Questioning gender in texts
To help students investigate gender construction in what they read and view
it's useful to model the questions they might ask. The following questions,
grouped according to topic, may be useful:
- What are the relationships between the characters?
- How does one character feel toward other characters?
- How does one character behave towards other characters?
- Who is the leader?
- Who is the most powerful character?
- Who makes the decisions?
- Who gives/takes orders?
- Who gets the money, the power?
- What roles are given to the boys/girls?
- Who is seen as 'Bad'?
- Who is seen as 'Good'?
- Who is silly and is taken advantage of?
- Who has the most active part to play?
- Who is passive?
- Who is active?
- What do the clothes that the characters wear tell you about them?
- How do the characters' clothes let you know whether they are rich or poor?
- How does what characters wear restrict their physical activity?
- How does the setting help you to understand the character?
- What type of characters do you expect to find in home settings or work
settings?
- Think of some characters that do things you don't expect, that is, act
out of character.
- Discuss why you wouldn't expect them to do these things. How is your understanding
of what characters can do tied up with what you think girls and boys should
do, rich and poor people should do?
- What types of violence are portrayed in the text?
- How are different types of violence represented in text illustrations?
How do illustrations trivialise or emphasise the violence in narratives?
- What relationships between girls/boys and violence are presented in the
texts read at school?
- What explanations do students offer about the violence they encounter
in texts?
- What do students see as the consequence of the violence they encounter
in texts?
- To resolve the story, do the main characters exercise power over others
either accidentally or intentionally?
- Is it always male characters who are portrayed as using violence to resolve
conflict?
- Is violence validated when it is in the name of good or exercised by the
underdog, eg. Anthony Browne's Series - Willy the Wimp, Willy the Champ,
Willy the Wizard?
- How often do the stories you read finish with the main character finding
a partner of the opposite sex and living happily ever after?
- What makes for a happy ending to a story?
- How are resolutions in stories similar to or different from how students
are expected to resolve problems at school?
- Who has written this text?
- Who is it written for?
- Are some people's ideas missing from the text?
- Could you write it in a different way?
- What different ideas could be included?
- Could you draw the characters differently?
- How would you draw them?
OR
- How does this text construct a version of reality and knowledge?
- What is left out by this story?
- How does this text represent the reader and set up a position from which
to read?
- What other position might there be for reading?
- How does this text set up its authority and encourage your belief?
- How can you deconstruct its authority?
OR
- Whose voice is represented here?
- Who is being addressed?
- What is the situation in which these words are spoken?
- What are you invited to see and understand?
- Do you accept this invitation?
- Why or why not?
- What other voices are relevant to the issue/event/situation being discussed
here?
- How might you express or represent these viewpoints?
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