That's Not My Gender!: Gender stereotyping in western-authored children’s literature taught in Malaysian primary ESL classrooms

Abstract

This study aims to analyse gender stereotyping in children’s literature (short stories) taught in Malaysian classrooms. This multimodal discourse analysis examines verbal and visual representations of male and female characters, focusing on cultural intersections among Western authors, non-Malaysian story settings, and Malaysian readers. Despite the West’s progressive gender practices, findings show that the short stories centre around boy protagonists and reinforce traditional gender stereotypes. Male characters are often associated with adjectives about emotionality/state of mind, intellect/education, abilities, and personality traits, alongside verbs about physical and mental activities, as well as directive communication. Conversely, female characters are often associated with adjectives about physical appearance, and verbs about quiet activities and emotive communication. The traditional masculine/feminine roles tend to be reinforced in binaries: adventurous-domestic, active-passive, and outdoor-indoor. This study highlights gender stereotyping in children's literature and Western authors' cultural stereotyping of non-Western people as traditional in the process of producing ELT materials.