ROLES DE GÉNERO EN LA LITERATURA INFANTIL. Un análisis de lengua y género en veinte libros infantiles

Abstract

The purpose of this essay is to investigate what vocabulary is being used in children’s books from the Occident to describe female protagonists compared to male protagonists. Foremost, the purpose is to see if different adjectives are used. Secondly, I wanted to look at the books more closely to see if there are other examples of inequality. The theory on which this study is based is gender studies and queer theory. Queer theory is in this analysis applied on sociolinguistics to examine gender roles in children’s literature. I will use a quantitative method combined with a qualitative method. The quantitative part of the method will consist in counting the adjectives. The qualitative part will consist in categorizing and analyzing the adjectives. A qualitative method will also be used in examining the books closely to find inequalities other than linguistic ones. The analysis shows that the language and most of the typical adjectives in the books are stereotypical according to today’s gender roles. It also shows that there are many examples of gender stereotypes and inequality in the stories and designs of the books.