‘The myth that children can be anything they want’: gender construction in Pakistani children literature

ABSTRACT

Children’s books transfer social values which are imperative in determining their social identities. Children’s literature is, therefore, a powerful medium for constructing ideologies. This study focuses on how gender is constructed in Pakistani children’s literature using one of the oldest and most popular Urdu-language children’s magazine, titled Taleem-o-Tarbiyat. A total of thirty-six magazines were selected for the years 2006–2007 and 2011–2012. Quantitative content analysis was undertaken to expose character and pictorial presentations of male and female figures in the magazine. Frequency of the occurrence of male and female characters under various categories which included assigned professions; major roles; supporting roles; front page pictorials and in-story pictorials, was determined. The research findings indicate a strong presence of gender bias against females in both character and pictorial representations and this bias has persisted over time. Although, there was some improvement in the depiction of females in illustrations and in-story characters at the end of sample period, this change has not really affected the overall stereotypical representation of females as they are still lacking in occupying professions as well as, major and supporting roles.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender construction
• children’s literature
• character analysis
• pictorial analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. For brevity the calculated means in the two periods for each category are not included. These results are available on request.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ambreen Shahnaz

Ambreen Shahnaz has been a Lecturer at COMSATS University since 2007. Having majored in English literature as an undergraduate, she switched to gender and language for her M.Phil thesis. Her doctorate thesis is oriented towards genre analysis and critical discourse analysis. Her area of interests are CDA, Genre analysis and SFL. Email: [email protected]

Syeda Tamkeen Fatima

Syeda Tamkeen Fatima, has a PhD in International Development Studies from Ruhr, University Bochum Germany and is currently working as an Assistant Professor in COMSATS University Islamabad, Wah Campus. Her research interests include International trade, Microeconomic theory and Feminist Economics. Email: [email protected]

Samina Amin Qadir

Professor Dr Samina Amin Qadir is the Vice Chancellor of Fatima Jinnah Women’s University. She is also a professor in the English department of the institute and has been researching, gender, bilingualism, identity construction and ELT. Email: [email protected]