Gender has always been considered as a basal issue in the field of Children’s Literature. Since children are receptive to the values and impressed by the ideas expounded in what they read, literary texts addressed to children are not just simply for entertainment; they also reflect positively all of society, especially the marginalized. Children’s Literature should inspire and enthuse its audience, while it could be a means of escape, a sanctuary from repression, and a “secret garden” within which children can identify with and rejoice in themselves. In order to illustrate how gender is used both negatively and detrimentally to the perception of the self, and then to examine whether the “sacrifice” of the story for socially correct writing is acceptable or desirable, we will examine in this paper indicatively, but representatively, the presentation of gender in various texts for children, from fairy tales and nursery rhymes to classic or modern novels and adolescents’ fictions. Finally, as this brief study shows, though Children’s Literature cannot on its own subvert ideology, gender definitions, or gender stereotypes, it could shape a new basis for thinking about individuality and humanity, by challenging children to question and to cogitate.
References
[1]
Andersen, H. (1976). His Classic Fairy Tales (E. Haugaard, Trans.; M. Foreman, Illus.). Orion Publishing Co.
[2]
Aughterson, K., & Grant-Ferguson, A. (Eds.). (2020). Shakespeare and Gender: Sex and Sexuality in Shakespeare’s Drama. Bloomsbury. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781474290012
[3]
Butler, J. (2004).Undoing Gender. Routledge-Taylor & Francis Group. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203499627
[4]
Butler, J. (2006). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge-Taylor & Francis Group.
[5]
Chambers, A. (1982). Dance on My Grave. The Bodley Head.
[6]
Copenhaver, B. B. (2002). A Portrayal of Gender and a Description of Gender Roles in Selected American Modern and Postmodern Plays. [Electronic Theses and Dissertations, Paper No. 632, East Tennessee State University]. http://dc.etsu.edu/etd/632
[7]
Dickens, C. (1987). Hard Times (D. Craig, Ed.). Penguin Books. (Original Work Published 1854).
[8]
Elwin, R., & Paulse, M. (1990). Asha’s Mums (D. Lee, Illus.). The Women’s Press.
[9]
Ernst, S. B. (1995). Gender Issues in Books for Children and Young Adults. In S. Lehr (Ed.), Battling Dragons: Issues and Controversy in Children’s Literature (pp. 66-78). Heinemann.
[10]
Ferrarelli, M. (2007). Children’s Literature and Gender: A Critical Approach. Critical Literacy: Theories and Practices, 1, 63-68. http://www.criticalliteracyjournal.org/cljournalissue1volume1.pdf
[11]
Flanagan, V. (2010). Gender Studies. In D. Rudd (Ed.), The Routledge Companion to Children’s Literature (pp. 26-38). Routledge-Taylor & Francis Group.
[12]
Fry, K. (2005). No Longer a Friend of Narnia: Gender in Narnia. In G. Bassham, J. L. Walls, & W. Irwin (Eds.), The Chronicles of Narnia and Philosophy: The Lion, the Witch, and the Worldview (pp.155-166). Open Court Press.
[13]
Golding, W. (1987). Lord of the Flies. Faber and Faber. (Original Work Published 1954).
[14]
Goodman, L. (1996). Approaching Literature: Literature and Gender. Routledge-Taylor & Francis Group.
[15]
Hamilton, V. P. (1990). The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1-17. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
[16]
Jabeen, I., & Mehmood, A. (2014). Children Literature: Shaping Gender Identities. Asia Pacific Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, 2, 240-242.
[17]
James, K. (2008). Death, Gender, and Sexuality in Contemporary Adolescent Literature. Routledge-Taylor & Francis Group. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203885154
[18]
Jamison Green, J., Ashley Hoskin, R., Mayo, C., & Miller, S. J. (2019). Navigating Trans and Complex Gender Identities. Bloomsbury Publishing.
[19]
Kramarae, C. (1981). Women and Men Speaking Frameworks for Analysis. Newbury House Publishers.
[20]
McCallum, R., & Stephens, J. (2011). Ideology and Children’s Books. In S. A. Wolf, K. Coats, P. A. Enciso, & C. A. Jenkins (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Children’s and Young Adult Literature (pp. 359-371). Routledge-Taylor & Francis Group.
[21]
Nebbia, C. C. (2016). Gender Stereotypes in Children’s Literature. Graduate Research Papers No. 680, University of Northern Iowa. https://scholarworks.uni.edu/grp/680
[22]
Opie, P. & Opie, I. (Εds.). (1997). The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.
[23]
Paul, L. (2004). Feminism Revisited. In P. Hunt (Ed.), International Companion Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature (Vol. I, pp. 140-153). Routledge-Taylor & Francis Group. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315015729-10
[24]
Peterson, S. S., & Swartz, L. (2008). Good Books Matter: How to Choose and Use Children’s Literature to Help Students Grow as Readers. Pembroke Publishers Ltd.
[25]
Pogson Smith, W. G. (Ed.). (1965). Hobbes’s Leviathan. Clarendon Press. (Hobbes’s Original Work First Published in 1651).
[26]
Pollock, J. (2010). “Not of a Woman’s Tenderness To Be”: Shakespeare’s Reassessment of the Notion of Femininity in Coriolanus. In: D. Lemonnier-Texier (Dir.), Représentations et Identités Sexuelles dans le Théatre de Shakespeare: Mises en scène du genre, écritures de l’histoire (pp. 127-137). Presses Universitaires de Rennes. https://books.openedition.org/pur/80907
[27]
Quinlan, P. (1987). My Dad Takes Care of Me (V. van Kampen, Illus.). Annick Press.
[28]
Swift, J. (2005). Gulliver’s Travels (R. DeMaria Jr., Ed.). Oxford University Press. (Original Work Published 1726)
[29]
Temple, C. (1993). “What If ‘Beauty’ Had Been Ugly?” Reading against the Grain of Gender Bias in Children’s Books. Language Arts, 70, 89-93.
[30]
Trites, R.S. (1997). Waking Sleeping Beauty: Feminist Voices in Children’s Novels. University of Iowa Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt20q1x3b
[31]
Trites, R.S. (2000). Disturbing the Universe: Power and Repression in Adolescent Literature. Iowa University Press.
[32]
Wilkie-Stibbs, C. (2002). The Feminine Subject in Children’s Literature. Routledge-Taylor & Francis Group.
[33]
Zipes, J. (2006). Why Fairy Tales Stick: The Evolution and Relevance of a Genre. Routledge-Taylor & Francis.
