Gender and Education

ISSN: 0954-0253 (Print) 1360-0516 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cgee20

Reading gender: a feminist, queer approach to

children's literature and children's discursive
agency

Jennifer Earles

To cite this article: Jennifer Earles (2016): Reading gender: a feminist, queer approach
to children's literature and children's discursive agency, Gender and Education, DOI:
10.1080/09540253.2016.1156062

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2016.1156062

Published online: 08 Mar 2016.

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 GENDER AND EDUCATION, 2016
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2016.1156062

Reading gender: a feminist, queer approach to childrens

literature and childrens discursive agency
Jennifer Earles
Department of Sociology, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Childrens literature helps young people make sense of gender. Received 27 August 2014
However, while books offer children the imaginative ability to Revised 3 February 2016
create their own worlds, normative gender can manifest in Accepted 10 February 2016
characters and stories. The study described in this article draws
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KEYWORDS
upon disruptive storytimes with 114 preschool children, Childrens literature;
interviews with 20 parents and staff, and observations at 20 gendered representations;
preschools. Employing a feminist, queer approach, I develop two interaction; discursive
derivative books that switch a boy-hero for a girl and vice versa. agency; feminist post-
These books are read to children in educational settings. This structuralism; queer theory
method interrogates gendered characters and stories
attachments to such concepts as love, acceptance, bodily agency,
and adventure. Results show how children interact with these
characters and stories and how they use categorisation and
narrative construction to make sense of gender. I focus on the
gender discourses at play and moments of childhood discursive
agency. Themes include literature, doing and being, positioning,
bodies, and feminist tales.

Introduction
In literature, normative gender is written not only into the stories, but also onto characters
bodies and the discursive spaces they occupy. However, research that focuses on gen-
dered meanings in childrens books generally critiques the content (Baker-Sperry and
Grauerholz 2003; Drees and Phye 2001; Evans and Davies 2000; Kortenhaus and Demarest
1993; Oskamp, Kaufman, and Wolterbeek 1996; Peterson and Lach 1990; Poarch and
Monk-Turner 2001; Tabler and Woloshyn 2011; Weitzman et al. 1972). While this research
describes how stereotypes are articulated, the emphasis on the books themselves limits
the scope of how we view their interactional relationship with children. Previous studies
show the importance of these relationships through childrens response to illustrations
(Jackson 2007) and to writing and images (Davies 2003). Focusing on educational
spaces, I seek to explore the interactional and discursive relationship between gendered
literary characters and stories and the normative and marginal responses produced by
children.
While some studies make note of childrens interactions with more feminist fairytales
like Williams Doll, their ndings show how children continue to attach normative

CONTACT Jennifer Earles jlearles@mail.usf.edu

2016 Taylor & Francis
 2 J. EARLES

meanings to these books and characters (DePaola 1979). Davies (2003), for instance, found
that children could not understand these tales and often saw them as stories gone wrong.
By presenting the disruption of normative gender as a process characters must endure to
overcome adversity, authors subsequently ask children to identify some as normal and
others as not. While these stories carry important messages, characters are depicted as
different and placed in stories rife with hardship. An exploration of childrens interactions
in response to feminist fairytales also is important to show how characters and stories
inform and are informed by gender discourses.
This research is twofold. First, I employ a feminist, queer approach to my method-
ology in which I craft a version of performative politics (Butler 1997a, 127). I replace
two easily accessible childrens books for derivative texts in which a boy-hero is
swapped for a girl and vice versa. Because power is discursively written on the male
body I theorised that a male character would help prioritise such concepts as love
and nurturing. Conversely, I theorised that a female character would become subjecti-
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vated (Butler 1997b) within a story about adventure, personal freedom, and bodily
ability. This approach potentially queers those gendered meanings and power struc-
tures embedded in character constructions and overall stories in a way that makes dis-
cursive resistance seem mundane.
Second, I and four others engage with children through what I call disruptive story-
times. Situated in preschools, children aged four to six years are read these new stories
and asked questions about the characters and stories. I also ask children to react to a
story in which the main character works to overcome gendered stereotypes a feminist
fairytale. Storytimes offer children an imaginative and interactive space in which to
develop their own creativity, to learn about the world, and to engage in collective
meaning-making (Sipe 2007). While most research about storytimes focuses on books
for older children (Peterson and Lach 1990), I work with younger children as a way to
understand how this age group, prior to formal education, actively interprets literature.
In this setting, books become part of educational lessons in which children learn not
only how to read and play, but also how the world works. Finally, I use site observations
and parent/preschool staff interviews to better understand childrens categorisation pro-
cesses and discursive agency (Butler 1997b).
These ndings suggest that children respond best to stories that prioritise adventure.
As girl heroes are named with the capability to act within discourse, they begin to wield
power. This contradicts existing literature which suggests boys prefer adventure, science
ction, and sports stories, while girls enjoy animal stories and stories with conict (Griva,
Alevriadou, and Semoglou 2012). For girls, discursive agency is delimited; however, the
results show how interaction can give rise to new meanings about bodies and charac-
ters. As I argue, however, this also prioritises masculine tales over feminine ones.
Indeed, if tales about adventure, individuality, and competition easily muscle out
stories of love and nurturing even as they conditionally welcome female bodies
then normativity is written not only on the (male) body, but also in the gendered
spaces actors occupy.
First, I discuss feminist and queer theories, followed by a description of my data and
methodological approach. Next, I present my ndings in which I focus on the discursive
meanings children draw upon and create as they position themselves within the stories.
Finally, I conclude with a discussion of the future implications.
 GENDER AND EDUCATION 3

