Abstract
This study examines how male and female bodies are described in US children’s literature across the 20th and 21st centuries, comparing feminist and mainstream books. By analyzing repeatedly occurring five-word phrases related to the body, such as the top of her head and opened his mouth to speak, the study explores the construction of gendered characters. Earlier research (Čermáková and Mahlberg 2022) has shown that recurring body part clusters help to construct a gender binary by means of quantitative and qualitative differences in British children’s literature, but the distinction lessens in the 20th century, as female bodies are described more diversely. This study attempts to extrapolate the results to recent US children’s books by analyzing a corpus comprising four subcorpora: 1975-2000 mainstream, 1975-2000 feminist, 2001-2023 mainstream, and 2001-2023 feminist. Preliminary analysis suggests that in 20th-century mainstream children’s literature, the traditional predominance of male characters is maintained, and clusters describing male bodies appear more frequently and with greater diversity than those describing female bodies. In contrast, 20th-century feminist children’s books contain more references to female characters than to male and, accordingly more clusters describing female bodies than male, such as “face in her hands,” the male counterpart of which does not occur. Comparison between the two 21st-century subcorpora yield similar results. The time periods also affect the occurrence, as each 21st-century corpus, in comparison to its 20th-century counterpart, evidences more female clusters and more diversity of clusters. Whether the evidence upholds Čermáková and Mahlberg’s finding that the binary distinction lessens over time is not yet clear, as clusters strongly associated with one gender still appear rather numerous, and more research with larger corpora is called for. This study highlights how children’s literature has influenced and reflected societal perceptions of gender over time, illustrating the role of feminist books in challenging and redefining traditional narratives. Source: Čermáková, Anna, and Michaela Mahlberg. "Gendered Body Language in Children’s Literature Over Time." Language and Literature, vol. 31, no. 1, 2022, pp. 11-40.
Start Time
16-4-2025 2:30 PM
End Time
16-4-2025 3:30 PM
Room Number
252
Presentation Type
Oral Presentation
Presentation Subtype
UG Orals
Presentation Category
Arts and Humanities
Faculty Mentor
Theresa McGarry
PowerPoint Version
Gendered Body Descriptions in U.S. Children's Literature: A Corpus-Based Analysis of Feminist and Mainstream Narratives (20th-21st Century)
252
This study examines how male and female bodies are described in US children’s literature across the 20th and 21st centuries, comparing feminist and mainstream books. By analyzing repeatedly occurring five-word phrases related to the body, such as the top of her head and opened his mouth to speak, the study explores the construction of gendered characters. Earlier research (Čermáková and Mahlberg 2022) has shown that recurring body part clusters help to construct a gender binary by means of quantitative and qualitative differences in British children’s literature, but the distinction lessens in the 20th century, as female bodies are described more diversely. This study attempts to extrapolate the results to recent US children’s books by analyzing a corpus comprising four subcorpora: 1975-2000 mainstream, 1975-2000 feminist, 2001-2023 mainstream, and 2001-2023 feminist. Preliminary analysis suggests that in 20th-century mainstream children’s literature, the traditional predominance of male characters is maintained, and clusters describing male bodies appear more frequently and with greater diversity than those describing female bodies. In contrast, 20th-century feminist children’s books contain more references to female characters than to male and, accordingly more clusters describing female bodies than male, such as “face in her hands,” the male counterpart of which does not occur. Comparison between the two 21st-century subcorpora yield similar results. The time periods also affect the occurrence, as each 21st-century corpus, in comparison to its 20th-century counterpart, evidences more female clusters and more diversity of clusters. Whether the evidence upholds Čermáková and Mahlberg’s finding that the binary distinction lessens over time is not yet clear, as clusters strongly associated with one gender still appear rather numerous, and more research with larger corpora is called for. This study highlights how children’s literature has influenced and reflected societal perceptions of gender over time, illustrating the role of feminist books in challenging and redefining traditional narratives. Source: Čermáková, Anna, and Michaela Mahlberg. "Gendered Body Language in Children’s Literature Over Time." Language and Literature, vol. 31, no. 1, 2022, pp. 11-40.