Ali and the Spider: Symbolic Annihilation of Females in Muslim Children’s Books

• In Event: 1580 - Section on Sociology of Religion Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 02. Intersectional Identities and Islam: Race, Gender, and Nationality

Abstract

Children’s books are indispensable cultural products to families thanks to their socialization and storytelling power. Gender representation in cultural products also matters because as in the words of Geena Davis “if they can’t see it, they can’t be it” (Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media 2017). Scholars have studied the representation of gender in children’s books to find out the reflection of the dominant societal values. Gender representation is one of the areas where such reflection takes place. Many studies dealing with the gender representation in children’s books focus largely on secular storylines, with little or no consideration of religious themes. No study strictly deals with gender representation in religious children’s books even though books with a religious content are powerful tools for the socialization of children into a religion. This paper augments previous studies by investigating the differences in the representation of gender in Muslim children’s books written for the English-speaking audience. Drawing from Tuchman’s symbolic annihilation approach (1978), this paper reveals that females are not represented as much as males in the title, on the cover, and as part of central characters, continuing the previous tradition in gender representation within the cultural products. Female authors, as expected, are more likely to put a female in the title, on the cover, and as main characters, but non-Muslim authors, surprisingly, utilize fewer female characters compared to Muslim authors. The possible explanation of their preference could be related to playing into stereotypes or perceiving headscarf as an identity marker rather than an element of religion obligation. The limitations and the future directions of the study are also discussed.

Author

• Kemal Budak, Emory University