Feminist and queer theories

This project is theoretically grounded in a feminist, queer analysis. I use queer theory to
potentially disrupt the discursive and gendered power of childrens literature. Using fem-
inism, I explore the agentic meanings produced by children in response to new characters.
Queer theory is a theoretical paradigm rising from postmodernism and sexualities
studies in which scholars employ radical deconstructionism to disrupt normative dis-
courses like those surrounding gender and sexualities (Crawley and Broad 2008). For
queer theorists, discourse is a complicated network of words, images, and concepts that
produce reality (Allan 2003) and which can generate both emancipatory and/or oppressive
power (Foucault 1980). Foucault provides the necessary framework for scholars to interro-
gate and unmake the nature of the present (1988, 36) and to expose the relationship
between the subject, truth, and the constitution of experience (48). As he suggests, dis-
courses can be dangerous without intense examination (Foucault 1983). While scholars
often use queer theory to understand the sexual, its perpetual reinvention means that
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there are no all-encompassing denitions or approaches in research (Jackman 2010).

Queer can have the effect of pointing out a wide eld of normalization, rather than
simple tolerance, as the site of violence (Warner 1993, xxvi). This makes queer a
useful theoretical and methodological guide for talking about gender. Bouncing off
Butlers (1997a, 1997b, 1999) ideas, Taylor (2008) and Taylor and Blaise (2014) also raise
the question: who counts as human? They focus on childrens inherent queerness by
showing how children are neither naive nor innocent. In this way, everyday educational
spaces become highly politicised, political, and potentially queer.
One of the primary jobs of any feminism is to critique hegemony and to improve the
lives of women/girls. This includes assessing and challenging those practices that
support rationality and individuality over nurturance and collectivity (Jones 1988). At
rst glance, however, a feminism that bases its epistemology and practices on womens
experiences appears to align more with humanismantithesis to deconstruction. Nonethe-
less, feminist post-structuralists recognise that gender is a social, political, and historical
construction by placing it as the central position in their deconstructive and reconcenptu-
alist work (St. Pierre 2000). Concerned with subjectivities or the ways in which people give
meanings to themselves and others in the world, Davies and Banks (1992) write that a fem-
inist post-structuralist analysis allows scholars to see children are made subject by and
within normalising orders, but also act to resist them. Along with gender, an attention
to both race and class reveals the most about how power works from the voices of inten-
sely marginalised (Archer and Yamashita 2003; Archer, Halsall, and Hollingworth 2007;
Robinson and Diaz 2006). While feminist post-structuralism is inhabited by multiple thin-
kers and perspectives (Davies 1991), I am interested in an analysis of childrens interactions
with literature that pays attention not only to the content and individual replies, but also to
the discursive metaphors, patterns of power, and meanings created (Davies 2003).
And, while the notion of agency is problematic in post-structuralism, the idea of the
fuzzy subject is useful, as it allows us to link with feminist and sociological concepts
(The London Feminist Salon Collective 2004). Agency offers hope (The London Feminist
Salon Collective 2004) and allows for feminist collective action to generate alternative
meanings (Sawicki 1991). Thus, this postmodern marriage (Bordo 1992) between feminist
work and post-structuralist scholarship goes beyond seeing children as reective of
 4 J. EARLES

parents and adults or as girls as disadvantaged (Jones 1993). Children are active meaning-
makers who can position themselves in the literature (Davies and Harre 1990; Jackson
2007; Walkerdine 1990) in order to resist, rupture, and exceed the discourse (Corsaro
2005; Youdell and Armstrong 2011). This is how I envision my participants.

Feminist, queer approaches to qualitative methods

As this project is, in part, about queering research methods, I devote the necessary time
mapping out these processes here. The data come from a year-long study involving 10
storytimes with 114 children aged 46 years (approximately 1012 children per site),
observations at each of our 10 sites (including 3 separate 1-hour observations at each
site for a total of 30 hours), 10 interviews with parents (1 from each site), and 10 interviews
with preschool staff (1 from each staff).1 This work was supported by a university grant
with a supportive research team that included four other members across disciplines. I rep-
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resented sociology with other scholars from education, library and information sciences,
and womens studies for an all-female research team. Together with one other team
member, the two of us completed storytimes and observations at ve sites. I completed
the 10 corresponding adult interviews. Our three other team members completed the
storytimes, observations, and interviews at the other ve sites.2 For each child who partici-
pated in the study, we received assent from each child and informed consent from either
parents or the guardian/sole custodian for IRB approval. Each childs performative gender
was noted and documented by the corresponding member of the research staff. We
received signed consent from all adults. For both adults and children, pseudonyms
were assigned.
This study took place in a large metropolitan area in the southern United States. We
quickly learned that multi-site, corporate preschools, and day cares were either not
open to sociological studies or required executive permission to pursue. Instead, we
found that locally operated facilities were welcoming our team and enthusiastic about
the study. One of the preschools sits closest to the university campus and represents chil-
dren of faculty and staff. We also chose two all-girls facilities, as research shows that single-
sex schooling tends to reify the false binaries of heteronormativity (Jackson 2010). For the
other seven sites, we targeted preschools in neighbourhoods (by zip code) with an overall
population of more than 50% Blacks and Latinos according to the 2010 US Census. This
helped us to better access the voice of the (often hidden) Other to, once again, queer nor-
mativity. We also included preschools who offered Voluntary Prekindergarten (VPK). VPK is
free for all children who are at least four years old and who are not yet old enough to enrol
in kindergarten. These programmes highlight reading, writing, and social skills (Ofce of
Early Learning 2014) and are free. We theorised that this tactic would help ensure that
the voices of the working-class homes were included in the study.

