III
Central Themes: Gender and Culture
The Gendered Nature of Childrenâs Make-Believe Worlds
The centrality of gender in childrenâs make-believe worlds became immediately evident upon examination of the pictures and stories. In all four countries, the girlsâ pictures lean toward an emphasis on harmony and have notably fewer media traces than boysâ pictures. Boysâ pictures, in contrast, are characterized by conflict and fighting, and are loaded with obvious links to relevant media texts. Our intuitive first impressions are validated in a quantitative mapping. However, a more sensitive and in-depth analysis of the less obvious differences hidden behind what is considered as âtypically girlsâ and âtypically boysâ reveals a much more complex picture that cannot be that easily forced into a neat scheme. The discussion in this chapter offers interpretation and analysis of gender-specific motifs found in our study and grounds it in what we know from related research on gender, childhood, and media.
A QUANTITATIVE OVERVIEW
Because the study is based on qualitative methods of investigation and evaluation, quantitative mapping serves to illustrate some of the gender-specific findings. However, the numbers refer to a nonrepresentative qualitative sample and therefore, are not meant to suggest any valid generalizations.
Of the 193 children studied, there were 110 girls, which comprised 57% of the sample. It was more difficult to solicit boys in the three countries where participation was optional and required an active decision to join in (Germany, Israel, and the United States), making it necessary to deliberately pursue boysâ groups with greater efforts. Apparently, the topic of the study itself as well as the methods employedâdrawing, talking about inner worldsâwas more attractive to girls than to boys.
The breakdown of the childrenâs make-believe world stories and pictures is presented in Table 6.1. Clear gendered emphases emerge from these cases: 55% of the girlsâ cases imagine worlds of harmony with nature, animals, and people. Lagging far behind are the make-believe worlds of foreign lands (13%), followed by the world of supernatural power (8%) and that of royalty (7%). The category of technology was the one most rarely identified in the girlsâ cases.
In the 83 boysâ drawings and narratives, the themes characterizing their worlds are less clearly dominated by one category. However, there are clearly identifiable leanings toward the areas of fighting and threat (31%), and of amusement (20%). The next most popular category (16%) for boys is the world of harmony with nature and animals.
Some decisive gender-related differences are evident in the wishes to act as well. When counting only the most obvious and explicit wish to act, we find that almost 39% of the girls wish to experience well-being in their make-believe worlds followed by the wish to be connected to others (24%) (see Table 6.2).
As for boys, 43% express the wish to experience thrill, similar in proportion to the girlsâ wish to live in harmony.
TABLE 6.1
Girlsâ and Boysâ Make-Believe Worlds
Worlds | Girls N = 110 | Boys N = 83 |
Harmony and peace | 60 (55%) | 13 (16%) |
Foreign land | 14 (13%) | 5 (6%) |
Supernatural | 9 (8%) | 5 (6%) |
Royalty | 8 (7%) | 1 (1%) |
Sensual pleasures | 7 (6%) | 3 (4%) |
Amusement | 6 (5%) | 17 (20%) |
Travel | 3 (3%) | 7 (8%) |
Conflict and threat | 2 (2%) | 26 (31%) |
Technology | 1 (1%) | 6 (7%) |
TABLE 6.2
Girlsâ and Boysâ Wishes to Act
Wish to act | Girls N = 110 | Boys N = 83 |
Experience well-being | 43 (39%) | 12 (14%) |
Bonding with others | 26 (24%) | 10 (12%) |
Experience thrill | 12 (11%) | 36 (43%) |
Displaying specialness | 10 (9%) | 12 (14%) |
Acting independently | 19 (9%) | 4 (5%) |
Protecting/being protected | 9 (8%) | 9 (11%) |
Overall, we can state that the prevailing wish for girls is to project themselves into a world of harmony, where the primary wish is to experience well-being and bonding with others. As for boys, the dominant wish is to experience thrill in a world of conflict and threat or a world of amusement. However, as is clear in the tables, a variety of alternatives to these dominant themes came out of the childrenâs stories.
