(En)gendering Children’s Literature in the Western Paradigm

Abstract

Drawing on children’s literature criticism, this paper will be looking at the issue of gender in relation to children’s literature. Is gender inherent in the text or rather an imposed construct? How does a text get “gendered” and to what ends? In other words, what are the underlying cultural assumptions when a children’s literature text is launched as boys’, girls’, or LGBTQ children’s literature? What is the very process that naturalizes and stabilizes gender and in consequence legitimizes a text as being addressed to a specific gendered readership? By exploring the notions of representation, classification, mission and the alleged relatedness of the author’s gender to the textual construction of gender and to gendered readers, my contribution will look into the above questions so as to shed light on the construction, naturalization, and imposition of gender on literary works for children.