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Gender role in children literature
Gender role in children literature
Gender roles in children's literature essay
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Nancy Drew is noteworthy for her lack of dependence on male characters for assist and honored for her independence at a young age. Drew is a young woman who appeals young readers due to her fantasy life. She is an attractive, young, well-mannered, witted woman with a nice house, whose self-determination provide her noble access to the real world. By her courageous personality and spirit, she is a role model of gender roles in children's literature. Furthermore, Nancy Drew's adventures gives us fair ideas on justice and discrimination in the world. Ultimately, Nancy Drew’s mysteries are inspiring, presents with female empowerment, and gives examples of independency throughout the series. Throughout the first three books of the Nancy Drew series, …show more content…
Nancy owns many items that are the same color. Her car is blue and usually wears blue clothing. In today’s society, if something is blue it is tagged as ‘masculine’. Blue blankets and a blue room would be for a baby boy. In all three books I read, I never forgot how sweet of a brave lady who wears blue elegantly. This shows that Nancy’s personality is an adventurous one, as well as fearlessly diving into dangerous situations. Not only is Nancy perfect in the eyes of the reader, but she has excellent qualities of each age and sex. She has a high maturity level and can handle any situation in calm manner. Nancy never looks twice if she should or should not do something because of her sex. Young female adults today, never know when they should start to shave their legs or join in a boys’ game to win their approval, but Nancy Drew does …show more content…
For example, in The Bungalow Mystery, Nancy Drew decides to go to a dance with a friend, Don Cameron. However, her mystery interferes with her fun date and she then leaves town. Instead of ditching Don, she finds him another date and sets another date to make things right with him. Don says, "Wow! A real mystery!" he remarked. "If I didn't know what sleuthing means to you, Nancy, I'd say you were just trying to brush me off ... Okay. If she's willing to go with me, I'll be glad to take her. But I'm sure sorry you can't make it. See you another time” (The Bungalow Mystery, 89). In this circumstance, it would have been fine to leave her date, but she insists on going out of her way to make things right which makes her honorable. Furthermore, she approaches her cases the same way; once a case starts, she will continue to follow through until the
Women pageant queens think they are supposed to represent the ideal of female beauty. The tomboy is especially associated with childhood and is defined by the girlhood performance of masculinity. As Michele Abate noted, “The traits most Americans are likely to name as constitutive of this code of tomboy conduct include proclivity for outdoor play (especially athletics), a feisty independent spirit, and a tendency to don masculine clothing and adopt a boyish nickname” (Abate). What does it mean to be a boy in children’s literature and the kind of varieties of boys that are represented? J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series typically features a social, educational, and physical dangers of school life that provide opportunities for adventure, mischief, and exploration. This collection of experiences allows boys to enact traditional forms of boyhood while practicing many of adult men’s culture and the ability to plan out schemes. Not all boys in children’s literature fit these conventional models of the physically robust athlete, hearty survivalist, or mischievous bad boy. Children’s literature also includes boys such as Laure in Little Women, who are described as sensitive, saintly, sickly, or effeminate. The literary and popular texts help understand expectations of boyhood and the insight into contemporary constructions of
In this book, Peggy Orenstein explores the land of pink. She takes us on an adventurous trip to try and find out the truth about what society tells our young girls what they should be wearing, how they should be acting and most importantly looks are what matters. Orenstein herself is a mother of a preschool aged daughter so the topic of what influences young girls is of great importance to her. She struggles with making the correct decisions for her own daughter, Daisy, as she dives into the girlie-girl world, because as even she has found out, it is impossible to steer clear of it. She talks with historians, marketers, psychologists, neuroscientists, parents, and children themselves. She returns to the original fairy tales, seeks out girls’ virtual presence online, and ponders the meaning of child beauty pageants. In the process, she faces down her own confusion as a mother and woman about issues of how to raise a girl and teach her about her own femininity.
Lister, Rachel . "Gender and Sexuality in The Color Purple ." Alice Walker: The Color Purple. : Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. . Print.
A little girl sits on the floor with her gaze fixed on the television screen in front of her, watching magical images dance before her eyes and catchy songs flow through her ears. Even though she had seen it at least twenty times before, she still loved The Little Mermaid just as much as she did the first time she watched it. As she watched it, she longed to be a beautiful mermaid with a curvy body and wonderful singing voice like Ariel. She longed to be saved by the handsome Prince Eric, and fall in love and live happily ever-after like Ariel did. In today’s society, women strive to achieve equality between the sexes. Despite the tremendous steps that have been taken towards reaching gender equality, mainstream media contradicts these accomplishments with stereotypes of women present in Walt Disney movies. These unrealistic stereotypes may be detrimental to children because they grow up with a distorted view of how men and women interact. Disney animated films assign gender roles to characters, and young children should not be exposed to inequality between genders because its effect on their view of what is right and wrong in society is harmful to their future.