Media Traces in Make-Belive Worlds
Childrenâs make-believe worlds have media traces of different and overlapping origins, as discussed in previous chapters. Our analysis identified gender-specific trends in relationship to specific media influence (see Table 6.3).
TABLE 6.3
Gendered Media Traces
Media Traces | Girls N = 110 | Boys N = 83 |
Media traces total | 61 (55.5%) | 61 (73.5%) |
Explicit media traces | 49 (80%) | 48 (79%) |
Implicit media traces | 12 (20%) | 13 (21%) |
No media traces | 49 (44.5%) | 22 (26.5%) |
As already mentioned, the pictures of the boys seemed to be more media-oriented at first sight. Many dinosaurs and PokĂ©mon and Digimon rule the make-believe worlds. The pictures of girls seemed to be less imprinted by media references. However, when we listen closely to the girlsâ stories, they themselves mention references to media that we may not have identified on the basis of the stories and pictures alone. Even when including these implicit traces, a closer look suggests that the presence of media traces in girlsâ make-believe worlds are quantitatively lower than those of boys. This holds true in all four countries. The first impression therefore does not deceive, however it is less powerful than it appears to be at first sight.
Boysâ fantasies have more media traces in nearly all the subcategories included in the quantitative breakdown (see Table 6.4). The widest difference shows up in relation to the incorporation of media-related characters.
Boysâ stories connect more closely with, and are more deeply saturated by, the original media content. It is not unusual for their stories to incorporate a combination of settings, characters, and stories. In contrast, girlsâ stories are more likely to abstract a single element from the original mediaâfor example, a specific object, costume, or piece of information. Twenty-six percent of boysâ stories incorporated all three categories (settings, characters, stories) in individual make-believe worlds. Only 2% of the girlsâ worlds included media traces from all three categories. Twenty-eight percent of the boys incorporated two out of the three categories, in comparison to 19% of the girls. Forty-eight percent of the boysâ stories included media traces in just one category, compared to 79% of the girlsâ stories. This helps explain why our first impression of boysâ make-believe worlds is so strikingly dominated by the media, much more than the gap really proves to be. These findings beg questions such as: Are visual images more salient for boys or easier for them to draw? Do visual images play a bigger role in their imaginations, in terms of visualizing their fantasies? And, as a result, does borrowing from the media serve as a visual task?
TABLE 6.4
Gendered Meida Traces Contents
GIRLSâ MAKE-BELIEVE WORLDS OF HARMONY
In more than half of the make-believe worlds (56%) girls represented themselves in their own pictures. It is striking, however, that this percentage differs from country to country. In Korea, more than 70% of the girls painted themselves, whereas in Israel, only about 30% did so. Despite our efforts, we were not able to provide any possible explanation for this difference.
Girls draw themselves with an obvious hairstyle, preferably braids or ponytails, across all countries. This is most striking in South Korea, where only one girl, Hyonâah (G, SK-5), refrained from doing so as she was about to meet Jesus in her make-believe world. Apparently, the hairstyle for girls is an iconic way to symbolize their femininity as a girl or a young woman. Because the secondary sexual characteristics are not yet formed in this age group, the signification of hair becomes a clear gender sign. Clothes figure in a similar manner. Somewhat fewer than half the girls who represent themselves in their drawings are pictured wearing a skirt or a dress in their make-believe world. In South Korea, this may be based on the everyday experience of the school uniform.
Beyond what is considered everyday female clothing, some chose to dress themselves in old-fashioned baroque dresses or gowns. Womenâs attire according to the girls in our study, is a form of gendered-self-representation, a way of marking themselves as feminine and expressing themselves as beautiful. Appearances, as we know, are closely related to presumptions about âessence.â The cultural connection between the construct of being a girl and a representation of the girl through the appearance code is highlighted through these choices (Tseelon, 1995). The centrality of physical appearance and attractiveness in the definition of femininity and the value of individual girls and women is nothing new in human societies. Our cultures strongly encourage girls to equate their physical appearance with their personal identity through the indoctrination of both traditional and mediated socializing agents in an everlasting quest for beautification. Through this highly commodified and commercialized process, girls are led to believe that they can achieve power, control, and their âultimateâ goal of heterosexual romance (Mazzarella, 1999; McRobbie, 1993; Peirce, 1990).
