From: DAJ <daj9999_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 17:05:34 -0700 (PDT)

On Mon, 8/12/13, Donna Barkman wrote:

I'm interested in gender as portrayed in characters and wonder why no critics seem  to have noticed how often animals are portrayed as male, for no particular reason.  For instance, in Caldecott winner " A Sick Day for Amos McGee" and in "Bear Has a Story to Tell," every animal character is male - just two examples.

I don't have either book in front of me and thus wondered -- does the text indicate the animals are male or is there something in the illustrations th at specifically codes the animals as male? (Years ago, wasn't there a cri ticism of a study of gender representation in picture books because in that study in crowd scenes, the only figures counted as female were those weari ng skirts?)

The corollary, I suppose, is how often we (or, at least I) picture the male of the species as a representative animal when there is a difference betwe en the two: lions with manes rather than lionesses without; bright red (ma le) cardinals rather than the brown females . . .

Full of questions,

DAJ
Received on Thu 15 Aug 2013 05:05:34 PM CDT