, and so begins beauty and sexy being the most important attributes.  In general the author blames Disney for all the stereotypes and stages little girls go through.  Specifically Orenstein blames the Disney starlets who play the innocent virgin angle on Disney for a couple years and then end up drunk and disorderly or slutty and sending nude pictures (ex: Lindsay Lohan and Selena Gomez)

Orenstein sees little girls as being set down the path of princess turned whore regardless of how well they excel at other important aspects of their lives.  She feels like the culture encourages this behavior from girls that it’s almost a rite of passage for girl to constantly be proving physically they are feminine.

The advice she offers to parents is to say ‘no’ more.

Gender Stereotypes in Literature

Today's class discussion on the different stereotypes presented in traditional literature really got me thinking hard about where these stereotypes come from and why we don't try to challenge them more often.  Most of the book shelves either at home or in schools are filled with stories we are all familiar with such as Cinderella, The Three Pigs, and Little Red Riding Hood.  These are stories students, teachers, and parents all feel comfortable hearing and reading because they are simple-minded tales that are universally known.  They embed morals of honestly, kindness, and purity, however they are also introduce extremely gender specific roles and expectations to children at ages as young at 1 years old.  Already girls are playing house and boys are wrestling each other because they believe that is how they are supposed to act in society.  Rarely will you come across parents who encourage their four-year-old son to wear nail polish or their daughter to go hunting, so maybe it is up to educators to teach students that gender roles are not set in stone.  If the classroom library is filled with fairytales and folklore literature, what kind of message are you sending to your students? Traditional literature does not challenge gender roles, instead it reinforces them.  My philosophy on traditional literature is that it should be used as a way to address the stereotypes that were so prominent in the past but are now changing and shifting in today's society.  Instead of putting classics in the classroom library for children to use during free reading, it might be a good idea to hold onto those books separately so you can use them to introduce gender stereotypes and make a lesson out of it.  If we are working towards blurring the lines of gender specific roles we have to start at a young age, and reintroducing children's stories of the past is only holding future generations back from crossing those lines.

Girls will be Girls and Boys will be Boys

I challenge the concept of completely eliminating gender stereotypes. I think that everyone should be treated equally and hired based on their abilities and experience. However, I do not think it is theoretically possible to get rid of gender differences. Most stereotypes originate from observations and/or patterns. The assumptions and stereotypes created based on these observations may be false. This is seen in the history of racial issues. Europeans had a concept of intelligence and civilized living, and Africans, Americans (natives of South, Middle, North), etc. ways of living defied their definitions. The observations of the Europeans were that they live in huts and wore barely anything. The assumption was that they are less intelligent and civilized because of it. I am not personally supporting the idea that one way is more “civilized” or better than another. I am simply making the point that the stereotype came from observations from the Europeans. The same thing happened with gender stereotypes. Assumptions and roles were created based on observations of biological differences. The difference between race and gender is that there IS a biological difference between males and females whereas there is no difference between races other than their skin pigmentation. Although we can probably minimize the stereotypes, there is nothing we can do about the biological differences. First of all, there are organ differences that we will never be rid of. Males and females cannot escape their bodies being identified as one or the other. Then, there are different amounts of hormones being pumped into our brains and throughout our bodies. These allegedly cause differing behaviors which I will not go into mostly because I think we should not use this as an excuse for actions. Plus, it is debatable as to how much it really affects us. Instead, I will focus on how the hormones affect the bodily appearance. Women end up with curvier hips, a different angled pelvis, and breasts. Even facial features tend to be different although I am not sure if I think this because of stereotypes or because it is actually true. Men end up with broader shoulders, bulkier muscles, an Adam’s apple, and deeper voices. So, men being generally stronger took on the role as leader which makes sense in a world in which the bigger and stronger win. These generalizations have been added to and compounded and exploded into the stereotypes that we know today. There are, of course, exceptions to the above statements: genetically altering our species so that we are all one gender and taking on a different form of reproduction; having surgery to alter one’s sex organs; and people who are born with ambiguous sex identities. Plus, these are the observations of patterns and thus only MOSTLY true. It is not 100% fact that a male will be stronger than a female, for example. This causes problems for those that do not fit the majority.

That is why I do not think that it is possible to entirely eliminate the gender roles. I, personally, have no problem with it as long as I am able to live the life I want to live. I also don’t think that gender differences should be something that is evil and “dangerous.” It is only dangerous when you look down upon a certain way of living as inferior and wrong.