Gender Roles in Children’s Literature

E re onlyything we read constructs us, makes us who we ar, by fall ining our emblem of ourselves as missys and women, as boys and men M. Fox It is a well get it onn fact that tikerens writings holds an fundamental role in the outgrowth of tender squirtren. It has the power to t from each unrivalled, offer meaning and serve purport all while beingness entertaining. Childrens writings is a widely available resource that offers children a plentitude of insightful cultivation. Within the pages childrens books lies an big resource of tools that aid in the fall apartment of spirit for children, and conveys. sexuality is an chief(prenominal) aspect of trailment and is a normally explored thought in childrens belles-lettres. Children gain information from many sources such as teachers, family and friends, provided they withal gain it from belles-lettres. Like in every enculturation the roles of sexuality in America atomic number 18 an strategic part of its cu lture. grammatical grammatical sex Identity is a authoritative part of a childs development because it overhauls children to reckon themselves in relation to others. A child develops their sense of sex at a very early age, for more or less children sexuality identity begins to develop between 18 and 30 months.After a child has developed their sense of grammatical grammatical gender they begin to collect that gender is stabile girls grow up to baffle charr and boys grow up to become men. By the quantify a child is the age of four-spot or five they abide come to privilege participating and playing in activities that ar be by indian lodge as gender discriminate. It is during puerility that children begin to fall victim of sterile behaviors. For theoretical account girls refusing to play with trucks or wear pant because it is not considered feminine by corporation. Lawrence Kohlberg an American Psychologist outlines the stages of gender development.Kohlberg outlin es gender development in three stages. The first being sex labeling, in this stage children identify others as mannish or female based on physical appearance. The second stage is when children begin to greet that gender is stable over time gender stability. And the third stage is gender consistency children render that gender is permanent. But what influences children to know whats appropriate for their gender? The answer may be comprise in a theory known as gender Schema. The Gender Schema is a mental theory that explains how children develop their gender roles.This theory suggests that children remove roughly male and females roles from the society in which they spanking in. This theory also suggests that children adjust their gender behaviors to align to the gender expectations of their culture. Children acquire cultural information somewhat their gender roles from a variety of sources p arnts, teachers, family, media and lit. Through literature children are exposed to characters that outline the expected behaviors for each gender. Children take the information given to them and then judge to conform themselves to what is expected of them.Because of this children are unable to know their full potential, forcing them to abide within their given roles. Since the offset printing of time gender has define ones role in society. Like class, race and ethnicity, gender shapes just virtually every part of our lives. (Macions pg 90). Society places roles and expectations for each gender that are played in out in every aspect of life home, school, work, playgrounds and literature. As children develop they are subjected to messages from society, which helps them to gain understanding of the earth roughly them and molds them into their given roles.The way, in which gender roles are envisioned in childrens literature, significantly contributes to the development of childrens gender roles and how they are perceived by society. It is important to teac h children about gender roles since it is something that society holds in regards, but most of the time in literature it is done unequally. The portrayal of gender in literature is based off of the expectations of society and places bias on gender. Boys are portrayed as strong, adventurous, independent and exposed and lots play the roles of fighters, adventurers and rescuers.Girls are portrayed as sweet, naive, dependent, sensitive and emotional and play roles such as caretakers, princesses and mothers. The roles of gender portrayed in literature are often a reflection of the views of society and do not offer objective insight. Even though it is important to teach children about gender roles, the way of life in which it is done in does not pull up stakes children to see beyond those expectations. If a issue girl is constantly read stories about a womans role as a housewife, homemaker and mother, she result weary thats what is expected of her and will not know society will a llow her to be anything she needs to be.Gender roles in childrens literature are linked to gender stereotypes. Gender stereotypes harbour ever more been a part of society and are seen in almost every aspect of life. Stereotypes are defined as exaggerated descriptions applied to every somebody in the same category. (Macions p. 72). For every ethnic, racial and gender category society places stereotypes to describe definite groups of people. Gender stereotypes in childrens literature are portrayed in the traits, role behaviors, physical characteristics, and occupations of characters in childrens literature.The common messages in childrens literature about gender plant emphasis on the conventional roles of men and woman. Unfortunately traditional roles are often unequal and place males as dominant over woman. Traditional gender encompasses the concept of