Queering storytime: performative politics and disruptive storytimes

The concept of disruptive celebrates queer texts that challenge and go beyond traditional
stories and narratives about gender to visualise the unexpected (Yeoman 1999). In litera-
ture, gender often is depicted as contrary. Strong male heroes, for instance, hinge on sec-
ondary female characters to make sense (Gates 2006). Despite improvements in childrens
 GENDER AND EDUCATION 5

books since Weitzman et al.s (1972) study, research on gender representation in literature
reveals persistent patterns of gender inequality and the symbolic annihilation of girls and
femininity (McCabe et al. 2011). This method explores whether or not childrens percep-
tions about gender have changed since earlier studies (e.g. Davies 2003; Jackson 2007)
and whether or not notions of gender in literature (e.g. McCabe et al. 2011) actually rep-
resent how children make sense of bodies and spaces.
The derivative books I created replaced The Legend of Lyla the Lovesick Ladybug (2009)
and How I Became a Pirate (2003). These books are two easily accessible childrens tales in
which broader gendered meanings attended to dualistic notions of femininity and mascu-
linity.3 After requesting permission from both publishers, I transformed the main charac-
ters by situating a girl in the part of the hero-adventurer and a boy in a story about love
using Adobe Photoshop (2014). In the derivative books, I created girl heroes with long hair,
girl names, and feminine pronouns and boy heroes with short hair, boy names, and mascu-
line pronouns. This ensured that new characters remained recognisable to our audience.4
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This tactic also follows Butlers (1997b) call for a deconstructive politics in which subjects
unsettle hegemonic meanings, but remain recognizable within the existing discourse (5).
In addition, we chose to include Pink! (2009) in our storytimes as representative of a fem-
inist fairytale. Prior to each storytime, we asked each child whether or not she had seen or
read the book. Despite their accessibility, no child in our study was familiar with either
book. This, however, proved valuable to our study as the children held no previous attach-
ment to the heroes.
Techniques that rely on experimental and control groups may appear positivistic;
however, I position these storytimes as disruptive and (in)visible to better align with
queer methodologies. We did not approach the eld with the intent of nding the
Truth about gender, but went in search of the disturbances, breaks, and unxities that
mark interactions and spaces as uid (Browne 2010). Thus, our (in)visible storytimes, or
those in which we read the original, unaltered books, uncover the normalising effects of
gendered texts through a comparison of interactions. As Davies (1993) writes, the dis-
course is the glass, invisible but breakable. Children at eight sites were read the derivative
books and two of the sites served as our (in)visible groups. We did not choose the all-girls
schools as (in)visible sites and Pink! was read at all sites as written. In order to mimic a
typical day for the children, we asked a staff member to read to the children as they
would during any other storytime while we observed and took notes. Whether disruptive
or (in)visible sites, staff members read all three books on the same day with breaks
between each reading. Depending upon the length of the childrens discussion, each
book took anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes to present. Prior to storytimes and during sep-
arate observations, we also took observational notes about what kind of childrens books
were available; what types of toys, colours, and decorations were used; what selection of
activities was offered; how the site organised groups based on gender, age, learning level,
etc.; how staff and children interacted; and how children related with each other. These
techniques ensured that we could paint an in-depth picture of not only the childrens reac-
tions to the derivative stories and characters, but also of how gendered meanings are
produced.
Following our storytimes, observations, and interviews, corresponding members
recorded notes which I transcribed using QSR Internationals NVivo 9 (2010). Interviews
also were recorded by corresponding team members and later transcribed by me.
 6 J. EARLES

Using aspects of both membership categorisation analysis (King 2010; King and Cronin
2010; Saks 1995; Stokoe 2003; Watson 1997) and narrative analysis (Earthy and Cronin
2008; Riessman 2008), I examined the discourses-at-work and the discursive work pro-
duced across participants and sites. This allowed me to focus on what Baker (2000)
refers to as the exploration of culture-in-action, asserting that attending to membership
categorisation involves considering how discourses are called on and how they are
invoked in the mundane activities of talking, hearing, reading, and writing (112). This
draws on the queer processes outlined by King and Cronin (2010) in order to show how
people use and transgress normativity and, thereby, demonstrating the unstable,
complex, and uidic nature of gender membership.
As King (2010) also asserts, NVivo does not perform the analysis, but it does provide a
useful tool to aid the researcher in undertaking membership categorisation analysis and
narrative analysis. While coding might seem traditional, I utilised software primarily as
a way to securely house the data and, more importantly, as a way to position categoris-
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ations or identication on a grid. Massumi (2002) uses the metaphor of the grid as a
way to position cultural normativities such as male versus female, black versus white,
and gay versus straight (2). Even as Massumi did not refer specically to the analytic
process of coding, I see this metaphor as a way to trace the movement of narratives
from one position to another in this process. In other words, when do children experience
gridlock (Massumi 2002, 3) or attachment to normative gender? When do they convey
resistance? These analytic processes attend to both the queering of gender and the call
for queering methods in the social sciences. In addition, it involves the process of decon-
struction or pulling apart words and concepts to see how they work. As with post-struc-
turalism, this reveals the politics of meaning.

