Sexism in Online Children’s Literature: The Tale of Jemima

Puddle-Duck by Beatrix Potter

Istiadah

and Annisa Rahmaniyah Afifah

Universitas Islam Negeri Maulana Malik Ibrahim Malang Jl. Gajayana 50 Malang 65145 Indonesia

Keywords:

Ambivalent Sexism, Benevolent Sexism; Online Children’s literature; Hostile Sexism.

Abstract: This study examines the portrayal of sexism in online children story by Beatrix Potter, The Tale of Jemima

Puddle-Duck. This story is chosen because it is written by a woman and it has female character but it is not

the heroine in the story. It applies Ambivalent Sexism theory by Peter Glick and Susan Fiske in order to find

what attitudes of ambivalent sexism portrayed in the story. It also uses additional tools to view sexism

retrieved from The Council on Interracial Books for Children. The result of this study shows that sexism

still occurs in children’s literature through the story lines, lifestyles, relationship between people, the hero,

and loaded words, strengthen with the illustration. This study also found ambivalent attitudes in the stories

where benevolent sexism is more dominant which identifies positive evaluations fit to protective

paternalism. Meanwhile, the strongest hostile sexism portrayed in the story is the domination of male

toward female or heterosexual hostility. It also highlights the traditional expectation that men are aggressive

and authoritative while women are submissive.

1 INTRODUCTION

Children’s literature is an effective way to

transmit values and attitudes toward readers. This

literary work is in the form of narrative which makes

the readers easier to interpret and to understand the

story. children’s literature which is considered as

picture books provide role models for children in

defining and shaping standards for feminine and

masculine, behavior, and attitudes toward women.

The problem is that gender stereotypes and

sexism have always been an issue in literature for

children. Most of the children’s literatures portray

male as the character who leads the story, while

female is passive. Moreover, authors or illustrators

often apply labels to characters based on their

stereotypes on sex.

Sexism involves the attitude which favors people

based on sex. In broader sense, sexism is part of the

practice of gender discrimination. A study claims

that children’s literature is inherently sexist because

the majority of heroes are male. As reported in the

guardian an analysis of 6,000 best-selling children’s

books published during the past century concludes

that male lead characters vastly outnumber female

ones. Overall, 31% of the best-sellers featured a

female lead character, compared to 57% featuring a

male.

This study examines The Tale of Jemima Puddle-

Duck written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter. She is

a famous English writer especially in children’s

literature. She has written and illustrated more than

20 children’s books starring Jemima Puddle-Duck,

Peter Rabbit, and Benjamin Bunny. The Tale of

Jemima Puddle-Duck tells about a female duck

called Jemima.

This study intends to explore the sexism inside

the story of The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck due to

the writer of it is a woman, which is Beatrix Potter.

It is interesting to find out how woman writers

depict sexism in their story, and how they express

their idea of sexism on it.

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Children’s literature and Sexism

Sexism has been defined as open antipathy toward

women Moreover, most of children’s literatures are

in the form of picture books. The picture books play

an important role in role in early sex-role

1832

Istiadah, . and Aﬁfah, A.

Sexism in Online Children’s Literature: The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck by Beatrix Potter.

DOI: 10.5220/0009936118321838

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Recent Innovations (ICRI 2018), pages 1832-1838

ISBN: 978-989-758-458-9

socialization because they are a vehicle for

presentation of societal values to young child.

Hence, children’s literature has influence in

developing children’s gender identities.

2.2 Ambivalent Sexism

This study applies ambivalent sexism theory by

Peter Glick and Susan Fiskey. The theory posits that

sexism has two sub-categories which are hostile

sexism (negative evaluations and stereotypes about a

sex, for example women are incompetent) and

benevolent sexism (positive evaluation of sex that

may appear, for example women should be

protected).

Benevolent sexism idealizes women as pure

creatures that ought to be protected, supported, and

whose love is necessary to make a man complete,

but it implies that women are weak and best suited

for conventional gender roles. Hostile sexism is a set

of negative beliefs and attitudes toward women

including that women are in competition with men.