Many have come to know and love the stories of Harry Potter, the boy who lived, but what most may not realize is that Harry Potter can have a bad influence on young children and adults. Though the Harry Potter series is a children’s book that is meant to enlighten the imagination of young viewers, it can be misguiding to those cannot comprehend the difference between imagination and real life. The beloved story of Harry Potter can have a negative influence on young children and adults for a variety of reasons.
The synopsis of Nash's first chapter involves the general history and inheritance of the Nancy Drew novels and how Nancy Drew's gender ambiguity is...
...present powerful characters, while females represent unimportant characters. Unaware of the influence of society’s perception of the importance of sexes, literature and culture go unchanged. Although fairytales such as Sleeping Beauty produce charming entertainment for children, their remains a didactic message that lays hidden beneath the surface; teaching future generations to be submissive to the inequalities of their gender. Feminist critic the works of former literature, highlighting sexual discriminations, and broadcasting their own versions of former works, that paints a composite image of women’s oppression (Feminist Theory and Criticism). Women of the twenty-first century serge forward investigating, and highlighting the inequalities of their race in effort to organize a better social life for women of the future (Feminist Theory and Criticism).
Due to traditional stereotypes of women, literature around the world is heavily male-dominant, with few female characters outside of cliché tropes. Whenever a female character is introduced, however, the assumption is that she will be a strong lead that challenges the patriarchal values. The authors of The Thousand and One Nights and Medea use their female centered stories to prove their contrasting beliefs on the role of women not only in literature, but also in society. A story with a female main character can be seen as empowering, but this is not always the case, as seen when comparing and contrasting Medea and The Thousand and One Nights.
In “Escape from Wonderland” by Deborah Ross, the writer explains how the fictional characters are admired. Although they seem to be sending a bigger message to young girls. The writer talks about drawing a line between fantasy and reality. In the end Ross’s objective is to show how some Disney characters break the femininity and imagination tradition. Which can have an effect in children and how they value their own ability to have unique visions. By comparing Alice in Wonderland (1951), The Little Mermaid (1989) and Beauty and the Beast (1991) to heroines like Arabella from The female Quixote. “Charlotte Lennox’s (The Female Quixote illustrates both these conservative and progressive plot patterns, for it both draws upon and criticizes earlier romances, which themselves often both celebrate and punished female imagination and expressiveness. Therefore, like Disney’s movies today, which also use material from romance and fairy-tale tradition”, (pg. 473, Escape from Wonderland). Young women may not only begin to fantasize about a grandeur life more exciting than reality but to be disappointed with society in the workplace and relationships. For example, Meredith from Brave she is a princess that wishes to have a different life than what her mother has planned for her. She refuses to get married and have the duties of a princess. She wants to have adventures and be
Women in Literature: Reading Through the Lens of Gender. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2003. Print. The. Bailey, Carol. "
Women are crucial to society. They are our voices, and they revolutionize our people. More importantly, mothers are a big part of our society. J.M Barrie’s Peter Pan is a magic-filled story about a mischievous young boy named Peter, and his tribe, the Lost Boys, who explore and go from raising themselves to attaining a mother. This story can be studied under the lens of the Feminist Critical Theory, which focuses on women empowerment and their outstanding role in society. Literature allows society to explore this role, which J.M Barrie displays impeccably in his book. Barrie’s book definitively presents Wendy’s journey from childhood to motherhood, her role in the development of Peter and the Lost Boys, and the idealization of women. Peter
Fisher, Jerilyn, and Ellen S. Silber. Women In Literature : Reading Through The Lens Of Gender..
The Grimm Brothers’ “Rapunzel” encourages women to subscribe to domestic roles. Through the tales of various female characters, “Rapunzel” teaches women to embrace their domesticity even at the risk and disadvantage of such a single-faceted lifestyle. The first female character is Rapunzel’s biological mother, who embodies the domestic women by relying on her husband and never leaving her house. Her husband encounters the enchantress in her own garden, who, though supernatural, cannot expand beyond the domestic realm. Moreover, Rapunzel, the heroine herself, willingly relegates her life to a life of stability, dependence, and ultimately, domesticity.
Throughout American Literature, women have been depicted in many different ways. The portrayal of women in American Literature is often influenced by an author's personal experience or a frequent societal stereotype of women and their position. Often times, male authors interpret society’s views of women in a completely different nature than a female author would. While F. Scott Fitzgerald may represent his main female character as a victim in the 1920’s, Zora Neale Hurston portrays hers as a strong, free-spirited, and independent woman only a decade later in the 1930’s.
Required reading material in school often centers on female heroines. In the essay “Why Johnny Won’t Read,” authors Mark Bauerlein and Sandra Stotsky state, “Unfortunately, the textbooks and literature assigned in the elementary grades do not reflect the dispositions of male students…On the other hand, stories about adventurous and brave women abound.” The two authors are stating that there are hardly any male-oriented novels available from a young age, and so there is not much for boys to make self-connections with. The same essay provides several statistics to highlight the idea that girls read more than boys: “Between 1992 and 2002, among high school seniors, girls lost two points in reading scores and boys six points, leaving a 16-point differential in their averages…” Because reading is the sort of test that can be improved only by practice, it is evident that girls read more often than boys. ...