The books
The Legend of Lyla the Lovesick Ladybug (2009) features Lyla, a rosy-cheeked ladybug who
sports two black ponytails on either side of her head and a purple leotard. Lyla nurtured a
rose that wasnt perfect the rose had a spot, but Lyla had none and she wonders, what
made someone love you, or love you not. Boy ladybugs liked a 10-dotted ladybug even
though she wasnt smart or funny friendly or kind. Lyla searched for the meaning of
love and discovered that it is different for everyone. She loved her rose and, upon her dis-
covery, sprouted her rst of many [heart-shaped] spots. In my derivative, Lyla becomes Lyle
the boy-ladybug hero (Figure 1).
How I Became a Pirate (2003) features Jeremy, a boy out for a day at the beach with his
mother, father, and baby sister. As he builds a sandcastle, the all-male group of pirates
arrive, clad in red-velvet pirate coats, bandanas, tattered pants, and tri-corn hats, sporting
guns, green teeth, goatees, and eye patches. Upon meeting Jeremy, they decide Hes a
digger, he is, and a good one to boot! The pirates decide to carry him off to bury treasure
Jeremy does not think his mom and dad would mind. Jeremy sits atop the treasure and
sings sea chanteys. The group talked with their mouths full and ate nothing but meat
Pirates dont do anything they dont want to . After realising pirates didnt read books
or tuck Jeremy in before bed, he decided he did not like being a pirate. Finally, he led the
pirates to his back yard to bury the treasure and the pirates declared Jeremy a ne pirate
 GENDER AND EDUCATION 7

Figure 1. Original text, The Legend of Lyla the Lovesick Ladybug (2009), becomes the derivative with
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Lyle.

before setting sail without him. The derivative book features Jenny the girl-pirate hero
(Figure 2).
Finally, we chose the book, Pink! (2009), in which Patrick the penguin awoke one morning
to nd he turned pink. Neither his mother nor their doctor could gure out why and Patrick
shouted, boys cant be pink! Patricks father explained that amingos are pink and at least
half of them are boys. Patrick was teased at school and didnt like being different from every-
one else. He decided to pack up and head to Africa to live with the amingos. But, Patrick
could not catch sh with his short beak, could not stand on one leg, and could not y to
the amingos nesting ground. Finally, Patrick decided that being different wasnt so bad

Figure 2. Original text, How I Became a Pirate (2003), becomes derivative with Jenny.
 8 J. EARLES

after all. He returned home and was greeted by his family and his whole class who said, We
missed you! Patrick explained all about his travels and decided that Penguins belong at the
South Pole Especially pink penguins! (Figure 3).

Findings: categorisations, narratives, and resistances produced

Bringing together queer and feminist processes and objectives, I focus on the childrens inter-
actions with the books, with one another, and with their readers during and following each
storytime. I note the childrens responses in which the dominant discourse inhibits the pos-
sibilities for diverse voices, perspectives, and accounts of multiple social groups (Baxter 2002).
These are representative of many of our storytimes. I also focus on those instances in which
children inhabit those moments of actuality to become something other than what the
discourse tells them (Lather 1993). While messy and more infrequent, these moments show-
case the voices of the silenced (Baxter 2002). Finally, I support the childrens interactions with
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some data from the parents and teachers interviews. While my primary focus is on the chil-
dren and the stories, these data help to contextualise the childrens discussions.

Storytimes
Following each storytime, the reader asked the children a series of questions such as: What
did you like about the story? Is there anything you didnt like about the story? What did

Figure 3. Feminist fairytale, Pink! (2009).

 GENDER AND EDUCATION 9

you think of Lyle/Jenny/Patrick (or Lyla/Jeremy/Patrick)? Can you imagine yourself doing
some of the things Lyle/Jenny/Patrick did? [i.e. taking care of a rose or driving a boat]?
Do you think this story could happen in real life? Why or why not? Each reader also
asked questions based on the response of the individual children. For instance, many
asked whether or not the children would be scared if approached by pirates or whether
or not they liked pink, owers, etc. These questions allowed the children to actively pos-
ition themselves within the story.

When doing becomes being

In the derivative, Lyle is a boy ladybug amid pink roses, red hearts, and words like love.
Culturally, this situates the story as feminine. While I do not see femininity as equivalent
to feminist, I do understand discourses of love and nurturing as culturally feminine. I
also see these actions as important for social justice. The following represents one of
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the storytimes with Lyle:

Reader: Lyle spotted a ten-dotted ladybug ying nearby. All the girls liked him.
Reader: Why do you think all the girls like this ladybug?
Jose: Because hes a boy.
Christine: Because hes nice.
Jack: Because he isnt nice.
Trissa: Because he has dots.

Here, the readers question drew upon the membership categorisation device likeable as
a relevant resource for the children to sort themselves. Likeable is not an essential cat-
egory; however, the childrens answers have gendered implications based on broader cul-
tural narratives: as a girl or boy, what makes you likeable? This complicates a categorical
meaning children are presented with in everyday, mundane spaces.
Jose and Trissas answers relate to the characters being and Joses immediate
response is more about xed, normative categories: girls like boys because they are
boys. While Christine and Jack referred to a non-essential doing, masculinity becomes
a predicate for categorisation which transforms this doing into being. He is (or is not)
nice, rather than he is doing something nice for the girls who like him. However, what
Christine interpreted as nice (Hes wasnt smart or funny. He wasnt friendly or kind.
He just had lost of dots and ) seems to contradict Jacks interpretation to produce a par-
ticularly telling gendered narrative. While Christines response might reect her learned
understanding about what makes someone like you, Jacks answer could reect broader
cultural narratives about heteronormativity: when girls act interested, boys like them;
when boys act disinterested, girls like them even more. Finally, while Annies response
was more about bodily attributes, it better reects the moral of the story presented:
love earns you spots; spots earn you attention. Once again, however, doing becomes
being in her response: the ladybug possesses spots and, therefore, is liked. Even as the
moral is predicated on action, however, these doing and being narratives emerged
from all our storytimes featuring Lyle. While Lyle is a boy-hero, his story saturated in
the language and symbols of love and nurturing produced gridlock for the children
as they focused on being. For them, the character and story seemed disconnected.
 10 J. EARLES

