Reconfiguring Masculinity In Australian Children's Literature:1950-2000

Masculinity exists only within gender.The primary functioning of masculinity within gender relations concerns ratios of power—the power of men as a class in relation to women,and power differentials between dominant and subordinate groups of men.Children's literature is of significant cultural importance in reaffirming or challenging cultural ideologies,including those of gender and masculinity since any successful challenge to the polarized construction of masculinity and femininity need to begin in infancy and to be sustained throughout childhood.Although dominant constructions of masculinity are indeed attempts to fix gendered identity,masculinity never represents a stable formation.It changes with social and cultural practices.As a result,among the multiple masculine discourses present within a culture at a particular point of time,there are differences and tensions between hegemonic and subordinate masculinities,oppositions between hegemonic masculinities available for men and boys to adopt,including macho,sensitive,straight,gay,and New Age,to name a few.Only one of these configurations can occupy the hegemonic space.This thesis tries to identify the dominant hegemonic masculinities in different times and how they are represented in Australian Children's literature.Therefore,an attempt to have a diachronic analysis of masculinity in Australian children's fictions could map the shifting paradigms of gendered relations in Australian Children's literature.In Chapter One,firstly ? briefly introduce children's literature and the difficulty of defining it and then analyze the current situation of the study concerning masculinity and gender.In Chapter Two,men,masculinity,and gender theory are explained in detail in order to have a better understanding of the term "hegemonic masculinity".This particular form of masculinity embodies the most honored way of being a man and it is reflected in children's literature.Chapter Three,Four and Five are the main parts of this thesis,which elaborately analyze the particular forms of "hegemonic masculinity" represented in different times.In Chapter Three,? argue that patriarchy is still the hegemonic masculinity in the 1950s and it is perfectly embodied in the children's novel Good Luck to the Rider.In Chapter Four,I demonstrate that novels in the 1980s reflect a very conspicuous change in that relationships are based on mutuality and reciprocity rather than on hierarchical powers,of which All We Know is one of the perfect examples.In Chapter Five,through the analysis of Bruno and the Crumhorn in the 1990s,I present the readers all kinds of masculinities reflected in the novel.Not only hegemonic masculinity is described but the marginalized masculinities are addressed to provoke readers to rethink the concept of masculinity and gender problems.In the last chapter I will make a summary of the thesis and vision what a new version of masculinity may look like.