In contrast, Benevolent Sexism is a seemingly

positive evaluation of women as more moral and

refined than men. Women are characterized as

“wonderful but weak” and need to be cared. The

stereotype of Benevolent Sexism focuses on the

“doting mother” and “devoted wife”. In other words,

benevolent sexism reflects the tendency to endorse

the traditional feminine ideal or to view women in

idealized, overly romantic terms or as delicate

creatures that require protection.

Benevolent sexism is sneaky and it can be hard

to identify. It has seemingly positive evaluations

imply that a) women are weak and need to be

protected, (b) women should not deviate from

traditional gender role as mothers and caretakers,

and (c) women should be idolized by men for their

sexual purity and availability. While, hostile sexism

is easier to detect and counter. It could be a harmful

comment or attitudes toward women.

Hostile and benevolent sexism are prevalent

across cultures, and cross cultural differences in

ambivalent sexism are predictable and systematic,

with both ideologies relating to national measures of

gender inequality. Moreover, underlying the

differences between cultures are important

consistencies in the structure and consequences of

sexist beliefs. Both Hostile and Benevolent sexism

are presumed to be “legitimizing ideologies” beliefs

that help to justify and maintain inequality between

groups. According to Barreto and the Ellemers to

protest when people give good sexism, they are

always not recognized as having a sexist view than

when exploring hostile sexism. This happens

because a good source of sexism is not in

accordance with the mental prototype of the sexist

and thus relatively good. Such a judgment procedure

occurs in the same way for men and women, and it

is relatively independent of affective reactions.

However, when looking at the emotional response

experienced by people, women feel more emotional

when facing HS than when facing BS, while men

experience the same emotional level in both

conditions experienced.

In the opinion of Glick and Fiske, two American

psychologists hypothesize that hostile and positive

sexism is the result of predictable structural relations

between men and women that are common to human

society: a) Men are given a higher state than women;

b) men and women are often rivaled based on social

roles and basic characteristics c) male-female

relations are always associated with sex, a biological

condition that arises and interdependence and sex

differences. The three patriarchal factors, gender

differentiation, and sexual reproduction together

produce mutual disagreements and positive attitudes

towards other sexes.

Hostile and reference attitudes refer to the same

three content domains: a) paternalism, including

both domination as well as protection and affection;

b) gender differentiation, which can assume

connotation of both competitive as well as

complementary gender differentiation; and c)

heterosexuality, comprehensive of the genuine

desire of intimate closeness, heterosexual intimacy,

and of the desire to dominate heterosexual hostility.

3 METHODS

The data source of this study is The Tale of Peter

Rabbit from the collection of tales by Beatrix Potter.

To find sexism in the story, this research employs

five aspects from ten quick ways to view sexism

retrieved from The Council on Interracial Books for

Children which are story lines, lifestyles,

relationship between people, the hero, and loaded

words. Besides, for the rest of five aspects,

illustrations, the effects on children’s self-image,

authors’ or illustrators’ background, authors’ and

illustrators’ perspective, and copyright date are

additional information to support the analysis and to

strengthen the result of the research.

To find ambivalent sexism, this study applies

the theory of Peter Glick and Susan Fiskey. The

theory posits that sexism has two sub-categories

Sexism in Online Children’s Literature: The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck by Beatrix Potter

1833

which are hostile sexism (negative evaluations and

stereotypes about sex).

4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

4.1 Story Line

In the story line we found that during the escaping,

Jemima met the fox which described as an elegant

gentleman, but obviously very crafty and fond of

duck-eggs. He tricks Jemima into making him a

most delicious omelette, but Jemima is naive and as

easily tricked. She was deceived by the elegant

gentleman who is actually a villain.

The man opened his eyes above his newspaper and

saw curiously at Jemima— "Madam, are you

stuck?" he said. He has a very long tail and he

occupies the tail, because the stump is rather

wet.

Jemima thinks she's someone who is very strong

and handsome ...

Jemima complains about very much chicken.

The fox was made sure to hide by saying:

"This is my summer residence; you won't find my

world –

my winter home - very comfortable," said the

friendly man.

The story continues:

He was so polite, that he seemed almost

sorry to let Jemima go home for the night. He

promised to take great care of her nest until

she came back again next day.

He said he loved eggs and ducklings; he

should be proud to see a fine nestful in his

wood-shed.