This disconnect could stem from some of their experiences in educational spaces.
During one observation, a preschool director gave away prizes to children for correct
answers. If she did not think the prize suited the child based on gender, she switched it
for another (e.g. a pink backpack for a blue one). Maria, a preschool instructor, said:
I think its okay that the girls and boys like different things. I mean, I think that its the way
were all brought up and parents usually want it that way. If you go to the store theres differ-
ent aisles for boys and girls

While Maria referred to cultural objects, her statement creates gendered implications for
how children develop their own gendered scripts. Children earned different prizes not
because of achievement, but because of being a particular gender. Doing (i.e. bringing
up children or answering a question correctly) quickly transforms into being as actions
and mundane spaces are coded with heteronormativity.
The following is from another storytime with Lyle:
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Reader: What makes someone love you?

Reynna: I love ladybugs.
Santiago: Being nice makes someone love you.
Braelin: Being beautiful and cute.
Carlos: Being happy.
Abbie: When your parents love you.

Lyle actively generates love through action; however, some children produce narratives about
who is deserving of love based on doing gender well enough to be loved. Here, membership
categorisation not only shows how discourse informs interaction, but also how gender cat-
egories become interactionally relevant (Stokoe 2003). Braelins response seems to relate to
Bartkys (1990) Foucauldian notions about surveillance and accountability and how they
relate to practices of femininity. For Bartky, cultural beauty knowledge about womens
bodies is expected to be practised/disciplined into existence by individual women. While fem-
inine beauty is achieved through practice hair, make-up, clothes, mannerisms, etc. it often
appears essential over time and becomes a predicate for being loved: doing becomes being.
It is unclear whether Reynna referred to her love of ladybugs in general or Lyle speci-
cally; however, for boys, lovability seems to come from the self. Carlos expressed this idea
of masculine being by placing himself in the centre. While Braelin spoke from the voice of
the Other, Carlos answered as the subject. This points to the relative categorisation of fem-
ininity to masculinity and draws on dominant notions of gender. However, both Santiago
and Abbie broke from normative descriptions of gendered love. Just as membership cat-
egorisation focuses on discursive formations, the narrative analysis allows us to think
about how the storytellers social situation also is important. Even though Carlos
responded that being nice is important, multiple readings suggest that his answer
might also refer to interactions with others. In other words, by placing himself in the
part of Lyle a boy-hero in a story about love Carlos response suggests that doing some-
thing nice for others is important for earning affection. Love is merited. Abbie also drew on
the interactional importance of nurturing by noting how love draws upon love: when I earn
the love of my parents, others will love me too. While children produced an overarching
narrative about Lyle that prioritised the masculinity of the hero rather than the feminine
 GENDER AND EDUCATION 11

story, these subtle breaks problematise normative categorisation. However, while Santiago
and Abbie trouble the binarism, this act did not dissolve it.
Themes of care-taking and problem-solving inundate Lyles story. In contrast to the
adventure (masculine) tale, this situates Lyle as the hero of a feminine story. The following
is yet another storytime with Lyle:

Reader: Would you like to take care of a rose?

Maria: Yes, roses are pretty.
Derreck: I like to play in the dirt.
Farrell: I help my mommy.

Most boys answered with a simple no, while most girls answered yes. This could indicate
that care-taking is predicated upon by gender with the categorisation of women/girls as
nurturers and men/boys as either absent or as the helper. Derrecks answer also seems to
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endow boys with the bodily agency to get dirty. Consequently, when asked if Lyles story
could happen in real life, children answered as follows:

Jack: No, because farms have tractors and animals.

Christine: No, because ladybugs are girly.

Even though gender itself is integrated into Lyles story in a mundane way, Christine denied
Lyles realness as the gendered meanings about occupied space seem to contradict. Jack (re)
situated Lyle in a narrative about adventure rather than love so that the two match in a nor-
mative sense. This places him in a masculine setting, thus reafrming Lyles categorisation as
a boy-hero. As Westland (1993) found, boys typically prefer more traditional heroes and
since pink owers and red hearts symbolise nurturing for our audiences, these qualities
appeared to queer Lyle. As presented in an educational setting, he effectively crosses the
gender binarism and no longer makes (normative) sense in these storytimes. As storytelling
enables the teller to link the past and present, self and society as part of a story of some-
ones life (Riessman 2008), many of our storytime participants could not seem to make the
connection between hero and story. Likewise, the childrens denial or resituating of Lyles
character also speaks to the cultural devaluing of femininity. Often, femininity is only con-
nected to discourses of passivity and vulnerability rather than collectivity and love.

Positioning girls as the hero of a masculine story

The term positioning originates from Foucaults notion of subject positions which are pro-
vided for by societal discourses (Davies and Harre 1990). For Foucault, subjects are posi-
tioned by hegemonic discourses in terms of status, power, and legitimate knowledge.
This helps determine their interpretation of self, world, and others (Deppermann 2013).
Davies and Harre (1990) expand upon membership categorisation by also focusing on
interactive narrative exchanges and the production of story lines. In the derivative,
Jenny (a girl) the pirate is unafraid, but her positioning becomes tenuous:

Reader: Youre comin with us! Braid Beard told [Jenny].

