NCJ Number
150932
Date Published
1994
Length
4 pages
Annotation
This article reports on the results of 1975 and 1986 Canadian studies of student readers to determine whether or not they reflect sex-role stereotypes.
Abstract
Both studies found that the characters presented in the readers fit the script for life in the Canadian sexist, misogynist society. Girls in the readers occupy a fringe world and are thus denied a significant childhood. Their actions, reactions, and interactions are shallow and apologetic. The message to girls is one of rejection. In contrast, the directive for boys is to "be a man." Through friendships, teamwork, partnerships, and lone trials, reader boys are encouraged, guided, taught, and challenged. The traditional male values, attitudes, and orientations are clearly and repeatedly displayed as models. A woman is portrayed as existing relative to husband, father, other males, or children. Even so, she rarely has a meaningful relationship with any of them. She is generally depicted as a silent slave. Males are portrayed as admirable because of their achievements, responsibilities, sense, knowledge, freedom, creativity, and humor. Boys are men in training who will inherit the world and the responsibility for it. Girls are disassociated from everyone, from men whose world will never be theirs, from women who have no power or clear direction to offer them, from boys who competitively reject them, and even from other girls who are as isolated as they are. The Ontario Ministry of Education, school boards, and publishers have been well aware of the findings of these studies, but they have thus far refused to address the issue. The traditional script for men and women must be rewritten in school readers.