You may have remembered a few months ago, I begged for responses to a long thing about gender and stereotypes and then a few weeks later I begged for responses to a shorter one. HUGE THANKS TO ALL OF YOU FOR GIVING ME RECS OF WHAT TO READ AND THINK ABOUT AND/OR DATA TO QUOTE HERE!
This was for a level two project, also known as a higher project qualification or HPQ. We got to choose anything to research and come up with a 2000 word essay on it. It was finished in February 2014, and came back with an A* :)
Anyway, I chose to write about YA and how heavily gender stereotypes feature in it. A googledoc of this essay can be found here; the essay is uncut here, but there you can find the whole bibliography, and results of the shorter surveys. What do you think? Does YA challenge or reinforce gendered stereotypes, or is it changing? Share your thoughts in the comments.
This was for a level two project, also known as a higher project qualification or HPQ. We got to choose anything to research and come up with a 2000 word essay on it. It was finished in February 2014, and came back with an A* :)
Anyway, I chose to write about YA and how heavily gender stereotypes feature in it. A googledoc of this essay can be found here; the essay is uncut here, but there you can find the whole bibliography, and results of the shorter surveys. What do you think? Does YA challenge or reinforce gendered stereotypes, or is it changing? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Does Young Adult Fiction challenge or reinforce gender
stereotypes?
Introduction
Gender
stereotypes invade every aspect of life. From the moment a child is born and
pronounced a boy or a girl, they will have the trappings of gender thrust upon
them. However, by the time they are
teenagers, they will have started questioning these, and many other things
about the world around them. Literature
written for teenagers, also known as Young Adult literature (YA), addresses
many issues such as grief, bullying, drugs, suicide and rape. However, in my
years reading a wide range of books on the market, I have not found many books
that prominently challenge gender stereotypes, unless it is one of the few with
a main character on the transgender spectrum. I have also often thought about
the more general representation of gender throughout YA-the characteristics,
traits and ideas attached to characters of different genders. In my time as a
book blogger, I have also grown to know the methods of marketing YA literature,
and I am going to analyse these, and if and how gender plays a part in
these. Gender stereotypes are rife
throughout all forms of media, not just young adult literature. But as teens
question and explore life, and are influenced by the media they consume, the
books they read challenging or reinforcing gender stereotypes will help form
their ideas that will stick with them throughout their lives.