This may make the image of women as easily

tricked. Jemima show her stupidity again while she

met the collie dog. She immediately believes in the

person he has just met. “How a female can be that

naive?”

The collie-dog Kep met her coming out,

"What are you doing with those onions?

Where do you go every afternoon by yourself,

Jemima Puddle-duck?"

Jemima was rather in awe of the collie; she

told him the whole story.

Both sections above when Jemima met the fox

and when she met the collie dog seems to say that

male is smarter than female. Males are good at trick

while female are easily tricked.

Some provide clues to the differentiation

between male and female characteristics

when the dogs are attacked by foxes.

when there were very frightening voices -

barking, babbling, growling and howling,

squealing and complaining.

He had bite on his ear and both the puppies were

limping.

The moment of barking, baying, growls and

howls, groaning comes up with ideas that man is

aggresive. Besides, physically, the collie dog and

foxhound puppies are strong and brawny. The

illustration of them seems tell about “how the man

should be”. They emphasizes athletic competition

and traditional masculinity; male symbol of power

and authority.

The end of the story has bittersweet ending.

Jemima escapes from the fox with the help of some

dogs. These foxhound puppies are hungry and go for

food, as well and they end up eating Jemima’s eggs

before her eyes. She cries all the way back to the

farm. The story then cuts into the future where she

successfully hatches four ducklings, made slightly

sadder by the fact that it is only four, implying that

she laid more eggs but failed to hatch them because

she was a “bad sitter”.

4.2 Lifestyles

One crucial element in reproducing traditional

gender roles lies in visual representation of gender

and sex, with anthropomorpic animals is best

expressed though what the caracters wear. Unlike

the male Fox, Jemima is not fully-dressed. She only

wears shawl and poke bonnet. This is the visual

standard strengthens the coding of female bodies as

inherently sexual. Clothing on different character is

aligned with a sexually mature adult female which

being fully clothed but not for young bodies.

Women (even when they are anthropomorphic

animals) must covered up because their bodies

represent sexuality, while animal children are remain

naked because children are viewed by adults in our

society as non-sexual being.

The naked young bodies in picture books are

not without sexual significance [13]. Hence, Jemima

is not fully dressed because she is young female that

sexually attractive.

Waw is very amazing, a very interesting picture

in which the duckling with its mother.

One might see this story as a critique of

women’s reproductive rights because the story tells

about Jemima that cannot hatch her own eggs. On

the other hand, it also idolized the sexual purity of

female. The explanation have discussed in story

line’s analysis.

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4.3 Relationship between People

Overall, The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck shows

interaction between animal nature which are the

intrration of Jemima between hen, fox, dogs;

civilized behaviour when Jemima still try to hatch

her own eggs although she is a bad sitter;

relationship between individual and the social world.

The story is also involving power, importence,

and disguise of males as portrayed in farmer, the

fox, collie dogs, and puppies. Meanwhile, women

position themselves as if they were lower down the

food chain than men, to be identified with prey

rather than predator, with the sheep rather than the

shepherd. The notion of female as the self and

female as the other is both reflected and

strengthened by marking the feminine as “different”

is also reflected in the story.

4.4 The Hero

Authors or illustrators often apply labels to

characters based on their stereotypes. Furthermore,

tendency to assume that a person or animal is

stronger than female and used this coding in

portraying the characters of sexisms. In the

Jemima’s story, the hero is the dogs which are collie

dog and two foxhand puppies. They helped Jemima

to safe the eggs from the fox. However, at the end

the collie dog and foxhound puppies also eat

Jemima’s eggs beacuse of their hunger and desire.

Unfortunately the puppies rushed in and

gobbled up all the eggs before he could stop

them.

Jemima Puddle-duck was escorted home

in tears on account of those eggs.

The story end with bittersweet ending as

explained in story line’s analysis. Moreover it shows

that males alwyas portrayed as more physically

aggressive and competent, while females are

portrayed as more dependent and more likely to

express sadness.

4.5 Loaded Words

“Puddle Duck” is typically bird of fresh, shallow

marshes and rivers rather than of large lakes and

bays. They are good divers, but usually feed by

dabbling or tipping rather than submerging.

