Gender Stereotypes In Children's Books

Where does women stereotypes began? One should first read children’s learning books, as stated by Annie Nakao, Chronicle Staff Writer of the San Francisco Chronicle. Nakao brings up a great point when he wrote, “When I was growing up in San Francisco, all of my senses were like a big sponge” (Nakao 2003). Meaning children learn not by only watching but by reading as well, drawing information in like a sponge. Many children picture books, portray women negatively, or perform “women tasks” such as cooking, cleaning, and shopping. One such book, I’m Glad I’m a Boy! I’m Glad I’m a Girl from the 1970’s let women know from a young age, that they were inferior from their male counterparts. With most, if not all pictures portray women negative. The

pictures showed the differences of both genders in career jobs. Males choice careers options were doctors, and police officers, as for women they can only be nurses, and metermaids.

In Michele Foster’s paper, he talks about how this is very true. That young female children, think they can only be nurses and metermaids, because these books say these are their only careers options in life. Foster also states, “By the ages of 3 and 4, children begin to identify and name power differences between males and females” (Foster 34) and also gave a great example about women stereotypes in picture books, by saying, “Females and males are usually portrayed in sex-stereotypical roles; females appear more often than do males in derogatory roles...” (Foster 35). Questions come into play, what if a child views a picture book showing these sex-stereotypical roles, but has a father who is nurse, and her mother is a police officer? Foster said, it helpful if families explain to their child that men can be nurses and parking enforcement officer as well, “Children between the ages of 3 to 12 who are exposed to sex-equitable materials (e.g. stories about men as nurses) express fewer sex-based stereotypes than peers who did not read these stories” (Hardenbrook 2014). Family should be careful and monitor what a child reads at a young age, because they may act out what they learn and only believe what these books tell them.
Also, diving deep in I’m Glad I’m a Boy!

I’m Glad I’m a Girl, one could not notice that men are far smarter than women just by viewing this book. One of the book captions state, “Boys fix things. Girls need things fixed” and “Boys invent things. Girls use what boys invent.” States we never had a women inventor such as Marie Curie, who discover Radium, Polonium, and also, the first woman to win a Nobel Prize for pioneering research on radioactivity. Also, arguing the books point “Boys invent things. Girls use what boys invent”, boys use what girls invent more. Stephanie Kwolek, the inventor of Kevlar, which is main ingredient in the production of bulletproof vests, which saved countless lives of male soldiers, as well as the “Boys are policemen” stereotype portrayed in the

book.

The last example from the I’m Glad I’m a Boy!

I’m Glad I’m a Girl, is the classic bias and stereotypical roles is this captions, “Boys can eat. Girls can cook.” In the paper Boys Don’t Play with Dolls: Mothers’ and Fathers’ Gender Talk during Picture Book Reading, states parents should give gender talks to their children when reading these books to them (Endendijk). Honestly, why read the book in the first place, if you going refute what is from the book. Just like the Bible argument, individuals should not select or alter certain sections from a book. Going as far on page 141 that, “Gender talk is defined as the way parents talk to their children about gender, for example, by contrasting females and males or emphasizing gender categories” such as which is acceptable for both

genders.