Gender Roles
I have thought about many different ways to
organize this paper and have come to
the conclusion that the best way to
approach the topic is on a book-by-book
basis. My perceptions of the gender
biases in these books vary greatly and I did
not want to begin altering my
views on each so that they would fit into certain
contrived connections. What
interests me most in these stories is how the
authors utilize certain
character’s within their given environment. Their
instincts and reactions are
a wonderful window into how the authors perceive
these "people" would
interact with their surroundings and often are either
rewarded or punished by
the author through consequences in the plot for their
responses. Through this
means we can see how the authors expect their characters
to behave in
relation to their post in the world. We must be very careful as
readers to
judge these biases based only on evidence within the text and not
invent them
from our own psyche due to the individual world we know. In
Louis
Sachar’s award winning book Holes, we see gender biases in many
characters.
The first and most obvious bias in this book can be found in
the way Sachar’s
characters address Mr. Pendanski, one of the staff members
at Camp Green Lake.
Many of the boys refer to him sarcastically as "mom",
and it is not because
of his loving nature. Mr. Pendanski is neurotic about
things the boys consider
trivial and he has a tendency to nag them. Because
Mr. Pendanski is portrayed as
the antithesis of Mr. Sir, who simply drips
testosterone, others view him as a
female for his weakness. The fact that
Sachar allows his characters to equate
weakness with femininity, or more
accurately motherhood, shows a certain bias
towards the supposed strength
that innately accompanies masculinity. This
attitude is only furthered by the
fact that the rest of the book as almost
totally devoid of female characters
other than the witch-like caricature
presented to us in the form of the
warden. She comes complete with a vicious
disposition and poisonous
fingernails. The most interesting part of this bias is
that the boys chose to
name Mr. Pendanski "mom" in light of their own
personal family histories. I
think it can safely be assumed that not many of
these boys had a functional
relationship with their parents or they probably
would not be in Camp Green
Lake to begin with. These boys chose to place Mr.
Pendanski, a whiny and
unrespected man in the grand scheme of things at camp, in
the role of mother.
They did not turn to the only woman present at the camp, nor
the man who
disciplines them each day, to fill their maternal needs. Instead
they turn to
the weakest figure in their lives and mock him by referring to him
as a
woman. This demonstrates to us that Sachar considers femininity a weakness
in
this world and has no issues showing us. As Ernst wrote, "How easy is it
to
relegate girls to second class citizens when they are seen as
second-class
citizens, or not at all" (Ernst 67). This point is only
furthered by the fact
that the only woman present is such a fairy tale
character. She is portrayed to
us as all but a sorceress and it can be
assumed she has taken on this persona in
order to survive in a predominately
male post in a totally male dominated
environment. Even in our class it was
evident that many readers were taken aback
by the fact that Sachar chose to
make his warden a female. And so it again can
be seen that Sachar has
imparted onto us a bias that a real woman could not
function in this world so
he had to invent a completely fictional and grandiose
one. With all the other
characters in the book appearing so human, it seems
obvious he turned the
warden into a beast because he felt he had to. In What
Jamie Saw, by
Carolyn Coman, gender bias shows itself in a new way. In this
book
masculinity and evil seem to go hand in hand. There is the character of
Van, who
is pretty much the same abusive man from every after school special
and info-mercial
we see during primetime, doing terrible things to a
defenseless family. Then
there is Jamie, who by my estimation is one of the
meekest male characters I
have encountered in a children’s book. Finally we
have Earl, who is such a
hollow character that I truly believe he is merely
Coman’s "out" for this
book and nothing more. He is the not threatening to
Jamie and his family because
he is not anything or anyone; he is simply the
idea of a man. He is not
developed as a character nor does he give any
insight into the situation he
encounters and therefore can be disregarded as
a tertiary character either
passive or emotionally absent from the world
around him. Van and Jamie however,
serve a much more prominent and functional
purpose. Van strikes me much the same
way the Warden does in Holes. Although
he is presented in a slightly less
fantastic light, one cannot help but see
him as the embodiment of evil and
destruction within Coman’s world. This not
only demonstrates a stereotype of
men as violent, but it also is a necessity
to the book because it does not ever
actually detail the violence occurring
in the book other than the opening. By
making Van the animal that he is, we
as readers have an easier time believing he
is capable of the horrors
inherent within this book. He takes on almost a
Neanderthal-ic feel as
the book progresses and the lives of everyone involved
become more
complicated. I do not mean to suggest that power and masculinity
always must
go together, but Van most certainly is shown to us as the
stereotypical
dominant male from the start. Using his brawn to solve problems
rather than
his brain, Van is our worst nightmare of what a man is capable of
becoming: a
thoughtless, guiltless tornado of destruction. Coman uses these
biases
present in our minds to amplify her character and thereby increase the
power
of her story. The gender bias in Virginia Hamilton’s Cousins is very
obvious
and straightforward in the form of Patty Ann, who is described many
times the
way we would talk about a porcelain doll. Hamilton places on her
character
the two most common stereotypes women encounter: the image of
perfection and
an innate insecurity with themselves. She does this very
blatantly, as is
evident in her writing. This image of perfection can be seen in
Cammy’s
description of Patty Ann, "Patty Ann had her special expression
again, the
kind that made folks say she was the best. That made people not
notice the
rest of her was just skin and bones. Her face was just perfect..."