The analysis of the pictures of the make-believe worlds suggest that 8- to 10-year-old girls indeed define themselves to a large extent through appearance. However, surprisingly enough, they hardly ever refer to appearance or talk about it in the interviews. Paying close attention to appearance and drawing themselves in detail seem to be done unconsciously, inattentive to the meaning involved. The need to do so seems to go unnoticed by the girls, as a taken-for-granted, ânaturalâ way of things, typical of uncritical adherence to social norms.
In addition to expressing who they are through beauty, in several of the stories, the girls reveal that their perception of themselves takes into account othersâ perspectives on them. Sayaâs (G, GR-4) make-believe world, for example, is located in a âland of Indiansâ (Native Americans). According to the girl, the starting point for this is that in her own environment, she is often mistakenly perceived to be âIndian.â Because she has black hair (her parents are Vietnamese by ethnicity), she integrates this as a positive perspective on her own physical appearance. Reactions from others are incorporated here into the self-image in her make-believe world. In a different case, it is a personality trait that a girl uses to set herself apart. GĂŒler (G, GR-14), of Turkish descent, describes her make-believe world like this:
I always wanted to see the very hot Africa. Iâm interested in the animals there. I see a lion, a kangaroo, a bird and also a rabbit. And, of course, many plants and trees. The lion and the rabbit look at me and the bird and the kangaroo are talking about me. What sort of girl I am? It is very interesting for them to see nice people and not only those who want to hunt them âŠ. I have nearly all the jungle stories at home on tape and this is why Iâm so interested in Africa.
GĂŒler imagines how others talk about her. She portrays a moment that is experienced as pleasant because she is something special through being recognized by others as nice and not wanting to do harm. Tali (G, IS-6), expresses her desire for positive attention from others when she imagines herself appearing on stage with her favorite singer. Many spotlights are directed to the center of the stage and when she appears, the audience applauds her: âYou can see the stage and the spotlight and people say: âApplaud Tali H.!ââ Youngâson (G, SK-12), talks about her thoughts:
My thoughts tell me that I have to prepare everything thoroughly. But now I can hear what the clock tells me. It says: âYou have done a lot last week. You practiced the piano, read books, and slept. But best of all is that you have been good and donated something at church. You have shared your pocket money.â I reply to the clock âthank you very much.â In the future I also want to be good.
A case can be made for saying that these girls are internalizing other peopleâs ideas about what constitutes being a âgood girlâ and, for them, this is important enough to play a key role in imagining their ideal selves.
This desire for positive judgment and praise from the outside was also found in the research situation itself. Tanja (G, GR-53), for example, draws herself in a romantic setting in the dress of princess Sissi. During the process of drawing her picture, a dialogue between Tanja and her friends is overheard by the field researcher. She reported that Tanja explains that she has originally drawn a queen or princess, but now she doesnât know if she can mention that in the interview: âThey may think Iâm arrogant.â The friend responds: âThen just say it is only a court lady.â In the interview, Tanja takes the middle way out and says she is âa court lady or a princess or so.â Even during the painting process, Tanja anticipates the outside judgment of the interviewers themselves and includes it in her self-presentation. Although taking into account all the subtleties involved in such moments, it seems that for many of the girls in the study, presenting themselves and their body in their make-believe worlds is a satisfying experience. This study provides evidence that the young girls who participated in this research process have already integrated into their self-image an outside perspective on their appearance and personality. Through the imagined self, they seem to experience the power to act. However, as Christian-Smith (1990) reminded us, in this process the girl accepts âanotherâs version of reality as her own: how she should behave, think, and look. The ability to define reality for another is certainly one of the more important forms of social powerâ (p. 54).
Worlds of Harmoney, Care, and Relationships
In all four countries the greatest number of gir...