How Narrative Informs (Enforces/Challenges) Gender Roles
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AP Literature 12: 3rd Quarter College-bound Essay Prompt focus: How narrative informs (enforces/challenges) gender roles. • This is a documented essay (in-text citations/Works Cited page) o 4-6 pages in MLA-8 standard with a Works Cited page o Premised on two narratives (novel/film) of Literary Merit o In-text citations from both narratives o In-text citations from at least 3 additional sources (articles provided, researched on your own, narratives from AP English 11 or AP Literature 12) o Works Cited page must have a minimum of 7 entries that you either cite or consider • Some ideas to consider: o 21st Century portrayal of gender in literature and/or film (compared to another era) – is gender becoming more fluid, or are the universal archetypes holding? o The roles of gender in storytelling (what male protagonists think/believe/act versus female protagonists think/believe/act) – traditional archetypes, new patterns? o How women write versus how men write? (about each other, life, etc…) o When big players in the industry take a stand – Marvel, DC, Disney, J.K. Rowling, Margaret Atwood, (there are lots!) – looking at their significant choices and how it affects the audience’s view of gender roles. o The modern protagonist – is the Hero’s Journey evolving? Finding Joe documentary. • Some angles to consider: o Jane Eyre as the avatar of female protagonist – revolutionary yet traditional – compare her to a modern female protagonist, also written by a woman. o F. Scott Fitzgerald’s portrayal of women in The Great Gatsby – sympathetic yet confined – compare to a modern male writer like John Green’s portrayal of women. o Frankenstein as the first acclaimed novel written by a woman, who wrote about male characters. How do women write male characters differently than male writers? Compare to Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Consider A Room of One’s Own, V. Woolf. o Why/how modern female writers like J.K. Rowling, V.E. Schwab, Sarah Maas and Cassandra Clare still give prominence to male protagonists? How they write them. o Disney’s transformation of the princess trope – Sleeping Beauty to Merida, Cinderella to Tangled, Snow White to Tiana, and Jasmine to Mulan. Speculate and support a plausible motive to engage modern audiences. Consider A Room of One’s Own, V. Woolf. o The ratio of female superheroes to male superheroes in any given universe and their roles/significance in that universe. o The role of humor/satire in challenging gender roles – “The Importance of Being Earnest,” Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Crazy Rich Asians, Love Simon, Perks of Being a Wallflower, John Green, John Mulaney, Ali Wong. • Timeline Review – one day a week will be dedicated in class for peer sharing and conferencing. o Week 1: dedicate time to observe gender roles in storytelling, social media, school, family, work, etc… Journal in your notebook about your observations and opinions. o Week 2: consider a premise for your thesis and jot down several iterations of broad ideas for a potential thesis. Select your two narratives and locate 2 articles online that support your developing thesis. Format your Works Cited page by the end of Week 2. o Week 3: outline your paper, while allowing your thesis to remain fairly fluid and come into focus as you align the moving parts: thesis, supporting points/arguments, citations that support your ideas, conclusion (Where are you headed with this paper?). o Week 4: draft your paper and dedicate time to conference with a reliable peer writer or Mrs. Miller. You need to be able to articulate your paper at this point. o Week 5: finalize your paper by giving it several editing sessions. Zero errors. o DUE: __________________________ printed copy in class, Turnitin.com submission AP Literature 12: 3rd Quarter College-bound Essay This section contains three articles related to this project. At least one of them must be cited/considered in your paper. Works Citation entries provided. “Study finds huge gender imbalance in children’s literature” Allison Flood 6 May 2011 From The Very Hungry Caterpillar to the Cat in the Hat, Peter Rabbit to Babar, children's books are dominated by male central characters, new research has found, with the gender disparity sending children a message that "women and girls occupy a less important role in society than men or boys". Looking at almost 6,000 children's books published between 1900 and 2000, the study, led by Janice McCabe, a professor of sociology at Florida State University, found that males are central characters in 57% of children's books published each year, with just 31% having female central characters. Male animals are central characters in 23% of books per year, the study found, while female animals star in only 7.5%. Published in the April issue of Gender & Society, the study, Gender in Twentieth-Century Children's Books, looked at Caldecott award-winning books, the well-known US book series Little Golden Books and extensive book listing the Children's Catalog. Just one Caldecott winner (1985's Have You Seen My Duckling? following a mother duck on a search for her baby) has had a standalone female character since the award was established in 1938. Books with male animals were more than two-and-a- half times more common across the century than those with female animals, the authors said. Although the gender disparity came close to disappearing by the 1990s for human characters in children's books, with a ratio of 0.9 to 1 for child characters and 1.2 to 1 for adult characters, it remained for animal characters, with a "significant disparity" of nearly two to one. The study found that the 1930s to 1960s, the period between waves of feminist activism, "exhibits greater disparities than earlier and later periods". "The messages conveyed through representation of males and females in books contribute to children's ideas of what it means to be a boy, girl, man, or woman. The disparities we find point to the symbolic annihilation of women and girls, and particularly female animals, in 20th-century children's literature, suggesting to children that these characters are less important than their male counterparts," write the authors. "The disproportionate numbers of males in central roles may encourage children to accept the invisibility of women and girls and to believe they are less important than men and boys, thereby reinforcing the gender system." The authors of the study said that even gender-neutral animal characters are frequently labelled as male by mothers reading to their children, which only "exaggerates the pattern of female underrepresentation". "These characters could be particularly powerful, and potentially overlooked, conduits for gendered messages," they said. "The persistent pattern of disparity among animal characters may reveal a subtle kind of symbolic annihilation of women disguised through animal imagery." The Carnegie medal-winning children's author Melvin Burgess, whose own novels regularly feature female central characters, pointed to the "truism in publishing that girls will read books that have boy heroes, whereas boys won't read books that have girl heroes". "Boys are far more gender-specific," he said. "I guess the challenge is to write books for boys that have female characters in, that the boys will relate to. It's a sad fact that books written for boys do tend to fall rapidly into the old stereotypes, and the action figures, baddies etc are generally male, and very AP Literature 12: 3rd Quarter College-bound Essay straightforward males as well. I try to get away from that. It's a been a while since I wrote an action-type book, but I am working on one now and it does involve four young people – two girls, two boys – and I always try to make my girls really stand out." But it's not only an absence of female central characters which is a problem in children's books, believes former children's laureate Anne Fine: it's how the women are represented when they do appear. "Publishers rightly take care to put in positive images of a mix of races, but seem not to even notice when they use stereotypical and way out-of-date images of women," she said. "In modern classics such as Owl Babies and Hooray for Fish! it's always the mother, never the dad, whom the child ends up wanting and needing. God forbid each book should try to cover all the 'issues'; but we do need a bit of balance. Children's authors should make an effort to do a bit of role widening. I try. You wouldn't notice, but in every single one of my books, the male can cook. In The Country Pancake, my farmer just happens to be a female. And on and on." The notion, meanwhile, that boys only read books by and about males does "become a self-fulfilling prophecy", Fine said. "More worryingly, in these new lists of recommended books for boys, there's a heap of fantasy and violence, very little humour (except for the poo and bum sort), and almost no family novels at all. If you offer boys such a narrow view of the world, and don't offer them novels that show them dealing with normal family feelings, they will begin to think this sort of stuff is not for them." Fine believes that "women should be giving a much beadier eye to the books they share with children ... It's important to balance much loved old-fashioned classics with stuff that evens things up a bit and reflects women's current role in the world," she said.