(Hamilton
93). This image of fragile perfection is what has kept women
(especially
those of beauty) from being perceived as equal or intelligent. I
was
surprised to see this image so obviously presented until I realized it
was
necessary for the character to function properly within the story.
However it is
still obvious that one of the oldest female stereotypes exists
in full force
within the character on Patty Ann. In addition to this
doll-like quality,
Hamilton shows us the insecure underbelly of her
character. Patty Ann shows
throughout the book how much she fears what others
think of her through her
attitude. She has a tendency to be rather mean at
times because of her
insecurities and it serves to distance her from many
people in her life.
Hamilton uses Patty Ann to demonstrate the
perceptions people may have of girls
and then allows Cammy to digest Patty
Ann’s short life in order to debunk
them. The image of Patty Ann while she is
alive and Cammy’s view of her after
she is gone differ greatly, which serves
to remove the validity from the very
stereotypes Hamilton is presenting.
Edward Bloor’s Tangerine presents us with
a gender bias we encounter more
commonly in TV sitcoms than in literature: that
of the athletic, mean
spirited, adolescent male. Erik’s tirades and terrors
are well documented in
the book, and though I will not rehash them I will say
that they are tragic.
Bloor’s character is menacing and torturous towards his
little brother for
his own amusement and spite. Erik’s ability to cover his
tracks and allow
everyone to believe he is a "normal" young man turns him
into a conniving
villain in this piece. Erik fits the jock/bully role perfectly
and Bloor
amplifies this by using Paul’s voice in his writing. Paul deems
Erik’s
goals as "The Erik Fisher Football Dream" and even comments on his
love life.
"I guess Paige and Tina want to date football players, so these two
will do.
Erik and Arthur want to date cheerleaders, so these two will do"
(Bloor
39). Erik now is shown to us as a materialistic social climber
with no regard
for anyone but himself. The egotistical Adonis we now see
serves as the villain
to the sensitive and humble Paul. Bloor does this
because to the modern reader
the dominant male character is very easy to
hate, what with his well-documented
oppression of every other major group he
encounters. Bloor further stereotypes
the Fisher family, but for a very
different reason than the other authors I have
discussed. He is attempting to
satirize our stereotypes of the nuclear family
through the over-the-top
nature of this family. This is an approach that I have
not encountered and
found most enjoyable. Bloor has a tendency to write many of
the family
interactions in a rather tongue-in-cheek tone, which adds humor to
the story
and allows us as readers to laugh at the ridiculousness of our
own
preconceived notions about what a family "should" be. By showing us
the
augmented version of our stereotypes Bloor hopes to show us how silly
they truly
are. Walk Two Moons, by Sharon Creech is a book that I believe
presents a very
well rounded and complete character in Sal. She is a warm and
intelligent girl
and Creech does not encumber her character with the pitfalls
of any evident
stereotypes as far as I can see. She interacts with her
environment in a logical
and intelligent way, and at times, such as when her
mother lost her baby,
demonstrates amazing strength. It appears that Sal’s
strength is derived from
her family, which is a very endearing feature. This
is probably why Creech
employed this characteristic, in order to make Sal
someone we would want to know
and care for. It is important in this book for
Sal to be someone the reader can
relate to because she is not only a central
character but also a storyteller. We
must trust and care for her in order to
feel the emotions Creech is trying to
evoke. Sal’s charming, simple humor and
perseverance through tough times make
her one of the only characters we have
encountered whom I feel is truly a
complete and noble person. Creech does an
excellent job of getting into her
psyche and displaying it to us throughout
the story without becoming overly
dramatic or "sappy". Creech uses Sal to
show us the human spirit that can
exist within a good and intelligent person,
regardless of their sex or social
category. All of these books deal with
gender roles, either unwittingly or in
order to display them as falsehoods.
They present to us a reflection, however
warped it may be, of the world we
live in and the perceptions inherent within
it. In order for us to recognize
and deal with these ideas, we must continue to
discuss them through real-life
situations or literature we encounter. Only by
dissecting obvious examples of
these biases will we ever be able to abandon
them. Censoring books such as
these merely avoids the problem and allows future
generations to go on
clinging to the same stilted social values we fault now.
Each author
presents to us an image of the world and then displays the
principles they
hold dear by controlling their characters within it. It is by
analyzing these
images and principles that we will be fully able to understand
the views
present around us and thereby form a more educated one of our own.
Ernst
wrote, "...changes in children’s books often come long after they have
been
seen in reality" (76). We as teachers have a responsibility to dialogue
these
notions with our students so that they will have the insight to write
about
it in the future.
Bibliography
Bloor, Edward. Tangerine. New York:
Scholastic Inc., 1997. · Coman, Carolyn.
What Jamie Saw. New York: Puffin
Books, 1995. · Creech, Sharon. Walk Two Moons.
New York: Harper Trophy,
1994. · Ernst, Shirley B. "Gender Issues in Books
for Children and Young
Adults." Battling Dragons. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann,
1995. · Sachar,
Louis. Holes. New York: Frances Foster Books, 1998.