The word “puddle duck” has negative

connotation toward women. Puddle duck means a

female with exceedingly low standards. Primarily in

the class of drug addicts; or a girl who less

capabilities, they just take selfies and start drama.

This may not fit the context, but it may be a

reference for more in-depth analysis.

She flew beautifully when she had got a good start.

The word “beautifully” gives images that

females are assigned with beauty.

But—seated upon the stump, she was startled to find

an elegantly dressed gentleman reading a

newspaper.

He had black prick ears and sandy coloured

whiskers.

The gentleman raised his eyes above his newspaper

and looked curiously at Jemima— "Madam, have

you lost your way?" said he. He had a long bushy

tail which he was sitting upon, as the stump was

somewhat damp.

The lines above show positive portraits of a man

by giving good adjectives, such as “elegant”. The

way the author describes the fox also gives sense

that man is suitable in public sphere and proper to be

adored. Other lines also show that Jemima was so

spellbound with the fox.

Jemima thought him mighty civil and handsome....

Jemima complained of the superfluous hen.

"This is my summer residence; you would not find

my earth—my winter house—so convenient," said

the hospitable gentleman.

He had a noble character, that he seemed very

sorry by telling Jemima to go home for the night. He

promised to tidy up his nest until he returned again

the next day.

He really likes eggs and ducks; he must be

happy to see the nest.

... so I don't need to leave my cage until the eggs

hatch. They are cold, "said Jemima who knew about

it.

Jemima Puddle-duck is an uneducated person:

not even mentioning sage and onions makes him

suspicious.

From the sections above, there is a big different

in describing Jemima and the fox. The fox is

described with positve adjectives and in a good way,

such as “elegantly dressed gentleman” “polite”

“handsome” “a civil” “lovely”.

While Jemima is described as a “simpleton”

which means an ignorant, foolish, or silly person.

There is a horrible judgment of character of Jemima.

The narrator even pokes fun at her cluelessness at

all. At the end of this story, again, Jemima is called

as “she had always been a bad sitter.”

Jemima Puddle-duck said that it was because of her

nerves; but she had always been a bad sitter.

The five aspects above in Jemima’s story which

are story lines, lifestyles, relationship between

people, the hero, and loaded words also show the

Sexism in Online Children’s Literature: The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck by Beatrix Potter

1835

existence of sexism. The male characters depicted as

have important role, while female characters are

only submissive. The fact that sexit treatments still

occurs in children’s literature also portrayed through

the others aspects such as, illustrations, the effects

on children’s self-image, authors’ and illustrators’

perspective and background, and copyright date.

Those additional information above others five

aspects are supporting the result of five aspects

above that relates with the text inside the story.

This paper symbolized the fox’s intelligence

and his connection to the outside world, while

Jemima is limited to the domestic sphere.

The parts when the fox is attacked by the collie

dog and foxhound puppies also shown the

superiority of man

The illustration when the fox guides Jemima to

the shack also need to be examined. At the time, the

fox become the leader and Jemima just a follower

who simply believe him without suspicion when he

was a stranger whom she had just met

He became the road leader to a very old house and

there were no shadows between the gloves..

Here, Potter seems want to say that a male

has more potential to be a leader than a female and

visually link him to the role of leader. By visually

marking femininity more consistently or more

prominently than masculinity, numerous works

position women and girls as submissive,

marginalizing them and perpetuating male privilege.

The fact that this story is about Jemima and

she is the main character does not make good

impression to her. Jemima is described as a poor

duck that wants to hatch her own eggs but is easily

tricked by a sly fox.

The number of the characters between

females and males also have big different. From the

whole story, the illustrations portray more males’

character then females. There are 5 males and only 3

females with 2 minor characters. This kind of

portrayal may lead to the belief that males have

boarder and wider sphere and have more influential

than females.

4.6 The Effects on a Child’s Self-image

Children may use the gender scripts and ideologies

in the children’s book when forming an impression

of the generalized other. The messages conveyed

through representation of males and females in

books contribute to children’s ideas of what it means

to be a boy, girl, man, or woman.

A lead researcher Janice mcCabe of Florida

State university, called the trend inherently sexist

stated that “books contribute to how children

understand what is expected of women and men, and

shape the way children will think about their own

place in the world,” she said. “The persistent pattern

of disparity among animal characters may reveal a

subtle kind of symbolic annihilation of women

disguised through animal imagery.”

