Читать книгу Sociology of the Arts - Victoria D. Alexander - Страница 29

In their classic study of gender roles in American children’s books, Weitzman et al. (1972) use content analysis alongside a more interpretative approach to show how children’s books reflect cultural values and stereotyped gender roles. Their study shows that women and girls were largely invisible in children’s books, in terms of illustrations, titles, stories and characters. For instance, coding the illustrations revealed “a ratio of 11 pictures of males for every one picture of a female” (p. 1128) overall (including humans and animals). Images of humans displayed slightly less gender disparity as compared to images of animals. The ratio of male to female animals with an identifiable gender was an incredible 95:1 (p. 1128). Given that the ratio of males to females in society is roughly 1:1, it is clear that women and girls were significantly underrepresented in children’s books, leading Weitzman et al. to suggest that females are portrayed as less important in society than are males.

Further, Weitzman et al. show that the stories portrayed stereotyped gender roles: “in the world of picture books boys are active and girls are passive” (p. 1131). Girls often wore restrictive clothing that prohibited active roles, but this was not the case for boys. Girls were depicted more frequently indoors than out, and the reverse held for boys. And girls were most often depicted as performing “service roles” such as “pleasing and helping” males by cooking or cleaning for them (p. 1132–1133). Adult females were restricted to a few roles, such as mothers, mermaids, or fairies/fairy godmothers, whereas males were depicted in a large range of roles such as “storekeepers, housebuilders, kings, spiders, storytellers, gods, monks, fighters, fishermen, policemen, soldiers, adventurers, fathers, cooks, preachers, judges, and farmers” (p. 1140–1141). They also note, “Picture books actually deny the existence of the discontented, the poor, the ethnic minorities, and the urban slum dwellers” (p. 1148).

Subsequently, researchers have wondered whether changes in society since 1972, when Weitzman et al. published their work, are reflected in children’s books. Williams et al. (1987) conducted a much more rigorous content analysis of influential children’s books published in the 1970s and 1980s. This study showed that women and girls, while still underrepresented, had come closer to parity in illustrations, as compared to books published from 1961–1971 (in Weitzman et al.), and that the percentage of books with central female characters had tripled. These changes were statistically significant. However, gender roles still tended toward the traditional, stereotyped roles in the majority of books. Gooden and Gooden (2001) reported that gender equity was reached with respect to females represented as the main character in “notable” children’s books published from 1995‐1999. However, more male (human or animal) characters than female appeared alone in pictures, and while the prevalence of gender stereotypes had declined, stereotypes were still common. A key change was that women were sometimes portrayed in work roles, such as “doctors, chefs and even milk vendors” (p. 95).

These studies are based on the method of content analysis from the positivist tradition. In content analysis, the researcher chooses a sample of materials and then codes them for a variety of factors. Coding artworks allows the researcher to make quantitative statements about them and to test hypotheses. Content analysis can be used for textual materials, such as children’s books, and also for visual materials, as in England, Descartes and Collier‐Meek (2011), who study the gender roles portrayed by movies featuring “Disney Princesses.”

Content analysis can be useful for uncovering changes over time. McCabe et al. (2011) use this technique when looking at changes in children’s books over the twentieth century to contribute to the debates on the portrayal of gender. After coding 5,618 children’s books published from 1900–2000, they discovered that the disparity between males and females persisted across the century, but was lower in periods in the 1900s–1920s and from the 1970s on, when women’s movements were active, and greater in mid‐century during periods of traditionalism or backlash against feminism.