Contemporary Australian Children's Literature

Conclusion: Contemporary Australian Children’s Literature

The black pony picked his way across Currawong Creek as delicately as a ballet dancer, and the girl sat on his back like a princess (97).

The quote from the Bonnie and Sam series’ second story, The Circus Pony, highlights some of the feminine markers which function to constrain the representations of gendered behaviours and actions, in contemporary Australian children’s literature, to the boundaries of traditional understanding of gender.

When I begin researching for my dissertation, I set out to find that contemporary Australian children’s literature worked against traditional gender representations and spent a significant amount of time investigating Australian children’s literature

Australian children’s literature is sensitive to contemporary changes in social and gender roles and identities. This sensitivity is reflected by representations in children’s literature which have become more complex to incorporate these changes. However, analyses reveal that representations have also become more contradictory as well. Gendered biases and assumptions that privilege traditional gendered discourses continue to be prevalent in contemporary Australian children’s literature. The potential for representations to establish and maintain traditional gender system, unintentionally or otherwise,

This is highlighted by the texts, such as the Bonnie and Sam series, which are underpinned by traditional dichotomies of male as active and female as passive. Progressive traits, as displayed by either male or female characters, are rarely rewarded or even acknowledged. Instead, characters constantly receive more praise, unintentionally or otherwise, for adhering to traditional perceptions of gender. Contemporary narratives continue to idealise female characters as “nurturers” and “helpers”. Unlike their female counterparts, however, the representations of male characters are still confined to traditional representations as the narrative does not permit these characters to move beyond boundaries of traditional masculinity, as detached, active and stoic, unless there is a justifiable cause within the narrative to do so. These representations are central to “perpetuating the reality of difference and opposition” (Davies, 1989, 111) by reaffirming normative gendered boundaries. Representations of gender continue to function to affirm already-naturalised assumptions to provide a narrow understanding of gender