Reader: Would you be scared?
 12 J. EARLES

Isiah: I would not.

Jackson: Im not scared.
Reader: Why not?
Jackson: Because I want to look for treasure.
Marc: Theyre going to kill her and bury her.
Leah: She has green teeth so the parents wont care that the pirates took her.
Sophie: Shes creepy.
Toby: Id be afraid.
Reader: How come?
Toby: No, I mean I wouldnt be afraid.

When asked to situate themselves in the story, Isiah and Jackson appear to make use of the
categorisation boy who is not afraid. They wanted to take part in the adventure unfolding.
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While Toby eventually drew upon the categorisation of boy, however, it is interesting to
note how children interactionally position themselves as the narrative forms. With chil-
dren, we sometimes witness how categories compete and how they become ironic. For
instance, Marc, Leah, and Sophie all focused on Jennys uncomfortable categorisation as
a girl-hero in a masculine space. Unlike Lyle who is surrounded by pink roses and red
hearts, Jenny hunts for treasure and digs in the dirt. This could lead the children to ask
not only: Who am I? But also: who am I not? If girls who are deserving of hero-membership
are situated as beautiful and cute, then girls who do not belong are seen as ugly and
expendable. We did not hear these responses in our (in)visible storytimes.
Girls understanding of interactional, bodily danger inuences how they respond to
Jenny. By inhabiting a female body, girls often are warned of the dangers of certain
spaces and, as a result, certain strangers. Although Jenny the pirate did not encounter
any perils in her adventure with the all-male group of pirates, female participants certainly
relate to these discourses:

Reader: What would you do if you were Jenny?

Noella: I would go crazy because the pirates might kill you.
Maya: I would get it together.

Through multiple readings, Jenny acts agentically, but also becomes fragile in her position-
ing as she interacts with boys and men. The above exchange took place at one of our all-
girls schools. Girls are taught bodily agency through martial arts and other sports where
girls can distance themselves from practices of passivity. However, when girls ask them-
selves: Who am I? they began to see themselves in relationship to their own worlds
one where clear binaries tell them who are girls and who are boys. Here, girls positioned
themselves in Jennys story, but also understood that the discursive agency offered by
adventure is still delimited. In this all-girls setting, it could mean distancing themselves
from interpretations of weak (or all) femininity.
As Jennys story unfolds in our storytimes, the children at all our disruptive sites nego-
tiated their reciprocal selves and the other-positioning. In other words, how they viewed
our girl-hero appeared to change as they began to position her in their own lives:
 GENDER AND EDUCATION 13

Reader: Would you like to wear pirate clothes?

Girls and Boys: Yes! Those [hats, pants, etc.] are cool.

While seemingly neutral, questions about clothing are categorically gendered. And, if
doing becomes being for children in an educational space, then perhaps bodily adorn-
ment can become about being carefree and adventurous. This contradicts what one pre-
school director, Sophia, told me about girls style of dress:
A lot of girls wear skirts and dresses so that sometimes inhibits how they play. Not that the
girls notice, but sometimes the instructors will have to make sure the girls stay covered up
when they play, crawling around on the oor and things of that nature.

These adults actions seem to perpetuate vulnerable femininity and position the female
body as dangerous and forbidden. However, through more uid literary interpretations
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of both bodies and gender, perhaps girls might also begin to position themselves differ-
ently. Indeed, as the story progressed, the children imposed the here and now story over
the past (Deppermann 2013). While the past does not disappear, new ways of positioning
emerge:

Reader: Would you drive this boat?

Children: Yes!

As children drew meaning from the proximity of illustrations to characters (Jackson 2007),
Jennys positioning in this masculine setting may help children co-construct a narrative
with themselves at the helm. As Ricoeur theorised, the crafting of a self-concept is
enabled by the poetic activity of mimesis or a creative imitation that can open up
spaces for guration and reguration (Perinbanayagam 2000, 147). Even as girls and
boys initially positioned Jenny as the undesirable Other, her perceived believability as
an adventurer speaks to the possibility of discursive agency and change. This becomes
further evident as our participants positioned Jenny as an everyday actor:

Reader: We talked with our mouths full. And nobody said please or thank you.
Reader: Do you see boys acting this way?
Children: Yes!
Reader: Do you see girls acting this way?
Rex: My sister sings so loud it hurts my ears.
Zishon: Girls act out all the time and try to push people.
Capria: I always see boys acting like this and blame girls.

Positioning Jenny and themselves at the wheel of a pirate ship speaks to the desirability of
the carefree explorer. Children replied similarly in our (in)visible storytimes. However, in
the above exchange, the readers gendered questions led children to maintain dichoto-
mous categories by situating themselves as either girls or boys and then situating the
Other. This follows the dominant (white, middle class) way of thinking. As this narrative
forms, however, it also became harder for children to categorically dene the girls in
 14 J. EARLES

their lives. Indeed, for Black and Latina girls raised in working-class neighbourhoods, girls
sense of value and worth are generated through practices like speaking my mind (Archer,
Halsall, and Hollingworth 2007). While prioritising notions of visibility and agency, these
strategies also resist dominant notions of normative (white, middle class) femininity. As
people, girls perform in ways that are considered both good and bad, but also that
break from normativity to queer the mundane. Like Jenny, they become doers and the
story made more sense.
As the readers concluded Jennys story, they asked:

Reader: Could this happen in real life?