masculinity and femininity. In many countries around the world, the traditional roles of gender are greatly valued. The tradit ional role of gender places woman as the homemakers and men as the provider. Girls are incessantly shown as passive and girls are always shown as being active. (BookStove. com).With such emphasis on tradition, childrens literature does not allow children to see one-time(prenominal) the stereotypical expectations of society. It is no wonder why gender inequality in childrens literature is so prevalent when society places unequal views upon gender. Unfortunately a lot of the childrens literature right past contains gender stereotypes as previously discussed. One would most likely assume that this is something of the sometime(prenominal) but it is as present today as it was in past decades. A reason out for this could be that Gender-role development is one of the most important areas of human development (Noppe).Since gender roles are an important aspect of development for children, it is a significant root word in literature. However in the bulk of childrens books the main ch aracters are predominantly male, thus adjustment opportunities for girls to identify with and validate their own gender. The male gender has been the dominant of the two sexes since the beginning of time, which explains why male characters are dominant in childrens books. The volume of childrens books have a male as the main character, leaving females with the minority of literary experiences aimed for them. In an analysis of childrens book titles by S.Ernst it was constitute that male label represented nearly double as often as female name (Tsao). Ernst also found that books that had gender neutral and girls names were actually about boys. Gender roles and stereotypes force modern children to conform to traditional stereotypes regarding gender. Because of this, boys feel pressured to live up to the standards of masculinity while girls feel pressured to be feminine. Gender based beliefs are incorporated into a majority of literature written for children. Even though the stereo typical divide between males and females is not a bighearted as it was 40 years ago, it is still present today. When they are repeatedly given stereotypical messages, their choices of what they want to become or accomplish is limited by these gender stereotypes (Bookstove. com). Today both males and females are doctors, soldiers, teachers, athletes, organisation leaders, stay at home parents and much more, til now this is not full represented in childrens literature. Females in childrens literature are all too often portrayed in a narrow and biased way (Bookstove. com). Over the past few decades societal changes in gender roles have lead the stereotypical beliefs of gender to represent something variant than what it used to.With so many changes in the views of society you would think that childrens literature would reflect these changes but all too often they do not. And most often the books that do challenge the beliefs of society bait great controversy causing them to be put on the back burner in favor of more traditional childrens books. The stereotypical roles of gender that are portrayed in childrens literature have been the cause of much controversy in recent years. However a solution to remedy the abundance of gender stereotypes in literature has not so far been reached.It is believed that the ideas of masculinity and femininity are too late embedded in society making it specially difficult to change. Every aspect of society is shady with stereotypical beliefs that are perceived through media, advertising, literature and socialization. These models are a constant reassure that exploits gender stereotypes. According to Bookstove. com, guidelines were implemented in an attempt to spurn sexist roles in childrens literature. These guidelines were expected to sanction a healthier development of gender for young children but unfortunately did not persist to armed combat the situation.Thus making it evident, that stereotypes are too deeply root in society. It will be interesting to see how the issue pans out over the coming decades. Gender identity is a crucial part of a childs development and will most likely remain a common theme amongst childrens literature. The views of gender depicted in literature may prevent children from participating in activities that would crush suit their capabilities and personalities. It is important to understand and learn the expectations of society but childrens literature does not fully allow children to develop concepts of individuality.Today society places value on individuality and does not limit life chances to certain genders, but this is all too often not shown in childrens literature. In order to help children in the process of gender identity one must realize that children need chances to interpret the world around them without the insight and beliefs of society. Hopefully in time childrens literature will steer away from the stereotypical beliefs of gender and focus on non-traditi onal gender roles, allowing children to see themselves in many different aspects.Works Cited Macions, prat J. Social Problems. New York Pearson, 2008. Noppe, Illene C. social. jrank. org. 1 December 2010 . Tsao, Ya-Lun. Gender Issues in Young Childrens Literature. Reading Improvement (2008). Unknown. 12 3 2007. Bookstove. com. 5 December 2010 . Gender development Gender Schema Theory. Encyclopedia of Women and Gender wind up Similarities and Differences and the Impact of Society on Gender. Oxford Elsevier Science Technology, 2001. gospel Reference. Web. 06 December 2010. Fox, M. (1993). Men who weep, boys who dance The gender agenda between the lines in childrens literature. Language Arts, 70 (2), 84-88. EJ457107.