The study published this Thursday by the journal Psychological Science showed, after an analysis of more than 200 storybooks, that passive verbs were used more frequently to describe actions of female characters.
Likewise, the research proved that works with female protagonists were more likely to have sexist language.
Some of the stereotypes that have been studied in the social psychology literature are present in these books, such as that girls are good at reading and boys are good at math, said study lead author Molly Lewis.
According to the investigation, girls are more likely than boys to read books with female protagonists and boys are often subjected to gender prejudice, something that reinforces the more traditional roles, according to the researcher.
“There is often a kind of learning cycle, in which infants acquire stereotypes at an early age and then perpetuate them as they get older,” Lewis said.
These books can be a vehicle for communicating information about gender. Perhaps we should pay some attention to what those messages can be and if they are the ones we want to transmit to minors at home, he added.
The researchers also did a comparative analysis between children’s books and those of adult fiction, and found that the former exhibited much more gender stereotypes than the latter.
They further revealed that female characters are often associated with family, language, and the arts, and male characters with college careers, sports, and mathematics.
According to Lewis, the study did not directly examine how children perceive messages in children’s literature or how those books influence the way they perceive gender.
The researchers also did not evaluate other sources of stereotypes that children are exposed to.
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