Isiah: Yes, because pirates are real.
Jackson: Yes, because treasure is real.

Here, Isiah and Jacksons conrmation of the story as real positions Jenny as the hero of the
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story. While delimited, Jenny comes to occupy space in this masculine setting which
speaks to the connectedness between the characters and the story. If Lyle cannot exist
because farms have tractors and animals rather than (feminine) owers, then Jenny
becomes real through (masculine) pirates and treasure. Once again, for most of our par-
ticipants, the relational and interactional story is non-negotiable. This also writes norma-
tivity not only onto the (male) body, but onto spaces and tales about adventure,
individuality, and completion.

Negotiating feminism in childrens books

Even though our participants situate Lyle the ladybug as a boy-hero lost in a feminine
space, Lyle is not written that way. On the other hand, Patrick the penguin inadvertently
awakes across the gender binary and must negotiate a new sense of self. In this story, his
membership as the carefree adventurer is challenged by femininity (i.e. pink). Conse-
quently, our participants seem to categorise Patrick as in danger of losing himself and
be-coming something he is not. This could lead children to ask: Who is my gendered
self? And, how do I (discursively) protect it? The following is from one storytime with Pink!

Reader: Dr. Black closed her big book. Perhaps youll get used to being pink. Patrick
replies, But Im a BOY! And BOYS CANT BE PINK!
Reader: What would you do if you were Patrick?
Katy: I would be sick.
Jerrod: I would go to the doctor.
Jason: I would tell my mom
Veronica: I would tell my dad.
Calvin: I would buy some new clothes
Jessica: When Im a girl, I wear pink.
Malcolm: I would be a boy.

As the narrative develops, Katy and Jerrod express this sense of loss physically, while Jason
and Veronica seek the help of their parents. Once again, bodily adornment signalled the
gendered self for Calvin and Jessica as particular clothes become about being a boy or girl.
 GENDER AND EDUCATION 15

Finally, Malcolms answer touches on the cultural narrative of (essential) masculinity as

protection: if you are a real man/boy, then nothing can hurt you. For working-class
Black and Latino boys, multiple readings of Patricks dilemma also become salient. Locality
and territory is central to how boys construct masculinities through the embodiment of
speech, dress, and style (Archer and Yamashita 2003). In particular, ideas about the bad
boy are important for constructing masculinity. Indeed, if the bad boy image is threa-
tened, boys must take action. Emily, a preschool staff assistant, said:
Boys do like dress up, but, for them, its more about getting a laugh out of it. Boys will put on
the housekeeping uniforms and, well, I think its about making fun of girls because they
think that the clothes are for girls.

The need for boys to detach themselves from femininity through degradation is necessary
not only to create these binaries, but also to protect and prioritise this formidable idea of
masculinity. Consequently, Black and Latino boys might have particular understandings
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about their abilities and future career prospects. For instance, several parents stressed
the need for their sons to act like men, while some hoped that their sons might
become professional football players. Gender, race, and class certainly play into these
ideas about male bodily strength.
In response to Patrick, girls at one of the all-girls preschools responded quite violently
as they positioned themselves as the hero. When asked, what would you do [if you turned
pink]? girls answered as follows:

Whitney: I would kill myself.

Stephanie: I would punch myself in the face.
Mary: I would shoot myself in the face with a be-be gun.

At rst glance, these statements seem to relate best to notions about the surveilling of
womens bodies. As Bartky (1990) argues, girls often use a form of self-violence to
ensure that they conform to normative standards of gender. However, through multiple
readings, I also considered the interactional space in which the girls formed these ideas.
In this space, staff purposefully did not use pink to decorate and did not buy pink toys.
And, because these girls inhabit a girls-only space where normative discourses are
troubled, their reactions to Patricks dilemma become more complex. Over time, a perpe-
tual wearing of this colour on their skin might spark a collective and active response to get
rid of it. For Black and Latina girls, awareness of skin colour also might affect how strongly
they react to the potential of difference.
The following is from another storytime at a co-ed preschool:

Reader: Do you think this could happen in real life?

Jerrod: No, because hes a boy.

I initially situated Pink! as a feminist fairytale because it is one in which the main character
is empowered regardless of gender (Trites 1997, 4). Patrick nds his voice through deter-
mination and the story offers agentic hope. However, if alternative meanings are gener-
ated through feminist collective action (Sawicki 1991), then how does Patricks story of
adventurous self-discovery t in? Lyle the ladybug earns love through the practice of
 16 J. EARLES

nurturing others and collective action engenders love. While I do not necessarily categor-
ise Lyles tale as a feminist one, I do value its complication of gender. In Pink! Patrick learns
to speak as the subject by (re)situating himself through individuality. It is then that he nds
acceptance. Indeed, Patrick does not nd himself lost in a feminine story, but instead
nds femininity written on his (male) body and, consequently, infringing on what would
otherwise be a carefree (masculine) adventure. Femininity is misunderstood as categori-
cally weak and the male body is prioritised. He is pink, but still an adventurous boy.
While Jerrod does not reject Patrick as a boy-hero, he does refuse the story as unbelieva-
ble. Masculinity takes precedence.

