Feminist Criticism and the Study of Children's Literature

Abstract

Feminist Criticism and the Study of Children's Literature Anita Moss Introduction In her article, "One Woman as Writer and Feminist," included in the following group of essays, Eleanor Cameron recalls instances when male friends have insinuated that writing a children's book somehow requires less creative power than writing for adults. Many of us have resented stinging comments from collegues who have suggested that children's literature is after all not really literature. Francelia Butler has written that many of these negative attitudes toward children's literature stem from the notion that it is somehow associated with women. Certainly the number of women engaged in writing children's literature in its three-hundred year history (and the feet that many of them published under their own married names, rather than adopting male pseudonyms) suggest that Professor Butler's point is valid. Most of us, moreover, have been educated by male professors to admire male traditions and to adopt a masculine voice when we write criticism. Recently, however, feminist scholars and critics have atempted to identify specifically female literary traditions, to forge a feminist aesthetic, to write in their own voices, and thereby to acquire more integrity as women, as writers, teachers, and critics. A variety of feminist criticisms can now be found—from the analysis of stereotypes, to archetypal, textual, contextual, and ideological investigations of literature. Much feminist criticism of children's literature in the past has been mainly sociological. We are all familiar with articles which have identified rather obvious sex role stereotyping in children's books. Such articles have been invaluable in raising our consciousnesses (and those of children's book editors and publishers), but they often did little to illuminate the literary dimensions of the books they treated. Recently, major theoretical works of feminist criticism have been published by major presses, many of which offer startingly original interpretations of literature. In organizing the following group of essays, I have included a writer's view of feminist issues and several review essays of major feminist works of literary criticism. Kathy Piehl has investigated the work of a feminist reviewer. Since women writers, women teachers and librarians, and women critics still predominate in the field of children's literature, perhaps this group of essays may offer some productive lines for further inquirey. For both male and female critics in the field, perhaps we can aspire to transcend the narrow categories of gender to attain androgynous being, the characteristic which Coleridge attributed to truly great minds. Anita Moss University of North Carolina at Charlotte Copyright © 1982 Children's Literature Association