| Children are bombarded daily by gender-related messages that contribute to establish their life-long gender rules. Picture books are loaded with overt and covert gender messages. Gender bias in children's picture books, social learning theory, and gender-dependent language provide the structure for this quantitative content analysis of 108 picture books culled from Publisher's Weekly's 2001 list of the best-selling books of all-time. In this sample, male characters spoke 25,567 or 83% (M = 236.73, SD = 354.27) of the words while female characters spoke 5,132 or 17% (M = 47.52, SD = 78.19) words, a ratio of approximately 5:1. A Wilcoxon signed ranks test indicated significance (Z = -5.68, p = <.001, r = .55). Males account for 4,732 or 64% (M = 43.81, SD = 32.79) of the illustrations while females 2,617 or 36% ( M = 24.23, SD = 45.05), a ratio of almost 2:1; significant results were also obtained for this comparison (Z = -6.06, p = <.001, r = .55). A single sample t-test indicated the gap in these ratios was significant [ t (99,107) = 6.34, 7.79, p = <.001, d = .62]. These scores did not significantly change based on the year of original publication or book length. No gender-based difference in the sophistication of language as measured by Flesch Reading Ease scores was found, t(50) = 1.19, p = .24. These results echo previous studies finding males appear more in illustrations but the words attributed to male and female characters is a previously unstudied variable. These books may teach children that the use of language is determined by gender, providing girls with models who are seen but not heard and prepare boys to expect this silence while providing few models of quiet, contemplative males. Recommendations include expanding the use of words-spoken as a variable for future research of books written by individual authors and those excluded from the current study, books intended for older children and adults, books popular for brief periods and empirical research to determine what impact these gender-based inequities may have on the children and adults who read them. |