Reections
These disruptive storytimes in which I employed a feminist, queer approach to create two
derivative childrens books also help us to understand how girls and boys engage with
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heroes and stories. Even as we theorised boys would relate better to a boy-hero even in
a story about love, participants continued to prioritise tales about adventure and rejected
others as unbelievable. The adventure(r) narrative prevailed. Subsequently, Jenny the
pirates presence in a carefree adventure about pirates endowed her with (delimited)
bodily ability and freedom. This troubles popular stories in which women/girls are only
considered heroes when their actions are directed towards those they love. Like the
men/boys of popular tales, Jenny came to be understood as both good and bad, carefree
and adventurous. While Jennys newfound power remained delimited, these results help
us to understand where discursive change is possible. Indeed, bodily agency is a vital tool
for all children as they begin to understand their abilities and to develop senses of self-
worth.
While women/girls are (tenuously) welcomed into masculine spaces, notions of nurtur-
ing and love remain relegated to characters and spaces categorised as feminine. This is a
cause for concern as feminists pursue social justice. Even as the disruptive storytimes did
not produce the theorised results in regard to the attachment between the male body and
power, childrens responses could help us better understand where more work is needed.
For instance, while both girls and boys have access to masculinity, only girls can perform
traditional femininity and remain recognisable to their audiences. While girls certainly are
disadvantaged by patriarchal constructs of gender, boys performative choices also are
diminished for fear of penalty. As a result, the collectivity of educational spaces may be
lost as feminine boys come to dread these settings. However, by providing children
with better literary examples of collective interactions, cooperation, and love, authors
and educators could help further deconstruct hegemonic notions of gender at school
for the benet of all students.
This research focuses primarily on childrens books; however, other research may consider
the effect of other cultural objects by using this disruptive form. Also, while I primarily focus
on gender in the interest of space, future papers could more fully explore the intersections of
gender with race, class, and sexualities. As many of the participants were children of colour,
this analysis could inform theories of Black of Latino femininities and masculinities.
The dialectical relationship between gender discourses and everyday life informs childrens
educations. In feminist post-structuralism, children themselves shift the meanings that inform
broader categories through interaction. My observation of contradiction in childrens
 GENDER AND EDUCATION 17

interactions with literature shows how books do not always reect their worlds. Children can
become part of the production process too. However, children do still require the educational
tools to understand how meanings and objects impact their choices. This is where books that
feature stories about love and adventure, acceptance and security, bodily agency and change,
collectivity and self-determination could help to break down those dichotomies that inform
hegemony and hardship. While many young adult books take advantage of this uidity,
books for this age group appear attached to educating children about binaries. Through a
queer approach, gendered meanings and power structures that become embedded in
stories and everyday character constructions are deconstructed. The feminist aspect also
offers the opportunity to rebuild these meanings as informed by activists work. In this,
social change becomes a more proactive process that allows for the reguration of discourse.

Notes
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1. Storytime population included: 55 girls (18 Black, 9 Latina, 1 Asian, 4 Multi-racial, and 23 white) and
59 boys (35 Black, 5 Latino, 4 Asian, 3 Multi-racial, and 12 white). Interviewed childcare workers
included: 9 women (2 Black, 2 Latina, and 5 white) and 1 white man. Preschool staff helped
secure parent interviewees which included: 1 Black mother of a boy; 1 Black mother of a boy; 1
Black mother of a girl; 1 Latina mother of a girl; 1 Latina mother of a boy; 1 Latina father of a
girl; 2 white mothers of boys; 1 white mother of a girl; 1 white father of a girl. All married
adults were in heterosexual unions; single-parents did not discuss their sexual orientations.
2. Since data collection, the four other team members went on to pursue applied work in other
organisations. With their permission, I completed the data analysis, report writing, and journal
submission.
3. By easily accessible, I refer to those books found (at the time of my search) at large, nationwide
bookstore chains. The books were prominently displayed in sections of the store dedicated to
books for our targeted age group. I narrowed my search for childrens books to those available
in bookstores within the three-county area of our study. I eliminated specialty and college
bookstores and any store that was located more than 20 miles from our target zip codes. In
total, I scouted two Books-A-Million and six Barnes & Noble stores. I chose four books per
gender category and an additional two feminist books. Collectively, these books also were
cited in 470 book review lists (e.g. Horn Book Guide Review, NY Times Book Review, etc.).
As a research team, the ve of us chose one book from each category for our study.
4. In our derivative, we also switched the gender of the admiring boy ladybugs to girl characters.
While I recognise that maintaining a heterosexual connection between these characters does
not seem queer, I rely on Boellstorffs (2010) notion of surng binarisms to highlight the possi-
bility of a queer method that could recognise emic social efcacy and heuristic power of binar-
isms without ontologising them into ahistoric, dominant categories. In other words, as this
move (and its association with the normal) remained unnoticed by both adult and children,
this research draws attention to its discursive invisibility. In addition, we transformed the
romantic admirers pictured in the ladybug book from male to female and the unaware pur-
suant from female to male. In the original, the young boys chase the seemingly oblivious
girl who undoubtedly adheres to the heteronormative notion that girls must perform child-
ishness as if unaware of their [romantic] appeal (Holland 2004, 180). As a research team,
we agreed to switch these parts in order to queer this notion.

Acknowledgements
Thank you to my research team, including Eva Earles, Kelly Wagner, Elaine Taylor, and Karianne
Nixon. I would also like to thank my mentoring professor, Maralee Mayberry and the USF Graduate
Student Research Challenge Grant program.
 18 J. EARLES

Disclosure statement
No potential conict of interest was reported by the author.

Funding
This work was supported by the University of South Florida Graduate Student Challenge Grant
Research program [0068147].

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