I read this book, published in 1989, which discusses ‘how and why children become masculine or feminine’. It further mentions that ‘the way in which gender is constructed in our society means that in learning to be people, to be members of our society, children must learn the way maleness and femaleness is done and they must get it right’. Bronwyn Davies studies to provide detail of the gendered world of childhood and new insights into the social construction of gender.

One of the main things which stood out to me in this chapter was the way that the reactions of the children backed up and evidenced the idea that male power equals domination. See page 91.
Page 109 mentions the ways that males and females are allocated roles which involve particular behaviours. Males are portrayed powerful, contrasting with those of a female who appear weak, ‘complementary and supportive to that power’.

Conclusion:
The conclusion I found quite fascinating. “At the heart of the idea of maleness seems to be the idea of power as male power, with females having power only in the domestic realm or as helpers of men in the male sphere.” Another element I found in the conclusion was the ways in which Davies addresses how this idea is embedded in the narrative structures of children’s books, which consequently affects their attitudes towards themselves and others as they develop - “attitudes they develop towards themselves either as active agents who can and should act powerfully in a public sphere, or as sexualised beings whose agency is profoundly inhibited through the positioning of themselves as the passive recipients of another’s gaze.” - see page 138.
Page 141 - Davies finishes the conclusion with the need for more communicative practises for children - the belief that they should not need to comply with a label of ‘male’ or ‘female’, or ‘boy’ or girl’ and the behaviours and characteristics these labels expect. “They need access to forms of discursive practice where their social practice is not defined in terms of the se too genitals they happen to have.”

It is fair to say I found this book very eye-opening, and particularly fascinating considering the era it was written in. Although it isn’t really current enough in terms of the present day problems surrounding gender representation in children’s literature, it is interesting enough to see how this has previously been addressed and researched.

This weeks lecture with Robert, looked at the process of our extended essay. He clarified key points in regards to our meetings with our personal tutors and overall reminded us with questions to ask ourselves throughout our journey. I will add my notes below as I found it quite useful to keep reminding ourselves of the purpose of our own research and what we want to achieve. Something to keep in mind throughout to allow us to keep on track.

I discovered this article about gender representation within some of Roald Dahl’s greatest books, written between April and June 2018. I thought this would be quite intriguing for my research as these books are extremely popular, very famous, although highly criticised. 

Firstly, I was quite surprised after reading this article, as I was under the impression that many of Dahl’s protagonists were male. However, this was a pleasant reminder of the reality that Dahl is actually a supporter of female gender which is conveyed through his modern approach of female heroines.
‘Matilda’ one of Dahl’s greatest books, involves a bright, dynamic female character as the protagonist, along with a petrifying headteacher, Miss Trunchball - which already breaks stereotypes surrounding employment. Matilda acts in a way normally associated with boys in such literature. Matilda’s world is female dominated and we see Dahl’s attempt to break stereotypes through the character of Matilda’s father who states ‘girls should be seen not heard’, followed by several degrading statements. “The patterns of gender which can be associated with fairy tales are carried by the adult female characters in Matilda”.
This article also covers Dahl’s book The Witches, which is one of the most heavily criticised sexist books due to it’s “implied connection between malicious and gender”, however after analysation, we can forgive Dahl through his clear statements that witches are not human, and the lack of feminine features of the witches. He can be applauded however for the great representation of female characters, despite the adventurous child in the book being male - which also fits the stereotypical characteristics of a boy of that age.
The other book which is analysed is The BFG and the gender acknowledgements within. The girl here is not portrayed as weak nor passive towards the descriptively large male character, which breaks tradition which would normally convey fear. One criticism which is mentioned is the way there is a clear differentiation of boys and girls however which we see when dreams are referred to - the BFG refers to girls dreams as ‘whoppsy girls’ dream’ which boys would refer to as “rot bungling grinksludging old dream”. It is clear here that the genders are portrayed to have complete difference in interests, which in today’s society would be deemed non-representative and naive.


Overall I found the article quite eye opening, providing me with ideas and food for thought.