Children’s books are dominated by male central

characters, new research has found, with the gender

disparity sending children a message that “women

and girls occupy a less important role in society than

men or boys.”

4.7 Ambivalent Sexism

The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck portrayed

ambivalent sexism which Benevolent Sexism (BS) is

more dominant than Hostile Sexism (HS). The

strongest hostile sexism that is found in the stories is

about domination of male. Women are viewed as not

being fully competent adults and legitimizing the

need for a superordinate male figure. Just like

Dominative Paternalism, Competitive Gender

Differentiation presents a social justification for

male power and domination in the social life. This

justification leads a stereotype that only men are

perceived as having the traits necessary to govern

important social institutions. In Jemima’s story

sexism is obvious in through the illustrations. The

fox was illustrated reading newspaper which show

the intelligence, while Jemima just a bad sitter not

even hatch her own eggs.

Moreover HS has notion that men sexual

attraction toward women may be inseparable from a

desire to dominate them Heterosexual Hostility.

These notion portraits in the fox character in The

Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck. The fox has desire to

prey Jemima and her eggs. With his ingenuity he

cheats and tricks Jemima who is described as a duck

who is stupid and easily deceived. The power and

domination of men also portrayed when the dogs

who helped Jemima to protect her eggs from fox

ironically eat the eggs.

Unfortunately the puppies rushed in and

gobbled up all the eggs before he could stop

them.

Jemima Puddle-duck was escorted home in

tears on account of those eggs.

In the other side, there are 8 times tendency

of benevolent sexism in the stories through the

illustration, story line, lifestyle, and the hero. In case

of benevolent sexism, there is Protective

paternalism which dictates that women should be

protected as portrayed when the collie dog and two

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fox hand puppies lead as the hero for Jemima, they

acted as protectors for Jemima and save the eggs

from the crafty fox.

Complementary gender differentiation allows

women to compensate for their lower social status

by ascribing positive traits to women in domains that

do not challenge male authority, such as viewing

women as being morally superior or having a more

sophisticated sense of culture. These categories of

benevolent sexism showed in Jemima’s story.

Although the author seems to limit the sphere of

females characters, she gives good image of woman

that woman is romantic, care, and full of grace. The

story seems to tell that women can be independent

without men. In Jemima’s story, the complementary

gender differentiation was depicted in Jemima

struggle in hatching her own eggs whereas she is a

bad sitter.

"I wish to hatch my own eggs; I will hatch

them all by myself," quacked Jemima Puddle-

duck.

The last is Heterosexual intimacy, likewise

Jemima’s story that showed appreciation of

women’s sexual purity and productivity. Although in

many stories the female character only acts as

passive and less action, the female characters are

still needed, means that male is incomplete without

female and female is the complimentary of male.

However, sometimes there is a misperception

of the relationship between HS and BS. This

misperception also poses implications for women’s

everyday lives. For example, women are more likely

to accept being controlled by male if the restrictions

are imposed in a protective paternalistic tone.

Moreover, identifying ambivalent sexism could be

interpreted differently depending on the target’s

gender.

Unlike hostile sexism, benevolent sexism is

often not seen as problematic due to its subjectively

positive content. However, Yeung stated that HS and

BS are the carrot and stick that confine women to

play traditional gender roles. Indeed, several

researches have well-established that HS and BS are

complementary forms of sexism.

5 CONCLUSION

This study shows that sexism still occurs in Beatrix

Potter’s The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck despite its

writer which is woman writer. This study reveals

that the children’s books portray a stereotype which

promotes the notion of traditional feminine ideal

which leads into some sexist treatments. The study

also shows the existence of ambivalent sexism

attitudes in the stories which focus on the attitudes

toward women with the domination of benevolent

sexism. The strongest hostile sexism portrayed in the

story is the dominative of male toward female. The

portrayal of males’ desires in order to dominate and

control females fit of heterosexual hostility. In

relation to dominative paternalism and competitive

gender differentiation, the story presents a social

justification for males’ higher position and power. It

also highlights the traditional expectation that men

are aggressive and authoritative while women are

submissive.

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